bobkil@ibmpcug.co.uk (Bob Kilgore) (03/12/91)
Hello;
I have just been allowed to 'play' with a new box that
is about to hit the market here and wondered if anyone has
some comments about similar units.
The box is a 200 Mega Byte disk that is interfaced via
the PC's parallel printer port. It arrived with a diskette
that has a driver program and a short note that said load
the driver with config.sys. I am always a bit taken back by
things that don't have proper documentation and concerned
about damage to the system. Since I had just taken a back
up of my disks, I thought 'what the heck'.
My system is a Wyse 2200 AT clone, with a tosh. 44 meg
and Seagate 42 meg. disks, and tape drive. The disk
configuration is C:= D0 at 32M, D:= D1 at 32M, E:= D0 at 12M
and F:= D1 at 10M. To my astonishment, I loaded that driver
as requested, and gained drives G:, H:, I:, J:, and K:.
Everything worked as advertised.
I proceeded to move disk images to the 'Porta-File' and
to my not to well calibrated eye it seemed to work about as
fast as the internal disks. I attempted to use several disk
bench mark programs I have and was not successful, I assume
the reason is that the only access is through the driver and
the programs attempt direct read/write.
These things are a bit pricey at the moment, however they
are more universal than the Tandon style of removable hard
disk. I should imagine a good market for people that want
to demonstrate software packages like AutoCad to potential
customers. Carry in the demo disk, plug it in, load driver,
and demonstrate. When you leave the site you take
everything with you.
Any other Experience??
Best Regards from Merry England!!
BOB
bobkil@ibmpcug.co.uk
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