marty@atmos.ogi.edu (Marty Shearer) (01/18/91)
I am scouting for any information that any one give me on sources and (hopefully!) personal experience in using an erasable optical drive with a pc. Specifically a 486/25 mhz Compaq Deskpro. Has any one out there installed and/or used one? We specifically are interested in storing large, infrequently used databases that have to be altered at rare intervals and kept until the world ends. Thanks - Marty
loc@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Leigh Clayton) (01/22/91)
In response to the query from marty@atmos.ogi.edu (Marty Shearer) I use a Sony MO erasable disk with a 25MHz Intel PC (302). It is a SCSI device, and I use the Adaptec SCSI controller. I have a 330Meg Priam SCSI hard drive in the machine, as well as an Archive SCSI tape drive. I normally use that PC for Unix, but I do still use one of the cartridges for a DOS system occasionally (and for a while used it that way full time). The MO disk would be my first choice (if I could afford it) if I were setting up a system such as you describe .. although I think now I'd look into one of the new multi-mode drives to get WORM support. I have (or have had at various times) a CD-Rom drive, Quadram 3270 card, Etherlink-II ethernet adapter, Computone serial driver card, and various video cards plugged into the PC. While I have had various troubles with 386ix support for dismountable disks, and some of the other cards have required screwing around with this and that to get them to work, I have never seen any problem caused by either the Adaptec controller or the Sony drive. I recommend the combination unhesitatingly. As far as I know if you are running DOS you will never see a problem. The problems with 386ix can be managed (basically ... never dismount a disk without doing a reboot) but I was told by ISC that some future version of the HPDD will actually support dismountable hard disks properly. I hope this helps .../Leigh ----------------------------------------------------------- - VPIX SUX /Me - ----------------------------------------------------------- loc@tmsoft.UUCP uunet!mnetor!tmsoft!loc loc@ipsa.reuter.COM (Leigh Clayton)