Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:18084 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:746
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!humming!simcha
From: simcha@humming.UUCP (Simcha Lerner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Steve Gibson's "SpinRite" product
Keywords: Non-destructive low-level format; interleave optimization
Message-ID: <246@humming.UUCP>
Date: 16 Aug 88 04:18:21 GMT
References: <989@acornrc.UUCP>
Reply-To: simcha@humming.UUCP (Simcha Lerner)
Distribution: na
Organization: Kurzweil A.I. Waltham, Mass.
Lines: 61

In article <989@acornrc.UUCP> bob@acornrc.UUCP (Bob Weissman) writes:
>Has anyone used Gibson's "SpinRite"?
>
>Having run the recently posted "spintest" program, it appears that my
>Seagate ST238-R has been formatted with a suboptimal interleave factor
>of 4.  ("spintest" claimed it took 18 revs to read a track! Bleah!)

This figure is hard to believe, since the theoretical worst case for
normal MFM hard drives is 17 rotations.  (Unless it is counting the
1/2 rotation (on average) latency to find the first sector.)

>"SpinRite" claims it can perform a non-destructive low-level format
>while optimizing interleave.
>
>This feature in itself would probably make this product worth the $59
>list price, assuming it really speeds up my disk transfers.

I have used a similar product (see below) and I have always noticed a
40-50% increase in throughput when I change a drive from an interleave
of 3 (typical factory default) to 2 (a good number for fast ATs).

>Alternatively, does anyone know of any other software which performs
>this task?

Phoenix Technologies Ltd. has had an OEM product out for 1-1/2 years
called Control-386.  It provides many very userful utilities that
enhance the speed, performance and compatibility of most '386 machines.

As a part of the setup, they have a routine the determines the 
optimum interleave and the current interleave, and then performs
a low level format while (optionally) saving the data in place. 
(The last version that I was familiar with did not require a
'386 in order to run the format utilities.)

This is not as hard as it sounds, since the ST-506 type drives allow
track by track formatting.  (You read off a track worth of data
into ram, format the track with the proper interleave, then 
restore the data.  As a safety factor, you skip any tracks with
a bad sector, so as to avoid moving the bad spot to a different
sector.)

Unless your machine came with Control/386 (or you have a friend
who can lend you his installation diskette), SpinRite sounds 
like a good deal, given that there are some other utilities that
are supposed to help prolong the life of your data on the drive
included in the product.

>Thanks,
>-- 
>Bob Weissman
>Internet:	bob@acornrc.uucp
>UUCP:		...!{ ames | decwrl | oliveb | pyramid }!acornrc!bob
>Arpanet:	bob%acornrc.uucp@ames.arc.nasa.gov


Simcha Lerner
harvard!humming!simcha
^^^^^^^
(not bbn)

All opinions are my own, but you are welcome to share them.