Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!umich!gumby!obryan
From: obryan@gumby.cc.wmich.edu (Mark O'Bryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Adaptec + Seagate hard drive question
Message-ID: <1990Mar10.173157.14559@gumby.cc.wmich.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 90 17:31:57 GMT
References: <1152@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> <27394@cup.portal.com> <1184@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: Western Michigan University
Lines: 22

In article <1184@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> bwhite@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Bill White) writes:
> 
> which is what I got the Adaptec for.  True, SCSI mapping would be nice,
> but then again, that'd make me lose a TRACK for every bad sector (wasteful
> IMHO).  Besides, can you imagine how much time backing up and restoring a

Actually, I don't believe that's true.  At least, on my 105 meg Conner
SCSI drive there are 34 physical sectors per track, with 33 of them 
available for data.  I.e., there's a spare sector on each track, in
addition to the spare tracks that all drives have.  Not only do you
not lose an entire track due to one bad sector, you also avoid a per-
formance hit due to having to seek to a spare track.

I'm not sure if this is the case for all SCSI drives or not.  I suppose
it could depend on the particular implementation of the smart controller
imbedded in your SCSI drive.  You might want to check to see which way
your individual drive handles it.

-- 
Mark T. O'Bryan                 Internet:  obryan@gumby.cc.wmich.edu
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI  49008