Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis
From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Promotion on new hard drives
Message-ID: <1817@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 89 05:52:27 GMT
References: <6958@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <23692@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 44

In article <23692@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> lauac@mead.qal.berkeley.edu
(Alexander Lau) writes:
>In article <6958@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu
>(Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
>> [mentions Western Digital's 55% off offer on Preference drives]
> 
>DON'T GET THESE DRIVES!  I haven't had as much experience with
>Preference as I have with Seagates and Quantums, but from what
>I DO know:
>
>- the formatting software is brain-dead.
>- the drive cannot hook up to a LaserWriter IINTX.
>- Crashes are EXTREMELY difficult to repair, mostly because the
>formatting software is so brain-dead.

Nice to see someone on the net who is as opinionated, vitriolic, and 100%
sure-of-himself... as I am. :-)

That aside, I'd guess (read: confident but not certain) that Alex is
right, on the following grounds:

Western Digital is a fairly big name in the PC business. They make decent
products there, and charge a price that's on a par with their name recognition.
They tried the same pricing structure in the Mac market, with products
sold as a commodity (20/40 MB drives), and no name recognition whatsoever.
Does it surprise anybody that they couldn't sell any of them? If I ran WD
I'd shoot the marketing types. Notice that that "special offer" goes for
just about anybody on the planet.

On the technical side, I would guess that they are using NON-SCSI disks with
their own ST-506 to SCSI controller, for two reasons:
1) Alex says that they don't work with LaserWriters. Dead giveaway.
2) WD sells controllers to the PC market. They probably reused already-
developed technology to reduce their cost.

Somehow I don't think they're going to make it in the Mac market. So, if you
buy them, you just might have trouble getting them serviced later. On the
other hand, they're big enough to take some losses, so maybe they'll learn
better and survive.

---
Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet}
alexis@rascal.ics.utexas.edu  (last resort)