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From: bb16@prism.gatech.EDU (Scott Bostater)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Two Hard Disk Controllers in One Machine
Message-ID: <2780@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 25 Oct 89 19:56:13 GMT
References: <1092.25455B8D@busker.FIDONET.ORG>
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 32

In article <1092.25455B8D@busker.FIDONET.ORG>, Howard.Spindel@p8.f14.n105.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Howard Spindel) writes:
> Has anyone installed two hard disk controllers (one MFM and one
> either SCSI or ESDI) in a single IBM AT under DOS?  Is this even
> possible or do the port addresses conflict?  What software drivers
> are needed to make it work?
>  

I have a standard WD 2:1 interleave DF/DH MFM controller and a SCSI HD card.
I have to access the SCSI drive through a device driver. The performance
of the entire system is pretty poor. The MFM is driving a ST-225 sloooow
(90 ms) hard disk. The SCSI card is a WD FASST-ATXT card driving a ST-296N.
I get 230 Kbyte/sec transfer on the ST-225 and 56 Kbyte/sec transfer on the
ST-296N. My computer is a 25 MHz 386 run DOS 3.3.

The way things are set up I have to boot off of the ST-225 (Drive C:) I 
originally was going to put the ST-225 in another computer when I upgraded
to the ST-296N but I can't boot off of the ST-296N with the MFM controller
(which I need for my floppy drives). 

The fact that I'm accessing the ST296N through a device driver causes problems
with some hard disk utilities (SPINRITE and CORETEST) that keep them from
acknowledging the drive :-( I also cannot cache my ST296N :-(((

All in all, I'm quite disapointed in my system. The ST296N has gotten a lot
coverage recently as to its poor performance - It deserves it! The WD 
FASST-ATXT card might be faster without the device driver, but it sure stinks
with it.
-- 
Scott Bostater      GTRI/RAIL/RAD   (Ga. Tech)
"My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him"  -Ps 62.1
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