[comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware] Removable mass storage devices

gregs@meaddata.com (Greg Smith) (11/30/90)

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

tom@bears.ucsb.edu (Tom Weinstein) (11/30/90)

In article <2061@meaddata.meaddata.com>, gregs@meaddata.com (Greg Smith) writes:
> 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.

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

ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (11/30/90)

From article <2061@meaddata.meaddata.com>, by gregs@meaddata.com (Greg Smith):
> 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

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...

ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (11/30/90)

From article <7516@hub.ucsb.edu>, by 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.

Does anybody know if magneto-optical drives are meant to be used like a
regular hard drive -- spinning all the time reading writing, writing reading,
hours, days, weeks, months, years...
I read articles about 20Mb FLOPPY drives.  The only problem I see is that
the disk surface might not be able to take the daily use like a hard drive.
Any comments?

E. Teng Ong (ong@d.cs.okstate.edu)
Computer Science Dept.
Oklahoma State University
(Opinions are mine and mine alone)