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From: c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU (Alex Lau)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: External 20mb hard drives...I need some quick advice
Keywords: Mac+ needs a hard drive
Message-ID: <17658@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 25 Sep 89 23:38:59 GMT
References: <1989Sep23.111338.1450@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <17627@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <{Sender:> <2572@basser.oz>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Alex Lau)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <2572@basser.oz> johnz@basser.oz (John Zic) writes:
>  >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.

Well, how about taking one month to send me my drive when I first
purchased it (and only after two dozen phone calls), and then taking
two months to send me back my repaired drive after the first one
died (and only after three-score phone calls)? Is that slow enough
for you? I suspect their domestic service is separate from their
internation service, so maybe you're right, but I'm right, too.

>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'd rather get a good drive that's been out on the market for a
while, with a *demonstrated* reliability rather than a *claimed*
reliability. Besides, most of the Seagates on the market have a
*claimed* MTBF of 20,000 hours (that's about 2 years of continuous
use), but they don't tell you that that's *only* for continuous
use. They don't shut off the drives during testing. If you turn
the drive off, you could be opening yourself up to the infamous
"stiction" problem, explaind in earlier postings.

>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).

Most people have neither the aptitude nor the time to "roll their
own" hard disk, John. They want to buy something that works, even
if it costs them a little more. Most people would rather not have
to deal with warranties, or dead drives, or customer service. The
mark of an unreliable drive is if you ever need to call the company,
IMHO. 

>	John Zic		|

--- Alex
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