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  • looking for good hard drive recommendations

    From S M Trimble@fate7@removespamswbell.net to comp.sys.apple2,comp.sys.apple2.marketplace on Thursday, July 17, 2003 13:47:28
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2

    Hello,
    Any suggestions on a fast (and relatively inexpensive if possible) SCSI hard drive replacement for my GS/ RamFAST rev D? I'm looking for something
    faster than the ROMdisk (Ramkeeper) I've been using for booting.

    Any brand/mfg./model/vendor you might recommend?

    Thanks,
    Shawn



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  • From supertimer@supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) to comp.sys.apple2 on Sunday, July 20, 2003 18:34:12
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2

    "S M Trimble" <fate7@removespamswbell.net> wrote:

    Hello,
    Any suggestions on a fast (and relatively inexpensive if possible) SCSI hard >drive replacement for my GS/ RamFAST rev D? I'm looking for something
    faster than the ROMdisk (Ramkeeper) I've been using for booting.

    Any brand/mfg./model/vendor you might recommend?

    I would suggest the Apple High Speed SCSI card or
    maybe the Focus IDE card/drive for the IIGS. The
    Focus would be a bit slower than the RamFAST but
    the Apple card (in IIGS mode) really is as fast as the
    RamFAST. I don't care what folks who have not
    used BOTH cards say but that is the truth. I was
    foolish enough to buy a RamFAST thinking that it
    was some great upgrade from the Apple card but to
    my dismay I found that it had problems that the
    Apple card didn't and was NOT faster in GS/OS.
    First of all, if you have any synthLAB player
    (or rather MIDIsynth player that plays synthLAB
    files) or MOD player running in the background,
    the music would skip anytime the hard drive is
    accessed on the RamFAST. This never happens
    with the Apple High Speed card.

    The RamFAST IS much faster under ProDOS 8
    but if you use RamKeeper, I assume you mainly
    are interested in GS/OS speed. Get the Apple
    card.
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  • From Bill Garber@willy46pa@comcast.net to comp.sys.apple2 on Sunday, July 20, 2003 19:36:06
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2


    "Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote in message news:20030720143412.06962.00000453@mb-m06.aol.com...
    "S M Trimble" <fate7@removespamswbell.net> wrote:

    Hello,
    Any suggestions on a fast (and relatively inexpensive if possible) SCSI
    hard
    drive replacement for my GS/ RamFAST rev D? I'm looking for something >faster than the ROMdisk (Ramkeeper) I've been using for booting.

    Any brand/mfg./model/vendor you might recommend?

    I would suggest the Apple High Speed SCSI card or
    maybe the Focus IDE card/drive for the IIGS. The
    Focus would be a bit slower than the RamFAST but
    the Apple card (in IIGS mode) really is as fast as the
    RamFAST. I don't care what folks who have not

    Got something against me Timer? I have one MicroDrive
    Plug'N'Play hard card left 800 mb IDE faster than a speeding
    SCSI, more powerful than an 800k floppy. Look it's not as
    expensive as the others either. In the GS, in the IIe, it's 2, 2,
    2 drives in one. Hot key bootable to drives 1 thru 9 at startup.
    GS/OS installed on partition 1, and ProDOS 2.0.3 on partition
    number 2. Price?, well, in the US it's $90 shipped. Outside add
    another $15. Not bad eh? I have one in my GS, and I love it.
    So have all my other customers, you will too. Thank you.

    Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprises };-)
    Web Site - http://garberstreet.netfirms.com
    Email - willy46pa@comcast.net



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  • From supertimer@supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) to comp.sys.apple2 on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 05:15:10
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2

    "Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net> wrote:

    "Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

    I would suggest the Apple High Speed SCSI card or
    maybe the Focus IDE card/drive for the IIGS. The
    Focus would be a bit slower than the RamFAST but
    the Apple card (in IIGS mode) really is as fast as the
    RamFAST. I don't care what folks who have not

    Got something against me Timer? I have one MicroDrive
    Plug'N'Play hard card left 800 mb IDE faster than a speeding
    SCSI, more powerful than an 800k floppy.

    Joachim Lange's MicroDrive hard card was one piece
    of IIGS hardware that I never did get a chance to play
    with. That's the only reason I didn't mention it.

    If it really is as fast as the other solutions, then I'm
    all for recommending it. Like I said, the reason I
    didn't mention it was simply because I never used
    one.
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  • From Bill Garber@willy46pa@comcast.net to comp.sys.apple2 on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 01:26:20
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2


    "Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote in message news:20030723011510.20330.00000577@mb-m29.aol.com...
    "Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net> wrote:

    "Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

    I would suggest the Apple High Speed SCSI card or
    maybe the Focus IDE card/drive for the IIGS. The
    Focus would be a bit slower than the RamFAST but
    the Apple card (in IIGS mode) really is as fast as the
    RamFAST. I don't care what folks who have not

    Got something against me Timer? I have one MicroDrive
    Plug'N'Play hard card left 800 mb IDE faster than a speeding
    SCSI, more powerful than an 800k floppy.

    Joachim Lange's MicroDrive hard card was one piece
    of IIGS hardware that I never did get a chance to play
    with. That's the only reason I didn't mention it.

    If it really is as fast as the other solutions, then I'm
    all for recommending it. Like I said, the reason I
    didn't mention it was simply because I never used
    one.

    That's a reasonable exclusion then. Now's your chance.
    I have one left and am setting it up now. Will have 4
    ProDOS partitions of 32 mb and 4 HFS of 160 mb each.
    More than enough room for whatever you do on a IIgs. ;-)

    Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprises };-)
    Web Site - http://garberstreet.netfirms.com
    Email - willy46pa@comcast.net



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  • From Phil Abel@phil_nonospam_abel@nonospam_prodigy_nonospam.net to comp.sys.apple2 on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 19:12:57
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2

    Anymore I think you're going to find that the SCSI card is going to be the bottleneck for data transfer and not the SCSI drive itself. I think 1mb/sec
    on a GS is approximately what the RAMFast is rated and most drives made
    after, oh the mid 90s anyway, can do several 10s of MB per second and
    beyond. So even allowing for seek time, etc. the drive is probably waiting
    on the SCSI card most of the time.

    Not sure what you are looking for in terms of size, but--

    I have used some Quantum ProDrive 50pin SCSI drives with good results (80-700mb). These were the drive of choice for Mac systems of the day so
    those you find will most likely be Mac pulls. Maybe I have been lucky, but
    the ones I have used are very quiet. After playing around with a 7200 RPM
    scsi drive that sounded like a jet engine and ran at a temp that was quite literally too hot to touch, I decided I needed to scale back a couple steps.

    Currently I am using a Seagate Hawk ST32155N 2.1GB SCSI as my primary drive.
    It is only a 5400RPM drive which keeps it quiet/cool, and provides far more disk space than I will ever need. This actually causes some issues with directory allocation on an HFS volume, because at that size, it stores in
    min 32k blocks. So even a 1k file shows up as 32k used disk space on a ~2GB HFS vol. Again, still not a disk space issue unless I've got tens of
    thousands of 1k files.

    I have another GS with a little 80mb Quantum ProDrive LPS which is so quiet that the fan on the SCSI case is louder than the drive motor, and it runs
    like a tank.

    Frankly, if you plan on keeping your gs for a long while, just stock up on a few 50pin SCSI drives and keep them stored away in an anti-static bag in
    case one of your primary drives conks out. I don't think anybody is making
    50 pin jobs anymore so pick some up while they are abundant and cheap on
    ebay. You can use adaptors to get 80pin, etc. drives to work with a 50pin interface though, so there will be future solutions. You should be able to
    get them off ebay for under $10 including shipping so they are cheap to acquire.

    "S M Trimble" <fate7@removespamswbell.net> wrote in message news:QNxRa.1440$q17.903988283@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com...
    Hello,
    Any suggestions on a fast (and relatively inexpensive if possible) SCSI
    hard
    drive replacement for my GS/ RamFAST rev D? I'm looking for something
    faster than the ROMdisk (Ramkeeper) I've been using for booting.

    Any brand/mfg./model/vendor you might recommend?

    Thanks,
    Shawn






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