Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!gatech!mcnc!thorin!clocs!davis From: davis@clocs.cs.unc.edu (Mark Davis) Newsgroups: comp.periphs Subject: ST296 - How does Seagate Do it? Keywords: hard disk capacity encoding techniques Message-ID: <5754@thorin.cs.unc.edu> Date: 7 Dec 88 16:48:56 GMT Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu Lines: 22 The Seagate advertisement on page 36 of the December 5 Info world claims that the ST296 is part of the ST251 hard disk drive family (6 heads, 820 cylinders, 1/2 height 5.25", stepper motor head positioning). Of course, the 296 has a SCSI interface, but some encoding has to be used used between the on board SCSI and the disk itself. From other Seagate SCSI drives, it appeared that their SCSI drives were just the MFM drive with the SCSI adapter. However, for the 296, they would have to be using some exotic encoding technique (like ARLL) to get the almost 200% capacity increase. So, how do they do it: (1) Really not a 251 family member; more heads/ more cylinders/ different positioning method. (2) ARLL or similar encoding techniques. (3) some other method. Any facts or ideas? Thanks - Mark (davis@cs.unc.edu or uunet!mcnc!davis)