🚀 go-pugleaf

In a preceding article, sassoj@vccnw10.its.rpi.edu (John J. Sasso Jr.) writes:
>   On my i486 PC I have a 104M harddrive (SCSI), which has only 15M left on
>   it.  Although I could buy another 100+M harddrive to get more storage, I
>   was thinking of turning to removable storage (high capacity disks).  I was
>   looking at floptical drives and Bernoulli drives.  From what I understand,
>   (1) Bernoulli drives run about $500, and flopticals about $300, (2) the
>   disks that come w/Bernoulli drives are usually 90M, whereas the disks for
>   flopticals are 21M.  However, how do these two drives compare as far as 
>   access time is concerned (as well as w/ harddrives)?  In the future, plan
>   on having over 200M worth of programs and data files that I'll have to 
>   store.  So, should I get a floptical or Bernoulli drive?  I figure if I 
>   buy either one, all I will have to spend money on is the disks, and not 
>   have to spend hundreds of $$$ on another harddrive.

It is an advantage in my eyes that you do get (kind of) unlimited
storage with these drives.  Keep in mind that both are slower than hard
drives, no matter what the companies claim.  The Bernoulli 90 is claimed
to have an access time of something like 18 ms.  Yeah right!  I clocked
it at the fastest of around 35 ms.  The drive is still pretty quick for
most applications and I would recommend it over the floptical, which is
essentially a gigantic floppy.  The access time is between 150-200 ms
and you notice it.  Then again the flopticals are probably more reliable
(I've never seen any problems with Bernoullis really, though) and
smaller.  Take your pick, since there are advantages to both.  For the
record I would get a Bernoulli drive, since I've used them before and
speed is a BIG concern for me.


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-Ben Shelton (bs3n+@andrew.cmu.edu)
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