wsinda@wsintt02.info.win.tue.nl (Dick Alstein) (01/14/91)
I'm thinking about upgrading my A3000 with a harddisk. Problem is, harddisks come in many flavours. To make a good choice, I need answers to a couple of questions: 1) Speed. As far as I know, there are 3 type of interface: ST506, 8-bit SCSI and 16-bit SCSI. What is their relative performance? I heard 8-bit SCSI is slower than ST506, and 16-bit SCSI is fastest, but that may also depend on brand, disk access time or other factors. Are there any benchmarks? 2) Compatibility. ST506 disks can be accessed by ADFS, SCSI disks need a SCSIFS filing system. Are these fully compatible, or is there a chance that some applications won't work? 3) I read about an *internal* harddisk for the A3000, using a 2.5" disk designed for laptops. Has anyone seen it yet? It oughta have a really low power consumption, as the A3000's supply isn't too big. Any info appreciated. Dick Alstein Eindhoven University of Technology Dept. of Maths and Computing Science The Netherlands email: wsinda@info.win.tue.nl
altman@tharr.UUCP (Hugo Fiennes) (01/16/91)
Re: SCSI 8 bit SCSI is *not* slower than ST506, although Morley electronics might want you to think so. 8-bit scsi can attain rates of about 650k/second on a 48Mb drive, and upto about 700k/second on big drives (eg 100Mb). It's not worth getting a 16-bit interface if you're not going to use drives which go over 700k/second anyway - so 100Mb and under use 8-bit or get a 16-bit card for future expansion! Note that 16 bit SCSI cards will be external on the a3000. (BTW: ST506 seems to hit about 400k/sec on a 60Mb drive) The internal A3000 drive is an IDE driver (2.5") designed for laptops and it runs off very little current on the +5v rail. Looking at the prices of IDE drive/interface I would not recommend them (unless you *really* want an internal drive) as with IDE you can (correct me if I'm wrong) only have 2 devices, and you can't get interesting IDE devives, eg optical disks, *big* hard drives, where as you can have 8 devices on the SCSI bus, although no cards apart from ours support more than 4 hard drives. (when I say 8 devices I mean 7+scsi controller). It's probably worth spending the little extra to get a SCSI interface. Acorn's interface is very nice, but a tad expensive. Oak's is solid and quick, but lacks things like background transfer. Hugo
OSmith@acorn.co.uk (Owen Smith) (01/16/91)
In article <1679@svin02.info.win.tue.nl> wsinda@wsintt02.info.win.tue.nl (Dick Alstein) writes: >I'm thinking about upgrading my A3000 with a harddisk etc... One thing to bear in mind is you only have one internal podule slot, and most A3000 hard disks use it so if you want another internal podule you will be stuffed. I did see one hard disk I quite liked from Oak. With this one, you plug a ribbon cable into the external podule connector on the A3000. The podule itself and the hard disk are in the same box. This one is a SCSI disk. I should point out that I haven't seen this in operation, but I like the idea. I wouldn't worry about SCSI being incompatible if I were you. Considering the fact that an A540 uses SCSIFS for its internal hard disk, if any software doesn't work (which is highly unlikely) the authors will be under extreme pressure to fix it. Also a SCSI controller is more flexible than an ST506 controller, you can only have two ST506 drives. With SCSI, you can have more drives than that, and can attach other types of devices eg. tape streamers, scanners, other computers (with appropriate software) so I would say SCSI is a better choice for the future. Owen. Nuke 'em 'til they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark!
SCST86@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (01/17/91)
Hi There, I use an Arch (a 310 actually) with an SCSI drive. The card is the very fast Oak 16bit and the drive is a Seagate 84Mb 24ms device. This combination gives about 640K/sec transfer rate which is GREAT DEAL faster than the old 20Mb ST506 machine I used to use. On the software side I've experienced NO compatibility problems at all. The only worry I had before I bought it was that fact that then the PC Emulator didn't work with SCSI drives. But now, with the latest version, it runs VERY well. And of-course all the RiscOS apps run fine on the drive (well, being Risc OS apps they would wouldn't they!?!) My advise.... Go for SCSI. The OAK one is fast, but I hear the new SCSI controller that's coming from 'The Serial Port' will be faster. (I know Altman reads this group so he might like to comment?) And get a BIG drive too! RiscOS stuff EATS disk space!!! Yours..... Jason.
andras@alzabo.uucp (Andras Kovacs) (01/17/91)
In article <1617@tharr.UUCP> altman@tharr.UUCP (Hugo Fiennes) writes: >(BTW: ST506 seems to hit about 400k/sec on a 60Mb drive) >[...] >probably worth spending the little extra to get a SCSI interface. > >Hugo My Computerware ST506 controller is attached to two 40MB MiniScribe drives (a 3053 - half height and a 6053 - full height). Both of them transfers around 390KB/sec. I bought the ST506 controller because I felt that I can save on the drives but now I think a SCSI controller and drive definitely worth the money. Andras -- Andras Kovacs "Could somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in andras@alzabo.UUCP where a man dressed as a BAT gets all of my press..." Nepean, Ont. The Joker
SCST86@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (01/24/91)
Hi There, I'm sorry the Serial Port's SCSI card will not be out for a while. I've just blown-up my old Oak SCSI card (no I don't want to talk about it!) and so I'm looking for a new controller. (Oh well, it's back to Oak I suppose.) Could you give us some more details on your 'proposed' fast SCSI podule? (If it's at the write price I might still be interested.) Yours...... Jason. aka Monkster