🚀 go-pugleaf

in SCSI newsgroup, lupe@ukw.uucp (Lupe Christoph at cic) offered some
specifications he collected regarding this new age of fast 3.5 inch 1
gigabyte drives. He posted:

DEC             HP              Seagate         Micropolis      IBM       
     Fujitsu
DSP3105         C2247           ST11200N        2112            0663-L12  
     M2694SA
Fast SCSI-2     Fast SCSI-2     Fast SCSI-2     Fast SCSI-2     ?         
     Fast SCSI-2
5400RPM         5400RPM         5400RPM         5400RPM         4316RPM   
     4400RPM
250,000MTBF     300,000MTBF     300,000MTBF     200,000MTBF     ?         
     ?
1.05GB          1.05GB          1.05GB          1.05GB          1.044 GB  
     1.082GB
20ms max.seek   25ms max.seek   26ms max.seek   25ms max.seek   ?         
     ?
9.5ms ave.      ?               12ms ave        ?               9.4ms ave 
     10ms ave
1ms t-t.seek    2.5ms t-t.seek  1.9 ms t-t.seek 1.5ms t-t.seek  ?         
     ?
264bit ECC      ??bit ECC       ??bit ECC       64bit ECC       ?         
     ?
512KB cache     256KB cache     256KB cache     512KB cache     ?         
     ?
2yr? warranty   5yr warranty    5yr warranty    5yr warranty    ?         
     ?
 
Note that IBM has (announced?) a 0663-E15 with 1.206 GB.
 
I have benchmarked the DSP 3105 and the 0663-L12. The DEC disk performs
somewhat
better than the IBM disk. Sequential reads are much better. The difference
is most
noticeable on small blocks (1 sector), for all accesses
(random|sequential) (read
|write).

------ end of quote.


Evidentally the fastest drive for raw SCSI sustained throughput
(especially the outter tracks) is the amazing Maxtor Magic (1GB 3.5")
spinning away at an astounding 6600 RPM. It (when finalized and shipping)
will transfer data at 4.2MB/s sustained. I know a person who tested one a
few moths ago and got less than this (but may have been using test bursts
less than one megabyte). For measuring rates of throughput on drives
capable of very fast rates you should make certain your tests last at
least 1/2 per burst or maybe even one second for the test. This means
testing a drive with a 4 megabyte single SCSI read/write command... Not
500 or 700K as done in the "old days". I have always used 1.5 megabyte
burts for the last 3 years when doing my benchmarks and will now always
use 6 megabytes for the next 3 years.

Maxtor seems very very Hot!

If you want a quality drive housing and support hardware you might want to
try a Macintosh oriented SCSI drive vendor.

Dirt cheap drives illegally sold me two refurbished drives and tried to
claim they were NEW once. I eventually got my money back but DC drives
never really appologized for their deceit.

Stick with Mac vendors, or Premium Mac vendors (such as FWB Inc. in San
Francisco) for your peripherals or you may get burnt one day.