Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Duel
From: Duel@cup.portal.com (Omid M Farr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: WORMs
Message-ID: <33923@cup.portal.com>
Date: 15 Sep 90 03:54:54 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 30

Thanks to those who sent me email in reference to information about WORM
drives.
Basically I found out that technology isnt where I thought. These drives
(Large capacity ~400-500) run around $2,000. When manufacturers mention
something like 800megs, they are talking about 400megs per side. 
I decided to go with the ISi WORM-TOS. Approximately a 220 meg system, and
the only system in my price range. I wasn't too disappointed until I found
out it was only about 110megs per side. 
So far, I am quite impressed with it. There are some problems I encountered
and the second side of the cartridge I received isnt working properly (which
I will have to return) and the instructions aren't very helpful with
trouble shooting. I'd appreciate comments from anyone who owns such a drive
and can tell me how to format >32meg partitions without using their NO32.COM
which doesn't seem to be working properly with my version of DOS (4.01).
The unit has about a 150-200ms access time. The only "slowness" is finding
the file, but booting it up is fairly quick.
In general I think this WORM drive fits right between floppies and hard 
drives. The price per megabyte is hard to beat. (~$.60. $130 for double
sided cartridges. Better savings with the larger units where cartridges
seem to be the same price.)
Speed is much faster than a floppy drive. Of course, it can't be compared
with an equivalent hard drive. Hopefully I will be able to squeeze out
3-4 disks from it, otherwise I could have probably gotten a better deal
going with a large hard drive. (340-380megs)
I paid around $749 for the unit. If anyone knows of something better still
please let me know, I still have 90 days. (But I needed something like this
immediately so I went ahead and purchased it).
I'd appreciate some mail from owners of this drive and questions about the
drive are welcome.
duel@cup.portal.com