Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!wb1j+ From: wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu (William M. Bumgarner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Microtech (opinion of, was: Re: Trade in those dead Jasmines) Message-ID: Date: 25 Jul 89 16:28:11 GMT References: <2774@mace.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 39 In-Reply-To: <2774@mace.cc.purdue.edu> I have had personal experience with two Microtech R45 drives-- different ones in different places. The first has never had a problem. The other arrived dead, was shipped back to the company, no problem was found, and was thus shipped back and we have had no problem with it yet. The R45 is a solid piece of construction, but as with any Sysquest based drive, it isn't the drive, but the software that makes the difference. The MicroTech software is very solid, and appears to be bug-free... (the only problem we have found is that it allows you to initialize a disc with 0 interleave-- just what exactly happens, we don't know). The R45 INIT that comes with the drive works fine, and hasn't caused any known problems. I havent othered using the back-up software that came with the drive (we opted for FastBack II-- an excellent piece of software that I would highly recommend). I did have a look at the MacTree (or something similar) software that came with the drive-- it looks like an interesting alternative to the finder. As a backup system or primary drive, I would highly recommend the R45. As a company, Microtech has been very helpful and supportive, and there products (at least the R45) seem to be very solid. The one minor downfall is that the end-user has to pay for all shipping for repairs whether or not the unit is under warranty... Call for pricing info-- they seem to cut good deals to educational and developer oriented sites. b.bum wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu BTW: The R45 local to this site is used almost exclusively as a backup device-- very very fast, convenient and cost-effective. Disclaimer: I'm just a satisfied customer with no connections to Microtech.