Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!gumby!bowden
From: bowden@gumby.cc.wmich.edu (Michael L. Bowden)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: SCSI Seagate 296N experience
Summary: Good drive, low price, not 1:1
Message-ID: <854@gumby.cc.wmich.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 89 18:26:31 GMT
References: <4793@brains.UUCP>
Reply-To: bowden@gumby.cc.wmich.edu (Michael L. Bowden)
Organization: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
Lines: 19

I bought a 296N within the last 2 months, along with the ST02B controller
(which can handle floppies as well).  Considering that I went from an
old 20 meg CMI drive with a transfer rate of about 230 KB/sec. to the Seagate
at 450 KB/sec. I'm quite happy with it.  My only complaints are that Hard
Drives International advertised it as a package that can handle 1:1 interleave,
but the best it can do is 2:1.  If you can get a drive with a revision 7 ROM
you'll be able to do 1:1, but the burden will be on you to push the issue.
Otherwise they'll tell you they'd be happy to send it in for a "field upgrade",
in which case you can wait for some unspecified period of time (> 2 weeks),
and you can count on not getting the same drive back.  (note: the current
ROM revision is 8, which was put in as a "slow-down" specifically for the
Macintosh...probably Plus)

I'd like the extra speed (supposedly up to 700 KB/sec), but I'm addicted to
the extra space, and I'm already running faster that I was before.  As far
as I can tell, this is one of the best hard disk values around, and I'd do
it over again even with the above complaints.

Hope this helps.