Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!rutgers!orstcs!bionette.cgrb.orst.edu!kramer From: kramer@bionette.cgrb.orst.edu (Jack Kramer -- Biochem) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Rumors of poor performance of 3.5" Message-ID: <12041@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Date: 10 Aug 89 20:58:43 GMT References: <2368@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <216100118@trsvax> Reply-To: kramer@bionette.cgrb.orst.edu.UUCP (Jack Kramer -- Biochem) Organization: Oregon State University - CMBL Lines: 26 In article <216100118@trsvax> jbh@trsvax.UUCP writes: > > Personally, I have had very good experiences with 3.5 drives. I just > checked the 3.5 (Sony?) in my Tandy 3000HD (286,10Mhz). A 'dir a:\' on a > disk containing 37 files completed in about 3 seconds; copying a 16k file > from the 3.5 to the hard disk took just under 3 seconds. A Toshiba 3.5 on > my Dell 310 (386,20Mhz) seems to perform just as well. > Using Fastback 2.0 to perform backups/restores to a Priam 150M ESDI, there > are times when the HD cannot keep up with the floppy! This happens when > LOTS of small files are being restored to HD, so the buffers are filled by > the floppy, and the HD must create each file. > In summary, I am very happy with 3.5 performance, and love the durability > and reliability 3.5 gives me. I have not had as good an experience. After several tests the Toshiba 3.5 takes just about 40-50% longer to read and write than a 1.2 Mb floppy. This was tried on several different controllers so I don't think it was the BIOS ROM code. Incidently, I do like the Toshiba drive for another reason. The configuration switches allow the drive to ignore the drive speed indicator hole on the disks. I can use the 720K (1 Mb) disks at 1.44 Mb saving several dollars per disk. I have not seen this on any of the other drives I have worked on. Many hundreds of the less expensive disks have been used at the higher density over the past year without one glitch.