Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!trwind!venice!serf!rose
From: rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Why are SCSI drives so cheap?
Message-ID: <488.26e76a41@sunset.sedd.trw.com>
Date: 7 Sep 90 17:37:04 GMT
References: <2247@sud509.ed.ray.com> <481.26db8352@sunset.sedd.trw.com> <149@thor.UUCP>
Lines: 26

In article <149@thor.UUCP>, scjones@thor.UUCP (Larry Jones) writes:
> In article <481.26db8352@sunset.sedd.trw.com>, rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com writes:
>> 
>> Also, why are SCSI drives so much cheaper (at least some are)?  There's an
>> 84 MB with kit for less than $400.
> 
> Primarily because having the controller right on the drive allows you
> to get away with things you could never get away with when the low
> level signals from the drive have to travel across a foot of ribbon
> cable in an electrically noisy environment.  The Seagate 296N (which
> I presume is the drive you are referring to) is the same disk as the
> 251-1 (which is a 42Mb MFM drive) -- since the controller is so close
> to the drive they can reliably use an RLL encoding to double the number
> of sectors per track.
> ----

If the 296 is simply a 251-1 with a SCSI controller can you buy the SCSI (ST-01)
and the 251-1 seperately?  The 251-1 with out controller is approx $250-300 
and the ST-01 is $30.  This would save an additional $50-100 (if allowed).

The actual drive listed is a 296NP which is a half-height drive with
controller.

Thanks for any info

Marc