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From: harrow@exodus.DEC (Jeff Harrow, NCSE LKG1-3/F16 DTN=226-7445)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Apple Hard Disk 20 Comments...
Message-ID: <186@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Sun, 29-Dec-85 16:26:59 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.186
Posted: Sun Dec 29 16:26:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Dec-85 03:22:23 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 68

Well, time for my second installment on the joys and 
trepidations of the Apple HD20 hard disk.  

Please note that although there are
many negatives here, they are constructive criticism and are 
intended both to generate discussion here, to hopefully yield
some answers for myself and you other HD20 users, and to let
Apple hear some real-world comments before they freeze the new
ROMs (that's Rumored-Only-Memory).

Let me begin by saying that I *LOVE* having all of my applications
(except those that won't coexist with the HD due to protection
schemes, and I WON'T buy anymore that DON'T work there) available
at one time, as well as the higher disk speeds when the Finder
is not involved, but:

First and foremost, the speed of the FInder (V5.0) is ridiculous.
Now, I say this with some careful consideration as I realize that 
with 13.7 Megabytes in 729 files, it is doing a LOT of work to 
prepare the presentation of the desktop.  HOWEVER, being a human 
user, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to deal with .75 - 2 MINUTE
desktop creation times (and I saw a writeup in a magazine which
has a similar comment!).  The disk times when the FInder is not
involved are subjectively better than with the floppy; I use
the Transport DA whenever feasible, but the Finder NEEDS some
work (Larry of Apple, PLEASE, are you listening?  This will NOT
cut it in a business environment!).

Another point is that the "Available" disk space message shown in the
title bar of a window does NOT agree with either of these disk figures!

Furthermore, when I ended up with about 60 files and 1.5 
megabytes in one folder (which was several layers deep itself),
the system took over 10 MINUTES to attempt to display the desktop
of the file, AND NEVER DID DISPLAY IT CORRECTLY (ie. it was 
jumbled).  I was able to throw out some of the files and it 
finally began to operate correctly again, but I haven't yet 
defined the limits.

Another snafu was a system crash with a 1/2 inch vertical black 
stripe on the desktop after I had opened/closed numerous folders
in a row.

Also, a GetInfo on the Disk indicates 13,736,448 bytes in use,
but adding up the GetInfo data from each of the folders contained
in the next level of the disk only yields 12,782,080 bytes:  What
happened to the missing 1+ Megabyte???

Now, a list of the things that DON'T seem to work with the HD20:

FEDIT V3.05 (apparently only works with Floppies file struc.)
SetPrinter
SetFile
PS Print
Disk Utility
DivJoin (this is a shame since Apple does not provide ANY
        backup utility with the HD20!!!)
EDIT    (29-AUG-84) (from MDS) (will only edit files on the root 
        (Disk).)
EDITOR  (New,from MegaMax) (keeps giving errors on any but the root.)
(These two are RATHER serious; does anyone have a later 
copy?)
                                        
Switcher V4.4   (When trying to start some applications from 
                the Switcher window, it gives an error message saying that 
                it can't find the file you just picked from the SFGetFIle dialog, 
                but only for SOME applications.