Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!rupert!pcg From: pcg@rupert.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: AHA1542 and ST296N Message-ID: Date: 28 Mar 90 17:44:16 GMT References: <8121@cognos.UUCP> <164@tygra.UUCP> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 23 In-reply-to: jpp@tygra.UUCP's message of 25 Mar 90 20:33:07 GMT Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.1 of Wed Mar 15 1989 on rupert (berkeley-unix) In article <164@tygra.UUCP> jpp@tygra.UUCP (John Palmer) writes: In article <8121@cognos.UUCP> dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) writes: }I heard a lot of good things about the Adaptec 1542A SCSI controller. }And the Seagate ST296N 85Mb drive is getting very common and fairly cheap. I have a machine with exactly that configuration: an AHA1542 and 2 Seagate ST296N's. I have had ABSOLUTLY NO PROBLEM with the drives or the controller To get it working is no fuss; but I would be quite wary of the performance. I would carefully look at the spec sheet of the ST296N to see its transfer rate. I seem to remember that most Seagate SCSI drives do only 4 MHZ, which is even slower than MFM, not to speak of RLL or ESDI. Also, I seem to remember that these drives are not so hot as to their handling of the SCSI protocol, so you get a substantial slow down. I have seen Quantum, Imprimis, Micropolis recommend for their clever SCSI implementations. It is damn easy to have a poor SCSI implementation; the difference in performance between an AHA1542 and an ST01 can exist also in the drive. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk