sno@ais.org (Stephen Opal) (03/27/91)
After mucho problems with reselection and concurrent disk drive lockups with my BRAND NEW 6.1 v A2091 controller, my Commodore Amiga Dealer has advised that I would likely find the Supra Wordsync SCSI controller more suitable to my needs. The path to that decision was a long and winding road and has caused my Dealer to reconsider it's reliance on Commodore Amiga Technical Support for important information. The main reason for my Dealer's suggestion on the change is based mostly on Supra's satisfaction guarantee and direct credit on return. Mother Commodore only gives "parts credit" on returned equipment, regardless of the reason. With this in mind, my Dealer suggested I poll Usenet users and find out your opinions on this particular controller. As a Supra Wordsync owner: Have you been satisfied with your purchase? What problems have you had setting up your controller? Are you using multiple HD's on your system and are they all using the Supra? What drives have you had connected, and were there any difficulties? Do you have any Diskperf results that would make you reconsider your purchase? Any general comments on business with Supra in general? As a final note, my Dealer has had quite a bit of difficulty with GVP products. They have found themselves shipping back 2-3 units before getting one that works as advertised. This is across the GVP line, not just controllers. For this reason, they will *NOT* sell me a GVP unless I *INSIST* that I must have a product they produce. This is not *my* flame, but my Dealer's. Therefore, I do not wish to hear *YOUR* flames about this policy, and I will not forward your comments to them. I am only explaining that the GVP product is not available to me and so is not considered an option. Stephen N. Opal sno@ais.org rjf001!sno-1!sno -- Stephen N. Opal sno@ais.org rjf001!sno-1!sno
markv@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (03/27/91)
In article <1R5-VWF@irie.ais.org>, sno@ais.org (Stephen Opal) writes: > After mucho problems with reselection and concurrent disk drive lockups with > my BRAND NEW 6.1 v A2091 controller, my Commodore Amiga Dealer has advised > that I would likely find the Supra Wordsync SCSI controller more suitable > to my needs. The path to that decision was a long and winding road and has > caused my Dealer to reconsider it's reliance on Commodore Amiga Technical > Support for important information. > > The main reason for my Dealer's suggestion on the change is based mostly on > Supra's satisfaction guarantee and direct credit on return. Mother Commodore > only gives "parts credit" on returned equipment, regardless of the reason. > > With this in mind, my Dealer suggested I poll Usenet users and find out > your opinions on this particular controller. > > As a Supra Wordsync owner: > > Have you been satisfied with your purchase? Yes, the hardcard setup is quite rugged. Not being able to put RAM on board is a bit of a disadvantage, but I bought an RAM WORKS 2000 and have been happy with it (can expand in 512K increments by automatically posing as up to three autoconfig nodes, which helps both for cheap upgrades, and fitting around things like the bridgeboard, also uses DIPs which simplifies chip replacement). > What problems have you had setting up your controller? Not much. I have two HDs and had to fabricate my own ribbon cable. Theirs is only about 3" to the drive on the card. There is a second ribbon cable that goes to the external 25 pin port, which gets in the way of running a ribbon cable from the controller to the bays on the 2000. The order of logical arrangment normally is: External Port <--> Interface <-->Internal Drive Which solves possilble termination problems and avoids "tails". > Are you using multiple HD's on your system and are they all using the Supra? > What drives have you had connected, and were there any difficulties? I have two internal drives, ad Quantum 40Q, and an old Miniscribe 8425s connected like this: Internal Card Drive <--> Interface <--> Internal Drive Bay The two drives are terminated and the interface isn't (correct in this case). I've left the external cable unconnected for now because it wasn't long enough to route around my new cables, and I haven't opened the machine since I got some more ribbon cable. Note that adding the external port back shouldn't be a problem, since the cable from the interface to the hard card drive is only about 2-3", well within the practical "tail limits" of SCSI (and much shorter than most external devices with pass-thru). The interface does have a removable resistor pack which can be used to terminate the interface (which needs to be done if there are no internal drives). A little known trick with SCSI is that if a drive powers its own resistors (and most do), you can terminate *every* drive, which can often make non-working systems work. (I did this a lot with Apple stuff when I was a tech, and it usually worked, not bad considering how much Apple's stuff abuses the SCSI spec). >Do you have any Diskperf results that would make you reconsider your purchase? I got results of about 450K p/sec write and about 720K p/sec read on an empty partition on the Quantum. Note that the read results hold above 500K on any buffer size over 512 bytes (probably due mostly to the Q's 64K cache). The Miniscribes results were much slower and similar to results I've gotten with that drive hooked to other machines, but actually that is good since it suggests that the controller at least maxing out the drive's performance (the Miniscribe is an old drive with only 65ms access). > Any general comments on business with Supra in general? I actually havn't dealt with the company directly, but bought the machine used. The hard-card survived a 700mi UPS trip in the machine without problems, and the software works well. One complaint is that their formatting/partitioning program only works in whole MB sizes and will leave the last few cyls unsued unless you manually enter the true value. Their drives use a custom mount command that will mount all partitions on all drives at once, but they can write out a functional mount list that will work with MOUNT, which is important for 2.0. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mark Gooderum Only... \ Good Cheer !!! Academic Computing Services /// \___________________________ University of Kansas /// /| __ _ Bix: mgooderum \\\ /// /__| |\/| | | _ /_\ makes it Bitnet: MARKV@UKANVAX \/\/ / | | | | |__| / \ possible... Internet: markv@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~