Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jc58+ From: jc58+@andrew.cmu.edu (Johnny J. Chin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: What hard disk to get for an XT clone ? Message-ID: Date: 21 Feb 89 23:46:14 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 59 From my personal experience as a PC technician (for ~7 years), I do NOT recommend any hard drive that hasn't made a name for itself. I recommend the following drives, in order of preference: CORE (very expensive) Maxstor (very expensive) Micropolis (expensive) CDC (moderate - expensive) Microscience (moderate) CMS (moderate - expensive) Miniscribe (economical) Seagate (economical) As for the Seagate drives. There was a time when Seagate became so popular that their quality control went way down. Because of that they lost lots of sales to Microscience and Miniscribe. So recently, Seagate's prices went back up slightly and quality control has also be up. The only drive that I have heard of complaints about is the ST-251 series (both the ST-251 40ms, and the ST-251-1 28ms drives). And the complaints are usually about the noise that it makes when it spins up. As for Seagate's ST-225 (MFM) and ST-238 (RLL), they both work great for the price. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay for." CDC's, Micropolis, and Microscience are better drives. I have had less of them go bad in the past. The drives that these companies produce are also "auto-parking". NOTE: Seagate half-height drives DO NOT auto-park (ST-251s say they do but don't always park correctly! Now was for the controller card. I ONLY recommend DTC (Data Technology Corp.) and WDC (Western Digital Corp.). Both of these manufacturers are compatible with each other (a drive formated with either card is read-/write-able by the other card); no other manufacturer offers this compatibility. I personally favor the DTC card because is has a bank of dip switches allowing you to configure the card to meet most of the drive specs on the market. WDC, how- ever is the industry standard. WDC offers different card, each with different BIOS configurations. I recommend the DTC because it allows you the ability to upgrade to another drive without having to get another controller; whereas with WDC you may have to (ie. the XTGEN card only supports a 20 MB and will not support a ST-251). With DTC, all you have to do is change the switches. I believe that this post will clear up most of you questions. But if there is any thing you don't understand fell free to drop me a message. I really like E-mail. [Aside: I have been working for a computer firm in New York City for almost 7 years and have since become the Technical Supervisor. (Just in case you question my credablity.) ] -- J. Chin (a.k.a. Computer Dr.) xxxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xx ------------------ Carnegie Mellon University ------------------ xxx xxx xx 4730 Centre Ave. #412 ARPAnet: Johnny.J.Chin@andrew.cmu.edu xxxxxxxxxxxx Pittsburgh, PA 15213 BITnet: jc58@andrew.BITNET x xxxxxxxx x (412) 268-8936 UUCP: ...!harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!jc58 xx xx ---------------------------------------------------------------- xxxxxxxxxx Smile! -- Mr. HappyWOWface -- (got this from the network) Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are STRICTLY my own, and not CMU's.