gregs@meaddata.com (Greg Smith) (12/13/90)
Original post was :
Does anyone have direct experience with a removable
cartridge winchester type drive. I know SyQuest and
SysGen make drives with specs such as:
44 MB capacity
20 something ms access time
Street price for the drive is around $800
and I think cartridges are like $90
I'm looking for some sort of unlimited storage
with hard disk performance. I don't want to get
another bigger fixed disk. It would be nice to be
able to back up my 68 MB disk to this new system.
I have considered a WORM drive or read/write
CD/Eletro-Optical type drive but I have no
specs or costs for these type systems.
I hope to use my hard disk for data storage and
place application code on some sort of expandable media.
Anybody heard more about this "Optical Paper" stuff that
Iomega is working on. I used a bernoulli (sp?) drive once
and it was nice ... but a little too slow for the main drive
on a 386 system.
Please send me any recommendations/spec
and I'll post a summary
Thanks,
Greg
HERE ARE THE RESPONSES
Greg,
I have been using a product that converts a 3.5" fixed hard disk into
a removeable unit. It costs about $80 dollars and works great. They
have both ST 506 and SCSI versions.
Part of the kit goes around the drive and carries the edge connectors
to a connector on the end. The other part fits into a 5.25" half height
disk bay. There is a key lock that also powers the drive on and off,
so you can remove it with out powering down your computer.
This kit is particularly usefull for Unix/Xenix PC users since a normal
ST 506 driver works with this combination. We have used it for both
Xenix and DOS. I should point out that there is no Unix or Xenix driver
for 44Meg Bernoulli drives.
Anyway, the product is called Mobile Rack. If you can't find it
anywhere, call Doan Computer System at (619) 566-7779. (I don't work
for them, honest!)
FYI
Ken Seymour
seymour@astech.ast.saic.com
If you get any information on mass storage devices I'd appreciate the info.
I'm looking for large storage of maybe 100MB + for a cartridge. SyQuest is
nice, but 44MB and you gotta pay $75 for each of these cartridges? Thats
almost $2 a meg.. too much for my purposes. I would like to be able to
download programs and store them away without the high cost of floppies (not
to mention the pain in finding the file again) and also to save money on
storage costs. This goes for commercial software too.. would be nice to have
it all in one place. (Although I could use my hard drive.. its only 80 meg
and would get filled really fast) I did purchase a 212 meg WORM drive. It
was a pain to get working and didnt even work with dos 4.01 (had to get a
copy of 3.3 which added even more to the cost) and when i got it all set
I found out it only was 100 megs per side! The company obviously
discontinued the model (but they said you can still find cartridges for it..)
But in the end, it wasn't worth the hassle so I returned it for a refund.
The drive cost around $800. Would have been a great price if it was 212 megs
per side and not such a hassle to use.
I have tried to contact a few local dealers about a 120 meg SyQuest drive
but they can't seem to get any information. Do you know if one exists?
I went to a local shop that was going to order one for me, but they said they
would call me as soon as the distributor called them... the distributor
never called...!
Been waiting months for some _real_ mass storage device to appear in the
market. Right now, if you want a good high storage drive, its going to cost
you around $3K (and they are large 1.2 gig'ers, although you can probably
find some 400-500 WORMs for $1.5-2K, but if your going to spend that much,
get the larger 1.2 gig drives which are optical eraseable).
The 20 meg floptical drives should be hitting some local stores soon.
Resellers can get them for around $350, so i'll assume you can find them for
about $500 soon. They use something similar to the 3.5" floppies and cost
around $10 each. (Price per meg is much cheaper than a SyQuest.. but it isnt
really much of mass storage...)
If you have any other drives or do purchase something that sounds like
something I may be interested in, i'd be interested in hearing about it.
duel@cup.portal.com
My home box is an ALR BusinessVEISA with the Sysgen MAXI RD45
(external) as the boot drive. It works well for me.
---
"It is a question of cubic capacity; a man with so large a brain must have
something inside it."--Sherlock Holmes, _The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle_
Christian Carey (size 8 hat (USA)) uunet!cucstud!xcarey
I have a SyQuest drive and like it. I use it only to back up my hard disk.
Try Hard Drives International in Tempe, AZ. I bought my internal Syquest w/o
a controller for $400 new. The cartridges were $75 each. Good luck
---
Jim Chandler
asuvax!xroads!beagle!chandler
chandler@beagle.uucp
From: uunet!motcid!void!reichert (Charles H. Reichert)
I don't know about SyQuest, but the Sysgens were nothing but trouble. The main
problem with them is the spindle wears with repeated use...therefore it will
finally loose the ability to read any data...Crash! The Sysgens maybe OK for
backup purposes, but not as a HD. Many engineers discovered this too
late where
I used to work. If the SyQuest system is similar I'd be leery of them too!
Chuck Reichert KD9JQ
708-632-6669 Work
From: tom@bears.ucsb.edu (Tom Weinstein)
There are a number of vendors with 128MB 3.5 inch magneto-optical
drives. The specs I've seen for these all advertise 28 msec average
seek times. I believe Pinnacle was one of these.
--
He is Bob...eager for fun. | Tom Weinstein tom@bears.ucsb.edu
He wears a smile... Everybody run! | tweinst@polyslo.calpoly.edu
From: ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG)
Actually, Syquest cost about $500 for the base unit, $80 for each 44Mb
cartridge, 25ms access time. Price from Hard Drive International (see
Computer Shoppers magazine). I have been using it as a REGULAR hard drive
for the past few months and has no problem. Can't wait to get more
cartridges...
Hope this helps all interested parites
Greg