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From: Darryl Okahata <darrylo@sr.hp.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Recommended SCSI hard drive for BSD system
Date: 27 Sep 1996 12:32:03 -0700
Organization: Hewlett Packard Sonoma County
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References: <324703FC.41C6@austin.ibm.com> <3249A04D.41C67EA6@cisco.com>
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"Keith A. Tomkins" <ktomkins@cisco.com> writes:
> I had a Quantam 2 gig drive die about a year ago. It was only about
> 6 months old when it went belly up. They had to replace it 4 (yes that
> is
> really four) times before they got one that worked. I forget what the
> original
> one was, but it was replaced with an Atlas and a Grand Prix. Neither of
> those
> performed worth a damn. They finally replaced it with a Capella (which I
Funny, I can get 6MB/sec *sustained* out of a narrow-SCSI 4GB
Quantum Atlas (this is reading a 256MB file), and I've heard of others
getting even better performance. If this is poor performance to you,
I'd like to know what you consider good.
Here's my $0.02:
* Quantum: I've got an Atlas, Fireball, and Lightning, and I like them
all, although the Lightning isn't exactly a stellar performer. The
Atlas is noisy, but fast; it's not a drive that you want to get if you
want a quiet drive. I'd avoid the Quantum Empire and, maybe, the
Grand Prix. I don't know about the Fireball TM (it might be good),
but I've seen a few complaints about the IDE version. Don't know
about the Traiilblazer. I'd recommend the Atlas and Fireball to
others. However, the Atlas (and some other fast Quantum drives) can
respond too quickly for some older/slower SCSI adapters to handle
(which causes the controller to hang); in this case you have to slow
down the drive to make it work with the controller (real solution: buy
a newer/decent controller).
* Seagate: The old (obsolete?) Hawk series are good. I don't know about
the newer Hawk 2XL drives. The Barracudas also seem to be good, but
they run *HOT* and need to be cooled well, or they can die a VERY
early death. The Barracudas (old ones, at least) also seem to come
with the write cache disabled (it's enabled by default on Quantum
Atlas drives), which slows down performance.
* IBM: I've generally heard good things about IBM drives.
-- Darryl Okahata
Internet: darrylo@sr.hp.com
DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
constitute the support, opinion, or policy of Hewlett-Packard, or of the
little green men that have been following him all day.