Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:37430 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:5028 comp.misc:7262 comp.periphs:2230 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsc!wolfordj From: wolfordj@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (j.w.wolford) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,comp.misc,comp.periphs Subject: Re: Don't buy from HDI Message-ID: <4439@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> Date: 1 Nov 89 23:18:04 GMT References: <754@dekalb.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 76 From article <754@dekalb.UUCP>, by greg@dekalb.UUCP (Greg Philmon): > > A little note of warning for any in the hard drive market. Several months ago > I purchased the Seagate ST296N/ST01 SCSI drive kit from Hard Drives > International, a company I had heard good things about. Their advertisement > promised "1 to 1" performance. The purchase was made, largely, on this claim > as I needed a larger, faster hard disk. You have to be kidding right.... what do you want from a $49 disk controller.... yes thats right I can even get a ST01 for $39 if you want... do you think it has any memory to do caching.... Sigh... And yet a WD1007 SCSI controller is > $200 and some places are trying to get > $400 there has to be something diff...... Sneering WITH you not at you... The ST01 is a 8 bit controller and you are hooking this up to a 25Mhz 386..... Your $$$ "aint" in the right place..... It don't matter how fast your CPU is if you can't get the program off of the HD then things are going to be slow unless you only run that one program all day... and I have yet to run into someone that runs only one program all day on a 386... Yes, I think the ad stinks if thats what they say.... but remember you get what you pay for and if some price is too good to be true then it is.... but atleast they would give you your money back.... If you don't want a working product or your money back at all then order from Computer Expert out of N.Y., N.Y..... If you like even better deceptive advertisement then order from ACP.... and then after you return it they will re-bill you a YEAR later.... yes that is going on right now.... luckily I saved the shipping reciept (yes its 1 1/2 years old....)... RE: HDI I ordered a ESDI controller WD1007 and a ESDI drive from HDI and said send it standard shipping... I had in 6 total days (ie 4 working days, plus sat.).... So I have not had a problem with them.... I get better than 800K/sec transfer with out a cache and with a cache I get > 11000KB/sec (yes thats 11MB/sec (B as in byte)... and this is on a lowly 286..... > Telling DiskManager to format it 1:1 (as promised in their ads) brought > terrible results. It seemed that 2:1 was the best it could do. But I > foolishly refused to believe it, instead wondering what I was doing wrong. My > old hard drive was already spoken for and I sold it when the 296N arrived. Have you tried a interleave test program like HTEST/HFORMAT or SPINWRITE to check out what the optimum interleave is.... > Next I called Hard Drives International (not a toll-free call, BTW) and > explained my problem to a tech rep. "Well," he replied, "you need to short the > jumper labeled '0ws'." I told him I already tried that. > > "Then your computer is not fast enough to handle 1:1," was his next stab. > > I proceeded to tell him that I was running the drive in a 25MHz zero-wait 386. > Guess what he said? "Well, you need a 33MHz machine." Oh my god, I can't > believe I'm paying to talk to this guy. Yes I find this hard to believe to and I too would be pissed.... But the ST01 is a 8bit controller.... > issue me an RMA. TAKE THE RMA..... get rid of that ST01 slow controller buy yourself a REAL controller ESDI or SCSI.... ie WD1007 or a ADAPTEC.... > --------------------------------------------------------- > | Greg Philmon ...gatech!dekalb!greg CIS: 72261,1724 | > --------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Wolford uunet---+ att!iwsag!jww | att!iwsag!iwtjw!jww ucbvax--+---- att --+ iwsag!jww | decvax--+