Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!thad
From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: ESDI drives?
Message-ID: <12915@cup.portal.com>
Date: 24 Dec 88 23:55:06 GMT
References: <721@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 18

Re: Tony Sumrall's question "Has anyone hooked up an ESDI drive to the Amiga?"
the answer is yes.  Several callers to BBS-JC (415/961-7250) have done so using
an Adaptec translator (ESDI<=>SCSI).  Feel welcome to call BBS-JC and browse
the archives for more specifics (i.e. Adaptec part number, disk drives that
have been known to function, etc.)

If "raw" performance is your quest, the advantage of such drives is minimal.
Even though (for example) the Maxtor XT-4380 is less expensive than its SCSI
counterpart (the XT-3380), any purported benefits of ESDI are negated by the
need to translate to/from SCSI.

Even a "straight" ESDI connection (as reported in various UNIX REVIEW test
reports over the past 6 months) appears to be slower than what one can expect
using SCSI on the Amiga under 1.3 with the FFS.  PLEASE NOTE: those reported
speed differences are most likely due to the OS and file system and not because
of intrinsic speed differences of the actual hardware interface.

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]