Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bu.edu!orc!inews!iwarp.intel.com!psueea!parsely!agora!billsey From: billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: Who's got the biggest SCSI drive actually functioning Message-ID: <1990Jul10.015540.8785@agora.uucp> Date: 10 Jul 90 01:55:40 GMT References: <1990Jul4.035345.18031@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Reply-To: billsey@.UUCP (Bill Seymour) Organization: Betazoid Central Lines: 98 In article <1990Jul4.035345.18031@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: :Some folks I know have a 600Mbyte SCSI drive available at a price :reasonable to me, but don't know the Amiga from a pile of sand. :So here are a few of things I'd like to learn from the available :wisdom of the net: : :1) What's the biggest SCSI drive anyone has up and running, say : for at least a couple of months to make sure it's stable? Well, I didn't play with it quite that long, but I've successfully hooked up, formatted and used a CDC (Now Seagate) 660 meg drive to my Amiga. I regularly run 240+ meg Maxtors and a slew of smaller drives. :2) Does the software Commodore supplies with 1.3 suffice to : low/high level format such a beast, or does the vendor have : to know enough about the Amiga to supply some software to : do the job -- i.e., can I just buy hardware? High level, no problem. Low level, you need to check with who actually made your HD controller. The older software from C= for thier controllers didn't do a good job on a low level format. I believe their newer stuff does though. I use a Supra controller on my systems, and their low level formatting utilities are excellent. :3) Are there limitations in AmigaDOS or in the SCSI standard that : force large disks to be partitioned in multiple pieces, or can : I just make it one huge tree? I believe the current limitation is 1.2 gig per partition... (Although that might be 1.2 tera instead... :-) ) It's not a problem on most drives... Even the 1.5G drives format to about a gig only. :4) If I can make it one big partition, are there good reasons for : making it several smaller ones instead? The smaller you directories, the faster the hash lookup can be. There's a practical size for directories at about 100-200 entries. There's no filesystem reason that you can't use as many entries in any particular directory as you want though. You just have to look at how many items have the same hash value. For each item at a particular hash value, you have to look at one sector to read a directory or find a file. I tend to use partitions that run about 100M each and keep them filled with directories rather than files... Mostly for esthetic reasons with icons... :5) Has anybody got experience with a streaming tape backup that : runs on the Amiga and can back this sucker up on one tape? : Vendor, prices, software used/needed? There are a couple of streamers out for the Amiga. They tend to be HD controller vender specific though. Give it another six months to a year before you see many that work over wide ranges of controllers. Each HD vendor seems to have their own interpretation of the SCSIdirect standard. :-) :6) Rewritable video disk technology is available for the Amiga : now, but the storage (per diskette) is no greater than this : magnetic drive, and the best price I've seen for the video : disk is around $9K, a bit steep for an unemployable graphics : programmer's budget. I'd rather go with the video technology, : to get the replaceable media (great for archiving news forever), : protection from head crashes, and generally whizzy feel, but I'm : getting impatient for prices to fall; does anyone know of a : better price or imminent prospects of same for video? $9K seems steep for a rewritable optical drive. Look for more like $7K at the retail level and a bit more than $5K on the cheap side. Pretty much any Amiga HD software that supports any removable media should work well with the R/W opticals. :7) Is the $2500 price for the magnetic disk I'm being quoted a "good : deal"? ;-) These folks are amateurs in the extreme, so I want : to make sure I'm saving a lot before I accept the attendant risk. Look in Computer Shopper to make sure. I'd say the $2500 is OK, but not the best deal you will find. A good price for 600M would be closer to the $1800-2000 range. As an example, a Wren V 620M (unformatted) drive from DC Drives (The first add I turned to that had the big Seagate/Imprimis drives) is $1859 for the drive itself. $2139 for the Wren VI version (660M). Add $150 for a case with adequate power supply, $175 for a SCSI controller and $25 for various cables. Check to see which drive they're selling you. :Email would probably be a good idea, and I'll summarize back in two :weeks or so. My E-Mail seems to be broken big time the last couple of weeks. :-( Everything I send bounces... :Kent, the man from xanth. :