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From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard disk questions
Message-ID: <822@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Dec-87 23:53:46 EST
Article-I.D.: neoucom.822
Posted: Sun Dec  6 23:53:46 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 01:05:16 EST
References: <2312@unc.cs.unc.edu>
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 32
Summary: which one depends on what you do most of the time


<>

A general rule of thumb is that faster is better; obviously, the
wallet is a mitigating factor.

Disk caching programs can make up partially for drive slowness.  A
cache will slightly slow down througput due to the extra layer of
software added, but will dramatically enhance performance for
repetatively accessed data.  This is good in dbase-like programs.
For programs where a datum is only used once, cahcing is not
helpful.  I have tested Vcache, Lightning, and one from Paul Mace
software.  Lightning did the best with the least memory.

RLL drives will improve throughput somewhat becuase they have a
higher data transfer rate.  Since the drive still turns the same
speed as non-RLL, but has 150% the data, the xfer rate is 150% of
normal.

The ST-277 sounds good on paper.  I don't have one here yet.  I do
have a lot of ST-238s.  While there has been bitching on the Net
about '238s ours have all held up so far.  I stated installing '238
last January.  Look around for deals on the Seagate ST-4051.  It is
a pretty good full-height 40 meg drive.

My personal favorite are the Microscience Miniscribe series.  The
72 meg 6085 is quite good.  I've seen it for as little as $799.  I
suppose a weakness of the 6085 is that it has a servo surface on
one of the platters, that if messed up, would probably send the
drive out to lunch.  I haven't seen that happen though.

--Bill