Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!basser!johnz 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!"