HD – Quantum or Maxator?
29 messages in this thread
I am in the market for a bigger Hard drive for my A500. Currently, I am
using a 52 meg Quantum on a GVP series II A500HD+. I am considering Maxator
and Quantum, does anyone have any opinions or reservations about these two?
Is the installation a simple procedures or should I have my dealer do it?
A. Pagan
Quantums are, in my opinion, better and faster drives, especially in the
large sizes, but they are also more expensive. The Quantum LPS series
carry a 5 year warranty, versus a 1 year warranty on the Maxtor. The newer
Quantum ELS series carry a 2 year warranty. Both companies make good
drives, but I have had quite a lot of success with the Quantums and with
the company's tech support. They get my vote.
Steve,
Thanks for your input. I am leaning towards a Quantum; what can you tell me
about the ELS series as opposed to the LPS? Do you think I would have
problems installing it on my GVP A500HD+ or should I let my dealer handle
it? I've changed ROM and CPU chips before, but I have never installed a
hard drive other than fitting it on the side of my A500!
A. Pagan
well, If we're giving PERSONAL opinions, my vote DEFINITELY has to go
toward Maxtor. I own (currently) 7 Maxtor hard drives, none under 213MB.
Some are SCSI, some are IDE, and 1 is ESDI. I have a 213MB that is going on
3 years old, used 24 hours a day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year. never been
reformatted,never had SNYTHING done with it (well, it HAS been reformatted,
but just to install OS/2 2.0 on it. wasn't a fix-whatever's-wrong
reformat). drive worked 1 year as a BBS Hard disk, then now almost 2 years
as an OS/2 drive (circa 8 months under OS/2 2.0). Personally, I have a
340MB IDE that had a problem when it had like 15 MOS. on it 3 months over
the warranty. they CROSS-SHIPPED me a replacement, even though it was OUT
of warranty, and even though I COULD NOT find my invoice. I guess just
having the drive was enough. As I was saying, they shipped me a drive UPS
RED label (their expense), and gave me 2 weeks to send the old drive back!
they did this, because some tape backups abort the whole backup if it
encounters a read error. So, i set the drive up as the D: drive
(yeah…onna' PeeCee), formatted it, and XCOPY'd all the stuff from the bad
one to the good one. Hmmmm…can anyone say that about ANY other drive
company? I just got an A2000 with a quantum LPS 105 in it. I'm going to
sell the drive, and put in a Maxtor 7213S (200MB SCSI) why? well, I have
confidence in Maxtor. that 340MB IDE was the ONLY drive (Maxtor) that I've
owned that has failed. I've gone through about 17 Maxtor hard drives since
1987, some were traded in on larger drives, some were sold used to finance
a larger drive, etc… NONE have failed, 'cept the one 340MB. what drive do
I like, you ask? hehehe…gimme an M "M" gimme an A "A" …..
Tony
BTW, I am ***NOT*** associated with Maxtor, corp. in any way,shape, or
form.
simply a customer that regards them as a manufacturer with products of
the highest quality. did I tell you they also have a 24-hour support BBS?
and an automated-faxback-info-thingie?
Tony, again.
Tony,
Thanks for your thorough input. Another user on this forum told me that
Quantum's tend to be faster; since you have used them both, have you
noticed any obvious speed differences? I am also very interested in the
number of the Maxtor BBS if you have it handy, thanks!
A. Pagan
well…so far, they'r epretty much equivalent, except whn we get to the
larger maxtor's…they have large cache's on-board (128k, or 256K)
but, all in all, performance is equivalent. anyway, I'd rather sacrifice
2-7% performance, for a drive that I ***KNOW*** will be reliable.
unfortunately I've had bad experiences with some Quantum's in a DOS/Novell
environment. For some reason, they like to crap out in the first month of
service. Same goes for Western Digital(IDE) hard drives. now, again, that;s
in a DOS/Novell environment. i've stuck with Maxtor for years, and will
continue. I have a Maxtor PS-17S 1.7GB SCSI-II HD on a 486/33 with an
Adaptec AHA-1542B controller: flawless operation for about a year now.
the Maxtor BBS number is: (303)678-2222
Tony
Angel:
At this time I have a 200 meg Quntum & a 200 meg Maxtor in my A3000. The
Quantum is their ProDrive 1/2 height series, the Maxtor is a 1/4 height
drive, and I perfer the Maxtor, it's slightly faster, but is MUCH quieter
than the Quantum drive. The speed difference is so slight as to be not
noticable.
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
Mike:
Any problems with read/write errors with either of your drives? My first HD
was a Quantum and eight months after I had it I got Read/Write errors until
it finally died. It was under warranty, so I got a replacement without too
much of a hassle. I learned two things then, (1) make FREQUENT backups and
(2) Read/Write errors are worse than Guru's!!!
A. Pagan
Angel:
Over the years I've owned several different Quantum drives. I've owned
ProDrive 100 meggers, 170's, and my current 210. I've also owned several
LPS Quantum drives, all 105's, and so far I've had 1 Prodrive 105, one
Prodrive 170, and one 105LPS go bad on me. All the drives were replaced
under warrantee, so I've no complaint there, and only the 170 was
definately the drives fault, the other ones it could possibly have been a
problem with the powersupply in my machine, but I replaced the drives
instead, and it seemed to fix the problem, so I don't really know.
I havn't owned enough Maxtor drives to comment on them yet, so I won't.
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
Tony,
Don't sell that Quantum. It's every bit as good a drive as the
Maxtors and carries a 5 year warranty (if it's an LPS series.) Your
experience with Maxtor pretty much parallels mine with Quantum. I don't
intend this as a flame of Maxtor, but only to let you know that the Quantum
is a fine product and the company has been excellent with customer and tech
support. Last year I sold a 40 meg Quantum to a fellow in Vancouver. He
installed the drive incorrectly and fried it. He called me and I told him
the drive was still under warranty (it was more than 3 years old.) He
called Quantum, they had him ship the drive and then returned to him a NEW
one. I think you will be just as happy with that Quantum as you've been
with your Maxtors.
Angel,
I don't know exactly the differences between the ELS and LPS series
of drives other than that the former are lower cost. However, the lower
cost may only be because they have less of a warranty: two years versus
five years for the LPS series. Installation shouldn't be too difficult
unless you are very frightened of working with hardware. If you are
replacing a hard drive then all you really need to do is know how to
connect the cables and set the drive ID jumper on the drive, then know how
to go about formatting the drive using your hard drive formatting software.
If you are adding the drive to another hard drive, then you need to be
aware of how to jumper the drive ID and handle the termination resistor
paks. Usually the last drive on the chain is terminated, so you would have
to remove the terminating resistor paks from one of the drives. You will
also need the correct ribbon cables, etc. If all this sounds too
complicated for you, then by all means let your dealer do it for you or
find a friend who is knowledgeable.
Steve,
Thanks for your advice! I'll probably do the installation myself, it's just
something that I have never done before, so naturally I would be a little
apprehensive about it. You do make it sound easy, so I'll give it a shot!
A. Pagan
Angel,
Carefully read your GVP manuals regarding new drive installation
for any helpful info it may have. I will assume that whatever drive you
get should come with some brief installation instructions. Hard drives
will have a set of (usually) three jumpers in a set on the board. These
are the jumpers used to set the drive ID. They usually are labeled 1, 2,
4. IF unjumpered the drive ID is 0. They are then jumpered in binary
fashion to create a drive ID between 0 and 7. If you are adding this
drive, then your current drive is likely set to 0. You can check that in
your hard drive software to see what the SCSI device number is. YOu must
set the next drive to something different. The next thing to be aware of is
termination. Your existing drive and all drive come with terminating
resistor paks usually located immediately behind the ribbon cable
connector. If you have more than one drive in the chain then only the last
drive is terminated, so you would have to remove the resistor paks from the
first drive (the drive at the END of the ribbon cable is the one that
should be terminated.) Most of the rest is pretty simple.
Steve,
You and others on this forum have been very helpful — Thanks!
A. Pagan
Quantum ELS and MUCH slower that LPS drives… I prefer Maxtor for speed!
MAXTOR……not unless you get the panther series. I wish that Western
Digital made SCSI Caviar drives…..those are fast little buggers.
Seagate ST-14600N 4600RPM 10.5ms access
THIS is a fast drive….full height though
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Big Seagate drives are fast… to be truth, they are not Seagate drives…
Segate bought a few months ago the complete CDC (Control Data) line of
drives which where the fastest at this point and put their name on it.
The 664 meg drive I have has CDC in the bios…but the 1.36 GIG (ST-14600N)
is listed as a seagate drive…which I believe it is.
The 1.36 GIG is a quite bit faster then the 664…but then I have it hooked
to a SCSI-I controller. If I hooked it to a SCSI-II controller it would
dump on the 664…since that is a SCSI-I drive.
My buddy is playing around with some seagate 3.55 GIG drives…..he works
at a place that OEM tests drives and there for gets them real cheap. He has
two (2) 1.36 GIG drive JUST on his BBS (he is a storage NUT!!)
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Dave,
SeaGate bought out several other drive manufacturers, so as the
drives get updatted, SeaGate's name put into the ROM. Of course, since
SeaGate now owns them…they truly are SeaGate drives, but as with most
mergers, many of the original designers and R&D teams from the original
companies are still around.
Don
I understand that…But they normaly don't change the BIOS if they don't
change the drive….ST4766N's have been around for awhile…my 664 is a
currect drive and still sez CDC.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
I want to break into this harddrive thread with a question.
I have 2 136 meg fujitsu's laying around. I was first using them in my
orginal IBM and Amiga systems. I had a GVP controller in my first Amiga and
saw no problems.
I upgraded to an A3000 awhile ago and tried to hook one up by itself…no
go…so I just left the original 50 meg drive in and dissabled the boot
partition…..the 136 worked fine.
Now I'm setting up my other A3000 to run my BBS….I never used the 50 meg
while it was on my first A3000 system and could use the money from selling
it.
So I've been tring to set up this 136 fujitsu to run alone. No go. The
system WILL NOT BOOT WHAT SO EVER if this drive is pluged in and terminated
correctly. The only way I can start the system and have the drive connected
is if
A) I remove the termination or
B) Tie a second drive in line with it. I have tried tying the 2 136
Fujitsus together and this DIDN'T work. But will work fine if the other
drive is a quantum, seagate, etc….
Now I called Fujitsu and found out that I have the MAC version of their
Harddrive….which has a modified attention line (I think). This drive
shouldn't work in the IBM…but I was using in an IBM for atleast a year.
Now they are going to get back to me….I'm going to send the drives in to
get the IBM type firmware….but Fujitsu dosen't think this will fix the
problem… Any ideas?
The drives will run fine on GVP controllers, IBM's, and inline on an A3000
bwith another drive (from a different manfacture). But they won't run by
themselves on an A3000.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Dave,
I believe it's the reset line that needs to be lifted to get some
Mac type drives to work with the Amiga. That's line 40. You might make up
a custom cable for testing.
Don
Thanks I'll give that a try.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Thanks Don!! What you told me to do didn't work.
But it gave me the idea of removing the attention line….the line the
Fujits fujitso tech said was modified on the MAC version drive. And it is
running great now.
Dave PS…I had to remove
pin (line) 32 ATN
Same thing appended to us with Maxtor 200MB drives… we called CBM and
they told us to remove a specific jumper that was marked as "reserved" on
the drive and it did correct the problem… maybe you shold call you
dealer.
I am my dealer :>
And C= tech had no idea of what the problem was.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Pat,
I've not used the ELS drives. What difference in speed do you find
between the ELS and LPS series?
There is a big difference between ELS and LPS drives. I don't have my
results with me now, but when I used to have 600-800k/sec with a 52 &105
Mb LPS drive, and 1000-1200k/sec with the 120 & 240 Mb LPS drives I only
get about 400-500k/sec with the new ELS 42, 85, 127 & 170 MB Quantum
drives, which is not to bab, but not as fast as the old models. The
design is also cheaper… looks like they used less expensive parts on the
new line. BUT the 170MB is very cost effective!
Be carefull, the 120MB and 240MB Quantum LPS do NOT work on all
controlers, not all of them support the double speed transfer mode they
offer, to A2091 did work with them at the time I tried it, but GVP did,
with good results.
Pat,
I would be willing to bet that the slower speed of the ELS may be
in part due to a change in the cache. Wonder if the ELS drives have a
cache. If not that may also result in a speed reduction. BTW the problem
with the Q240s not working with all controllers was fixed. There is a
field upgrade ROM you can get from Quantum (V6.2, I believe) which fixes
the problem. The 240s had a problem with controllers which used the
protocols of one of the WD SCSI chips. I had the problem with a Nexus, but
the new drive ROM fixed it. Quantum has a tech support person who
specializes in Amigas, so they were right on top of it. They didn't work
with the GVPs originally,, so GVP had to modify their ROMs./ex