[comp.sys.amiga.misc] ST157N Drives

plummer@hercules.cs.uregina.ca (Dave Plummer) (05/15/91)

I'm having some trouble trying to figure out how the hard drive geometry
is represented.  My ST157N drive _should_ have 94860 blocks.  That's
94548 data + 2 reserved + 310 reserved for HardBlocks.  That it does.
 
If you look at the aparrent SCSI geometry, that's 155 * 612 cylinders.
That's what I expected.  Now the question:  what kind of drive has 155
sectors per track?  That's _not_ 0-155, that's 155 per track.  Is one
reserved by SCSI as a spare?  Is that a function of the drive or the
A2091?  How do you determine if/how many are set aside?  Is it always
one?
 
Could this be what the rdb_CylBlocks field represents?

rick@tmi.com (05/24/91)

In article <467@regina.uregina.ca>, plummer@hercules.cs.uregina.ca (Dave Plummer) writes:
> I'm having some trouble trying to figure out how the hard drive geometry
> is represented.  My ST157N drive _should_ have 94860 blocks.  That's
> 94548 data + 2 reserved + 310 reserved for HardBlocks.  That it does.
>  
> If you look at the aparrent SCSI geometry, that's 155 * 612 cylinders.
> That's what I expected.  Now the question:  what kind of drive has 155
> sectors per track?  That's _not_ 0-155, that's 155 per track.  Is one
> reserved by SCSI as a spare?  Is that a function of the drive or the
> A2091?  How do you determine if/how many are set aside?  Is it always
> one?
>  
> Could this be what the rdb_CylBlocks field represents?

According to one of my lists, the ST-157N and ST-157N-1 have the following
geometry:

    Form Factor:    3.5"
    Capacity:       48MB
    Cylinders:      613
    Heads:          6
    Sectors/Track:  26
    Encoding:       RLL
    Max. XFer.:     10MB/S (Sure. Uh huh! Right. I believe that. 8-)
    Seek Time:      40ms (157N), 28ms (157N-1)

I hope that helps.  As to how they determined a maximum transfer rate of
10MB/s, I have no idea.

.--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|[- O] Rick Stevens                                                        |
|  ?   EMail: uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick -or- uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop     |
|  V                (rick@tmi.com)              (sysop@ssssc.com)          |
|      CIS: 75006,1355 (75006.1355@compuserve.com from Internet)           |
|                                                                          |
|           "If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid!"                |
`--------------------------------------------------------------------------'