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From: johnz@basser.oz (John Zic)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: External 20mb hard drives...I need some quick advice
Summary: HDI Service is excellent!
Keywords: Mac+ needs a hard drive
Message-ID: <2572@basser.oz>
Date: 25 Sep 89 12:57:03 GMT
References: <1989Sep23.111338.1450@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <17627@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>{Sender:
Organization: Dept of Comp Sci, Uni of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 51

In article <17627@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Alex Lau) writes:
  In article <1989Sep23.111338.1450@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> heath@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Todd Heatherton) writes:
  >>I have a mac+ with one 800K drive (I just bought it yesterday).  I am
  >>considering another 800K drive a 20mb external.  Money is a key factor
  >>in my decision (I'm a post-doc with limited funds).  Can anyone give
  >>me any quick advice on the cheaper hard drives (specifically the
  >>PowerDrive Seagate from Hard Drives International $349 or the UniMac
  >>20 mb for $399 or the Cutting edge 20 mb for about $429).q  If there  
  
  >Hate to tell you this, but all the hard drives you've picked above
  >are not very reliable. I've had personal experience with Hard Drives
  >International, and their service for Macintosh drives is S-L-O-W.

Two points.

First of all, I have dealt with HDI from Australia.  They provided me
with excellent service on a dead drive that I received from them. I had
a replacement drive, in Sydney, within a fortnight of shipping it from
here. I wouldn't call that slow service!  It takes about a week for Air
Freight to get to the continental US.

I read an awful lot of people saying "drive X" is unreliable.  I take
statements like those with a very large grain of salt. You never hear of
people saying how *good* their particular drive is; you only hear them
bitching about it when it goes bad. So, how about going on the
manufacturer's claimed MTBF? Sure you can get a bad batch, but it should
be covered by the manufacturer's warantee.

I bought myself a bare Seagate ST125N drive, which I then put into a
case with the appropriate power supply (a locally produced 40W switcher,
waranteed for FIVE years) and cables.  Whole thing cost me a fair bit,
since the power supply was expensive ($AUS500 for the drive and $AUS210
for the supply) but I am a great believer in getting as good a power supply
I can for the drive. The Seagate has 28msec access time, too. Not
exactly slow, once again! And the quoted MTBF is 50K hours of operation,
And HDI provide a replacement service for dead drives over a ONE YEAR
PERIOD.

My recommendations?  Stick to HDI; buy a UniMac case and power supply,
and get a bare Seagate ST125N 20Meg drive.  Put them all together, and
you'll be right, mate. NB that's a ST125N _NOT_ a ST225N, which are the
more common ones in OEM disk drives (and have an access time of 65
msec).





-- 
	John Zic		|
ACSnet:	johnz@cs.su.oz.AU	| "He's dead, Jim ... but not as we know it!"