Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!sgi!wdl1!jeff
From: jeff@wdl1.UUCP (Jonathan J. Jefferies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Seagate ST4096
Message-ID: <4160010@wdl1.UUCP>
Date: 19 Aug 88 23:27:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: wdl1.4160010
References: <8257@cup.portal.com>
Lines: 38

Hi,
	In response to your question I have a recent experience
to relate.  Please excuse the long winded response as I'm not
sure what information is of interest to you.
	I just went through the excercise of buying a new disk.
I too liked the specs on the Seagate 4096.  I was replacing a
micropolis 1304 (40 mega byte device.  I looked for a decent price
and wound up at USM in South San Francisco. A small local 
distributor.  The price was $525.  I paid my money and went
home without any further adieu.  It took me three days and a lot
of sweat to convince myself that I had a lemon.  Now this can happen
anywhere and when I took the drive back USM tried to format it, found
it couldn't and agreed to an exchange.  This is probably 
the most expedient solution all the way around. This however, doesn't
repay for the hours spent trying to find the problem. Unfortunately they didn't
have anymore in stock and were to receive a shipment the next day.
Well they did and I am to pick it up this evening.  So I won't be
able to tell you anything of a technical nature until I've tested 
it further.  Moreover the disk is for a 68000 unix machine.  
	Now what I've told you is a mixed bag.  It seems all these
machines are made abroad, a fact which became obvious when I scanned
their (USM) storeroom.  My cousin who manages a computerland
store tells me that he routinely gets bad drives in shipments 
which then need to be returned to the distributor.  It was for this
reason that he suggested that I locate a local supplier rather than
go thru his store in El Paso.   I mention their being made abroad to
indicate that I don't think looking for an american made product would
be reasonable even if I thought american made would be any guarantee.
	On the plus side, I did make contact with the Seagate people
who were most courteous and helpful and sent me some decent literature
to supplement the meager sheets included with the drive.
	In summary I would say that when buying make sure the thing
works.  Ask the seller to format the drive for you just as a test that
it will work for someone.  This would have saved me several days and
160 miles of driving.  As a comment I notice that USM is selling thje
Seagate ST225 (60 megs/25ms/HH) for $199.  Two of those might be a
better deal than one 80 meg full height for $525.
Good luck 
jeff@wdl1