🚀 go-pugleaf

A very informative posting, Chris!  Thought I would add my own experiences in...

In article <1381@ultb.UUCP> clf3678@ultb.UUCP (C.L. Freemesser) writes:
>
>My personal preferences for each item:
>
>1) Seagate hard disk mechs.  They are recognized as the best.

These are your personal preferences -- please don't throw in lines like "They
are recognized as the best"!

When I went to put together my own hard drive, the hard drive dealer steered
me away from Seagate, because they had switched manufacturing plants, and the
new drives were not reliable.

When selecting a hard drive, get the MTBF (mean time between/to failure?)
figures.  I have a Micropolous drive, and it should last twice as long as a
seagate based on these figures.

I have read on the net of many unhappy Seagate customers (the ROM7/ROM8
contraversy)--it is unlikely that they would recognize Seagate as the best!

>2) Adaptek 4000A controller.  Quite popular from what I gather.  There
>   is also the Adaptek 4000 controller, but this older version will NOT
>   support removable media hard disks.  However, the 4000 is cheaper.

I like the 4000A as well.  I believe there is a controller called omni or
omnti that is supposed to be very fast.  If you have a fast drive, you might
want to find out more.  I think the fastest result is to get an embedded-SCSI
controller drive, like the Quantum.

>3) ICD Host Adapter.  I like them, and everybody I know uses one.

I went with a BMS-200.  It worked for me....  I did have to get software that
would support more than 4 partitions -- it seems that BMS didn't bother
extending Atari's four partition scheme.

For me, the big win in building my own hard drive was speed!  I have a 28ms
65 meg drive that also happened to cost much less than an equivalent 60 ms
Atari drive!

>You will also need 3 cables.  First, you need a 20 pin card edge ->
>header to go from the hard disk to controller, a 34 pin card -> card to
>go from hard disk to controller, and a 50 pin header -> header to go
>from the controller to the ST interface.  The interface will come with
>the 19 pin DMA cable.  If you get a drive with an embedded SCSI
>controller, you only need the 50 pin cable.

My BMS-200 came with all cables and some mounting hardware.

You still need some form of enclosure.  If you buy a kit, like ICD's kit, make
sure the drive(s) you have will fit the enclosure.  ICD's kit will only take
half-height drives.  My drive happens to be a full-height.  Not a flame
against ICD or others, just be aware that there are different sized drives!

-- 
Paul Close	paul@cacilj.CTS.COM 	...!{uunet, ucsd, crash}!cacilj!paul

    The Obi-wan Kenobi method:  "Use the Source, Luke"	-Jim Fulton