Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hpsgwp!plim From: plim@hpsgwp.sgp.hp.com (Peter Lim) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: SyQuest 44MB removable in PC-compatible Message-ID: <3370006@hpsgwp.sgp.hp.com> Date: 14 Jan 91 03:51:05 GMT References: <10301@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> Organization: HP Singapore IC Design Ctr Lines: 84 / rspangle@jarthur.claremont.edu (Froot Loop) / 5:57 pm Jan 11, 1991 / write: $ I talked to John at Hard Drives International today, and he recommended an $ Allways (sp.) card, claiming that the SyQuest drive had problems with the $ Adaptec 1542 cards (can you comment on this, Roy?) I found out that the $ Allways card is supposed to be a 16-bit card capable of 10 Mbit/sec transfer $ rates. $ Haven't try Adaptec card, so can't comment. Heard that there are problem with Windows 3.0 because Adaptec does some kind of bus mastering ... I use Always IN-2000 card with a SyQuest drive, a Micropolis 1684 and an Archive Viper 150 MB tape drive. I also has an ESDI drive as the primary drive. The whole thing hangs together very nicely under DOS and Windows 3.0. $ So my questions are: $ $ * Does anyone have experience with this combination of hardware? How will $ the system cope with switching disks? $ Switching disk is an interesting problem. When I only has the ESDI drive and the SyQuest drive, I did not use the device driver supplied by SyQuest. So, DOS thinks that the SyQuest is a plain fixed drive. I run SUPERPCK disk cache on the SyQuest against warning by SyQuest Inc. Which certainly confuse things a little more. All I had to do was to FLUSH the cache before removing the catridge and run CHKDSK on the SyQuest drives after inserting the new catridge. This works well until I forgot to FLUSH the cache once and lost the data on the newly inserted catridge when my machine writes to the new machine using the old directory information. Now that I have added a new SCSI hard disk (LUN 0), the SyQuest (LUN 1) becomes invisible when DOS fires up. I need to install the SyQuest driver. At the time I do it (about August, 1990), the released version of SyQuest driver did not work with the IN-2000 -- SyQuest combo. I got a beta version of the driver from Always and it works. With the driver installed, DOS is aware that the SyQuest drive is removable and do the proper checking when I change catridge. $ * How compatible is the Allways card with other hard drives and devices? Am $ I correct in assuming it's a bus master? Does it require a driver? Will it $ remap cylinders/heads so that I can use large (>300MB) drives with it? How $ does it compare to the Adaptec cards in terms of performance and support? $ (I know there are a few ftp sites with Adaptec stuff.) $ The Always IN-2000 remaps all SCSI drive into 64 heads (or 60 ??) so that you get 1 MB per cylinder. Assuming DOS's 1024 cylinder limit, you should be able to get about 1 GB per drive. Tested -- it works with 340 MB Micropolis 1684. Performance wise, it is not a screamer. About 1 MByte per second; doesn't use DMA at all (which avoids lots of compatibility problems). Support for UNIX might be a bit weak here (that's where Adaptec controller is supposed to fly). But okay for DOS. $ * Is $638 a good price for the combo (the SyQuest would be internal, comes $ with no disks)? I think John quoted me a price of $449 on the bare internal $ drive with no controller or disks. $ When I bought the thing in May 1990, the price was about the same. And it seems like HDI has one of the best price. $ * Did anyone ever figure out how to swap removable disks between a Mac and $ a PC? (My roommate already has a SyQuest and a Mac II) $ My friend who has a Mac with SyQuest just took my PC SyQuest disk and tried it. According to him, he can't get the Mac to figure out the info in the PC SyQuest disk. he was not very explicit, but I think his Mac was able to read something of the PC SyQuest disk ---- just can't figure out the data read. Have fun. Regards, . .. ... .- -> -->## Life is fast enough as it is ........ Peter Lim. ## .... DON'T PUSH IT !! >>>-------, ########################################### : E-mail: plim@hpsgwg.HP.COM Snail-mail: Hewlett Packard Singapore, : Tel: (065)-279-2289 (ICDS, ICS) | Telnet: 520-2289 1150 Depot Road, __\@/__ Singapore 0410. SPLAT ! #include