hard drive

[Jan Isley]

In article <20845 at cup.portal.com> thad at cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:
>[ previous reply continued; damned PORTAL mail interface ... ]
>
>It's not that the drives weren't available over the counter and that I'd
>have to wait; it's that the drives aren't available PERIOD.  They ALL
>said Miniscribe isn't manufacturing drives anymore.

As I have previously posted, I get the same story from at least 6 distributors
that I regularly do business with.

>This P.O.'d me royally, as I *need* three 1/2 height, maximum-possible
>capacity drives with an ST506/412 interface.  The Miniscribe 3085 has been
>satisfying these requirements VERY nicely (and at 22 mS avg access); now I
>am being forced to use lesser capacity UNLESS I can locate some other
>mfr's drives.

I have used Microscience HH1090s in the past.  They have 1214 cylinders,
7 heads ... about 75k blocks formatted ... almost identical to a ST4096
using all 9 heads.  I have one in the machine sitting next to the one I
am typing this on ... been up for about 4 months.  The problem is, at least
3 out of 10 Microscience HH1090s (and HH1075s (7 heads, 1024 cylinders)) 
that I have installed in the last year have died dramatically sometime
between the first day and about 6 months.  The actual number may be closer
to 4 out of 10, I would have to check my records.  Needless to say, I do not
use these drives any more.  My distributors swear that I am their only 
customer that has had problems with these drives.  I have 6 drives that I
sent off to Microscience 6 weeks ago for warranty work and still no idea
when I'll get them back.

I have had 0 problems with Microscience HH1050s.  5 heads, 1024 cylinders.
But, you are not looking for a 40 MB drive...

>There are three of us looking for 10 drives (the Miniscribe 3085 was the
>drive of choice) for the past 2 weeks, and none are to be found "all of a
>sudden."

I do have 3 Miniscribe 3085s in stock at Discovery.  You may not like the
price though.  The boss likes to make a PROFIT.  I do not recall what the
asking price is.  Give me a call and I will see what I can do.  Do not ask
one of the sales people about this one, they won't have a clue about what
you are asking about.

I have had a peculiar problem with the 3085.  On some machines they have
simply refused to work.  The drive formats just fine.  On the surface test
almost every sector will produce an error.  Once, changing to a different
2010 worked.  The suspect 2010 worked in another machine/drive though.
Sometimes changing to a different drive while using the same 2010 worked.
Most of the time when I had this problem, nothing would make any combination
of drive/2010 work on that machine.  The machine would work just fine with
any other 1010 and < 1024 cylinder drive combination that I tried.

There has been no patern emerge from this yet.  The motherboards that have
failed to work with a 2010 have ranged from Rev level B to J, with and 
without the DRUN patch.  It simply baffles the hell out of me.  Without
checking my records, I would say that I have successfully done a 2010/drive
upgrade to just over 100 Unix PCs, maybe 10 2MB motherboards, 10 1MB boards,
and the rest, 512k boards.  I have had problems with 1 2MB board, 2 1MB 
boards, and about 10 512k boards.  I do not recall the numbers of 3085s
involved since I have used a lot of the 1090s also.  In no cases did I find
that the drive itself was faulty.  Every drive that exhibited this behavior
was installed in a 386 box, formatted and tested successfully and then tried
again in the offending Unix PC with a different 2010 first, then maybe used in
a different Unix PC with no problem.  To date, I have had no 3085 fail at work
or with a customer.

If you *really* need a big drive, do the P5.1 upgrade.  A ST4096 will give 
you about 75k blocks.  Or spend some BIG bucks and get a Maxtor.  Bagend is
running a ST4096 on a 7300 power supply.  I did add a power cable ala 3B1 for
the hard disk straight from the power supply.  The only expansion slot being
used has a full combo board in it.  This combination has worked for about a 
year now, now problems.  The ST4096 is rated at 25 watts, I think.  I have
only 1 fan (remember that flame fest?), blowing out on the power supply side.
My brothers machine, slammer is configured identical except he uses 2 fans 
with the floppy side fan blowing in.  He swears that it is the coolest 
running ST4096 he has ever seen.  If you need to fill up all of your slots 
and you are worried about your power supply, the AT&T repair center in
San Leandro (forget the number) will repair/swap a 7300 power supply for
$65 as of last month.  Add another $20 and you will get a 3B1 power supply
(1.5 more amps of 12 volts).  Or... for around $50 you can get a PC/AT
power supply, around 200 watts.  Many of these are just the right size
to replace the Unix PC power supply if you take it out of the box and rig
up a new wiring harness for the motherboard connector.

Jan Isley, follower of Zen, picker of nit
jan at bagend | gatech!bagend!jan | home (404) 434-1335 | work (404) 425-5700