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From: wvucenic@well.UUCP (Wayne Vucenic)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Comparing hard disks
Message-ID: <743@well.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Mar-86 14:13:14 EST
Article-I.D.: well.743
Posted: Sun Mar  9 14:13:14 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 01:49:58 EST
Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 33

I'm interested in the 20Meg Atari hard disk.  I had heard rumors to
the effect that the developers hard disks have a faster data transfer rate
than the soon-to-be-available commercial 20Meg Atari hard disks.  I asked
about this at my local dealer, but the fellow there told me that the
only differences were cosmetic: metal case vs. plastic case.  I'm not sure
he's got the straight story on data transfer rates, as he was quoting
10Mbits/sec to me.  I realize that the DMA controller can transfer at that
speed, but I had heard that the hard disk controllers were actually
running at 7.5Mbits or 5Mbits.
   I was wondering if anyone had the straight story on the differences
between the developers and commercial hard disks.  The two topics of
particular interest to me are:

	1) Performance: data transfer rates, access times, etc.
	2) Fan noise.  I seem to be overly sensitive to noise.  (I REALLY
		like the fact that my ST doesn't have a fan, but the hum
		(60 cycle, it sounds like) from my monochrome monitor
		begins to bug me at times.  My color monitor is silent.
		Anyone else have a noisy mono monitor, or is it just mine?)
		Anyway, back to hard disks... the developers hard disk I
		looked at had a fan that seemed to be about average for
		fan noise.)

Other differences of more minor interest would include requirements for
parking the heads.  I understand that the developer's hard disk requires
this, but I can't imagine that a commercial version would.

Can anyone at Atari or elsewhere shed some light on this?  Thanks.
		
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Wayne Vucenic
...{ucbvax, ihnp4, allegra, decvax}!hplabs!well!wvucenic
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