Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!ginosko!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!mrichey From: mrichey@orion.oac.uci.edu (Mike Richey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: RLL controllers with MFM drives Message-ID: <3547@orion.cf.uci.edu> Date: 23 Oct 89 22:43:04 GMT References: <2546@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <4265@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <3544@orion.cf.uci.edu> <1342@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Reply-To: mrichey@orion.oac.uci.edu (Mike Richey) Organization: University of California, Irvine Lines: 35 In article <1342@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >In article <3544@orion.cf.uci.edu>, mrichey@orion.oac.uci.edu (Mike Richey) writes: > >| Seagate tests all of their ST225 and ST238 drives at RLL first. If they >| pass RLL, they're ST238s, if they fail, they test tham at MFM and ship >| them as ST225s if they pass. This information I was told by seagate. This >| only make economic sense if not logical. > > Are you *very* sure about that? What I thought they told me was that >they tested drives until they had enough 238's. If a drive failed as a >238 it was retested as a 225. Therefore a 225 which you buy might be >either a drive which failed as RLL or one which was never tested. This >would explain why so many pass as RLL in actual service. >-- >bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) >"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called >'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see >that the world is flat!" - anon We're saying the same thing here, except, I'm saying they do all of them right away. To save money, test them all at RLL. If they need 225s they label them as such. Another thing is that the controllers that go into PCs are not so quite as tight on the specs as the devices that are used to test the drives in the final test. The winchester testing units I'm speaking of. Regardless, the point was that there isn't any mechanical difference between RLL and MFM drives. IMHO, i wouldn't buy a seagate of any king. Drat CDC-Imprimis was just bought out by who??? yes, Seagate.... Well I'll take a positive outlook. The seagate product line will improve drastically, rather than the CDC quality falling!! Michael Richey mrichey@orion.oac.uci.edu