Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!necntc!ames!elroy!cit-vax!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!cbosgd!mandrill!neoucom!wtm From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Hard disk questions Message-ID: <822@neoucom.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Dec-87 23:53:46 EST Article-I.D.: neoucom.822 Posted: Sun Dec 6 23:53:46 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 01:05:16 EST References: <2312@unc.cs.unc.edu> Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Lines: 32 Summary: which one depends on what you do most of the time <> A general rule of thumb is that faster is better; obviously, the wallet is a mitigating factor. Disk caching programs can make up partially for drive slowness. A cache will slightly slow down througput due to the extra layer of software added, but will dramatically enhance performance for repetatively accessed data. This is good in dbase-like programs. For programs where a datum is only used once, cahcing is not helpful. I have tested Vcache, Lightning, and one from Paul Mace software. Lightning did the best with the least memory. RLL drives will improve throughput somewhat becuase they have a higher data transfer rate. Since the drive still turns the same speed as non-RLL, but has 150% the data, the xfer rate is 150% of normal. The ST-277 sounds good on paper. I don't have one here yet. I do have a lot of ST-238s. While there has been bitching on the Net about '238s ours have all held up so far. I stated installing '238 last January. Look around for deals on the Seagate ST-4051. It is a pretty good full-height 40 meg drive. My personal favorite are the Microscience Miniscribe series. The 72 meg 6085 is quite good. I've seen it for as little as $799. I suppose a weakness of the 6085 is that it has a servo surface on one of the platters, that if messed up, would probably send the drive out to lunch. I haven't seen that happen though. --Bill