bill@hao.ucar.edu (Bill Roberts) (09/29/90)
First a (presumably) basic question. I'm currently running a Mac+ with a DataFrame 20 HD. I'd like to get more disk space (who wouldn't? ;-)) and am looking around. My question is: Can I use any SCSI drive and chain it to my DataFrame20 or must it be a DataFrame? And if I can chain another vendors drive, which vendor offers the best deal (price/reliability/etc.)? Thanks in advance for any info. --Bill
jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) (10/02/90)
In article <8643@ncar.ucar.edu> bill@hao.ucar.edu (Bill Roberts) writes: >First a (presumably) basic question. I'm currently running a Mac+ with a >DataFrame 20 HD. I'd like to get more disk space (who wouldn't? ;-)) and >am looking around. My question is: Can I use any SCSI drive and chain it >to my DataFrame20 or must it be a DataFrame? And if I can chain another >vendors drive, which vendor offers the best deal (price/reliability/etc.)? >Thanks in advance for any info. > >--Bill You can certainly add any Mac SCSI hard disk to your SCSI chain, with certain care setting up termination. You will have to insure that only the drive on the end of the chain is terminated. Some of your df locked utilities may not work. I'm not sure whether Diskfit will back up any disk or only Supermac disks, or if it will work if a df disk is on the chain, or if it is run from a df boot disk. Call their support number and find out. Those are the only problems: 1. Termination/Cabling issues. 2. Dataframe locked utilities. As to price/reliability/etc. My inclinations are: 1. Supermac XP-series * Price: So-So, you get what you pay for. * Reliability: excellent * Customer Support: excellent * Speed: very good, used to be the top, I hear others are faster now, but lots are slower. 2. Buy a generic embedded SCSI drive, a case/power supply and Silverlining formatting software. * Silverlining: $95 at Computerware last I looked. * Case/Power Supply: About $80 * Cables/Terminators: About $50 Gee, $225 spent without the disk drive! There's a crossover point where this is the best route. At 300 Meg you definitely win, at 20 Meg you definitely lose. You also lose because you have to defend on three vendors for warranty and customer support. I can deal with the problems involved with choice 2. When I go to get my next drive it will probably be considered strongly depending on the size of the drive I get. You may not be able to. Nothing wrong with that, my job involves this sort of thing daily. Find a techy friend. Join a user group. There are lots of disk drive vendors out there. I think you should pick one on merits like stability, customer support, and such, not on fast or cheap. Don't rely on the glossy mags, either. One of them came out with a disk drive review placing Jasmine at the top of the heap, *after* all the complaints started surfacing about their problems. jim -- Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com +1.408.991.6115 Silvar-Lisco, Inc. 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086