dcw@lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) (12/19/90)
In article <11776@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> mcgovern@handel.cs.colostate.edu (michael sea mcgovern) writes: >I am going to be buying a hard drive for my IIgs, and was hoping that >someone who knows about this stuff could give me some advice. Buy a SCSI controller for your //. The RAMFast is probably the best/fastest thing out there right now. Now pick up any Mac rag (MacWEEK is a good one) and flip to the back. There you will find ungodly low prices on SCSI drives. A Quantum 80mb is $450 (or lower!). This is what I did. Anyone who tells you that the Mac SCSI drive won't work on your // is full of it. The interfaces are identical. Most drives come pre-formatted, but the utils that come with the SCSI card should be able to reformat if you need to. -- Dave Whitney Computer Science MIT 1990 | I wrote Z-Link and BinSCII. Send me bug dcw@lcs.mit.edu | reports. I need a job. Send me an offer. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" --Binky (aka Matt Groening)
rankins@argentina (raymond r rankins) (12/19/90)
In article <11776@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, mcgovern@handel (michael sea mcgovern) writes: >I am going to be buying a hard drive for my IIgs, and was hoping that >someone who knows about this stuff could give me some advice. I am >looking at a 40 meg Q-drive, with a RamFast SCSI for about $700. I >have heard that hard drives that are advertised and formatted for the >Mac are much cheaper. If I went this route, the RamFast would cost >about $169, and the disk "Chinook SCSI Tools" would be about $30(I >assume I need this disk to do the low level format, or could that be done >with the RamFast utilities?). Would the Mac drive still be cheaper with >$200 overhead? If so, is there any reason that I shouldn't buy one? >I am not a novice, but am certainly not an expert either. I wouldn't >mind paying for the ready-to-go II drive, but if it not too difficult, I would >like to save some money, and possibly get a larger Mac drive (something like >60 megs, which I can't justify at the II prices). Any insight into this >matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Let's see. Quickly looking through a recent MacWorld, I see external Quantum 100MB drives for about $599. Add a RamFast ($169) or a Apple High Speed SCSI ($109) and you are looking at $708 - $768 for more than double the storage of the 40 MB Q-Drive. You don't need the Chinook SCSI tools as the interleave on the Quantum drive can't be changed anyway - The Quantum ProDrives have a built in 32k cache on the drive controller and they are plenty fast (15-20 seconds to boot to the finder with an Apple Rev C SCSI card!) - the interleave is optimized for the caching. All you need to do is partition and format the drive with the IIGS Advanced Disk Utilities. A Quantum 40 MB drive would cost you about $200 less than a 100 MB system. Ray Ray Rankins |(518) 387-7174 | INTERNET: rankins@argentina.crd.ge.com 2 Moonglow Rd. |(518) 583-3320 | COMPUSERVE: 71131,3236 Gansevoort, NY 12831 | | AmericaOnline: RayRankins <insert standard disclaimer here> | GEnie: R.Rankins
lucifer@world.std.com (Kevin S Green) (12/20/90)
In article <11776@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> mcgovern@handel.cs.colostate.edu (michael sea mcgovern) writes: >I am going to be buying a hard drive for my IIgs, and was hoping that >someone who knows about this stuff could give me some advice. I am >looking at a 40 meg Q-drive, with a RamFast SCSI for about $700. I >have heard that hard drives that are advertised and formatted for the >Mac are much cheaper. If I went this route, the RamFast would cost >about $169, and the disk "Chinook SCSI Tools" would be about $30(I >assume I need this disk to do the low level format, or could that be done >with the RamFast utilities?). Would the Mac drive still be cheaper with >$200 overhead? If so, is there any reason that I shouldn't buy one? >I am not a novice, but am certainly not an expert either. I wouldn't >mind paying for the ready-to-go II drive, but if it not too difficult, I would >like to save some money, and possibly get a larger Mac drive (something like >60 megs, which I can't justify at the II prices). Any insight into this >matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. > At the risk of incurring the wrath of The Unknown User ;-) (big smile): I suggest you purchase the "Mac drive", and get the most Megs you can afford because the price-per-meg goes down the more diskspace you buy. I own a Micronet MP100 3.5" portable 100meg drive that I got at a MacWorld for around $900. The Apple DMA card cost another $100 and came with formatting utilities. I've only filled about 1/3 of each of the first 3 partitions and none of the 4th so I have room to grow. One of the neat things about the Micronet MP series is that they don't have a separate power cord. You plug the SCSI cable to the SCSI port, and a 3.5" diskdrive connector to your Smartport. Then you daisychain your other drives off of the harddrive. Pretty nifty. Not to mention the fact that the MP series is only _slightly_ bigger than the 3.5" diskdrive, make space considerations easier to deal with. -- Kevin S. Green / lucifer@world.std.com / {xylogics;uunet}!world!lucifer Party naked... /AOL: Gargoth / BIX: Keving / Pro-line: kgreen@pro-angmar
THROOP@GRIN1.BITNET ("Throop,Henry B") (12/20/90)
[Kevin S. Green writes about Micronet MP series had drive] I was also looking at one of these drives awhile ago. However, one of the reasons I stayed away was that, according to MacUser's hard drive ratings, which were in the Feb (?) 90 issue, which I don't have for reference here, the Micronet MP was by far the slowest of all the drives tested. Benchmarks don't always play a direct relationship upon actual speed, but often there is. It is also possible that there was simply an error in the speed ratings. The MP was _far_ slower than anything else, by at least a factor of 2. Nonetheless, I agree with you that its size and lack of a power cord would make it very convenient. Henry -- Henry Throop THROOP@GRIN1.BITNET throoph@jacobs.cs.orst.edu
EWINGRA@CTRVX1.VANDERBILT.EDU (12/20/90)
Even though MicroNet's MP series isn't the fastest in the world, I would still consider them as a company to stick with when purchasing a hard drive. Charles McConathy, MicroNet's president and founder is an excellent authority on hard drive technology and definetely knows what he's talking about. His company primarily concentrates in large hard drive technology which might explain the mediocre numbers in the smaller ranks. They sell more of the biggees than the smallees. BTW, I just took delivery today of a MicroNet 660 meg drive, and I couldn't be happier with it. Consider me a very satisfied customer. --Rick Ewing Hard Drive Nirvana