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.