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From: wbl@plague.Berkeley.EDU (Wen-Po Bobby Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Plus Hardcard II XL - 9ms
Keywords: Plus, Hardcard, 9ms
Message-ID: <1991Mar22.082158.14390@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 22 Mar 91 08:21:58 GMT
References: <1991Mar21.011145.22608@unixg.ubc.ca> <1991Mar21.015651.23998@unixg.ubc.ca> <31813@mimsy.umd.edu>
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>>>I've been told that this Plus Hardcard II XL will do 9ms. Is this true?
>>>But there was also something about it needing a DisCache. Does anyone
>>>know what that's about? Does anyone have any info on this product?
>>>Know where there's a review? have actually purchased such a beast?
>>>
>>I just called my local dealer that sells Hardcards and the price for
>>this Hardcard II XL is no more expensive than a normal harddrive.
>>And with an access time like 9ms, this seems like the way to go.
>
>I posted recently about my good experences with the Hardcard IIXL.  The
>documents do claim that it has a 9ms access time, but I do not have
>any benchmarking results of my own.  The card does have a 64K disk cache
>on board and it seems VERY fast in comparision to my other drive (an
>ST251 Snail, but heck, it's disk space!).  It makes Windows 3.0 apps
>really fly considering I have only 2MB of RAM.

IT'S TRUE!  (Well, almost)  The 50MB Plus Hardcard II XL was purchased
by a dept. where I work and running CORE gave a reading of 14.2 ms for
the access time.  I can't remember what the data transfer rate was, but
I think it went off the scale using CORE.  It's really amazing:
	*Less than one inch thick (only takes up one slot, and adjacent
		slot aren't obstructed)
	*Easy to install 
	*Reletively inexpensive (I saw a mail-order ad selling it for
		$400; a 105MB drive is also available, price-?)
A few notes though:
	-If you want it to be the boot drive (C:), there may be a BIOS
	address conflict if you alredy have a drive C:  A controller
	with changeble address may solve the problem.
	-Plus' customer service is a 1-900 number! (But they have a BBS)

BTW, I don't work for Plus, I'm still a college student.  In summary, it
DOES "seem like the way to go."



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