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From: haugelan@unix.cis.pitt.edu (John C.  Haugeland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: hard drive info wanted
Summary: What about removable media (eg Syquest)?
Message-ID: <42134@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 90 03:12:01 GMT
References: <45139@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: haugelan@unix.cis.pitt.edu (John C.  Haugeland)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services
Lines: 33


Lots of people seem to have the same idea: since 105 mb isn't enough,
and NeXT charges too much for the 340 mb upgrade, the best move is to
add a third party drive to the basic NeXTstation via the SCSI port.
The question is: what to add? Now if we take the 340 mb upgrade as an
indication of how much total capacity to aim for, the 210 mb external
Quantum would seem the nominal default choice. Lots of Mac sources 
sell that for around a thousand dollars.

What I'm wondering about is the merits/demerits of the following
alternative. The same Mac sources also all sell an external Syquest
drive with a 44 mb removable cartridge for around $700, and extra
cartridges for about $75. So the same thousand dollars would also 
get a comparable 220 mb total capacity by this other route. Some
relative advantages and disadvantages are pretty obvious:

    Advantages:
     -- capacity can be expanded incrementally and cheaply 
        (cartridges run about $1.50/mb)
     -- the system can be used for backup  (especially important
        if your system is stand-alone -- ie, not networked)

    Disadvantages:
     -- Only 150 mb online at a time -- some disk swapping may
        be necessary on occasion
     -- Somewhat slower -- Syquest average access = only 25 ms

Is it as simple as this? What am I missing? What do people with
more experience than I know/think about this idea?

John Haugeland
haugelan@unix.cis.pitt.edu