CompuServe Thread

#Largest PAR drive ?

5 messages in this thread
#175964From: Don NellJun 18, 1995 11:05 AM
To all, What is the largest PAR compatible drive?. The latest information I have says it's the Micropolis 2217A IDE drive with 1.626 GB of storage. Is this still true ? Will the Conner 1.27 GB IDE drive work better with the PAR ? Thanks, Don
#175981From: Paul LempkeJun 18, 1995 4:04 PM
Don, >>Micropolis 2217A IDE drive with 1.626 GB of storage. Still the largest. >>Will the Conner 1.27 GB IDE drive work better with the PAR ? It is a little cooler and has a higher percentage of usable space, but is still smaller. It has also recently been discontinued. I actually have more m2217a drives available, than conners! Paul -Rising Star Graphics
#175990From: Don NellJun 18, 1995 7:39 PM
Paul, If the Micropolis has a higher capacity, then why does it have less usable space ? Thanks Don
#176591From: Paul LempkeJun 21, 1995 10:53 PM
>>If the Micropolis has a higher capacity, then why does it have less usable space ? I'm sorry that I don't have my notes in front of me and my brain is celebrating the summer solstice, but the idea has to do with peak performance. The more full the drive gets, the less throughput you get. Most drives are have higher throughput accessing the outer tracks and less on the inner tracks that get used as the drive fills. The folks at DPS say the m2217a and the cfa1275a both typically have a good 800MB before performance starts to drop off. Don't quote me on the numbers, but that's the general idea. It is all usable unless it all has to be the same high quality.
#176000From: Eron Bruce CohenJun 18, 1995 10:53 PM
Hey guys! For your information, I am posting this memo I took of the DPS ftp site (Yes, they have one, its noted below.) I hope this is helpful. This is being posted verbatim and without the permission of DPS: M E M O TO All DPS Dealers and Customers RE Compatible Hard Drives For DPS Personal Animation Recorder DATE MAY 1, 1995 (Revised) All models of the DPS Personal Animation Recorder require a dedicated IDE hard drive. As of this date, the following drives have been certified for use with the DPS DR-2100 (PAR-PC), DR-2150 (PAR-Amiga), DR-3100 (PAL PAR-PC) and the DR-3150 (PAL PAR-Amiga). Make Model Capacity Approx Record Time* Conner* CFA-850A 850 MB 5-9 Minutes Conner* CFA-1275A 1.27 GB 6-10 Minutes Micropolis* 2217A 1.626 GB 10-14 Minutes Conner CFA-540A 540 MB 3-5 Minutes Conner CFA-1080A 1.08 GB 6-9 Minutes Micropolis 2205A 542 MB 3-5 Minutes Micropolis 2210A 976 MB 6-9 Minutes Seagate ST-3600A 540 MB 3-5 Minutes Seagate ST-3655A 540 MB 3-5 Minutes Seagate ST-31220A 540 MB 3-5 Minutes *Indicates Preferred Drive Types Although all of the listed drives can be used, these drives have demonstrated consistently good playback and real-time recording performance when used with the DPS Personal Animation Recorders. When updating hard drives on existing PAR systems, it is a good idea to also update your PAR software. You can download the latest software at no charge from our 24-hour BBS. The DPS BBS phone number is 416-754-8368. In addition to our BBS, we now have an FTP site on the Internet. The site is ftp.dps-inc.com, the directory is "pub/DPS" (DPS must be in caps). This site contains the release versions of all of our software. The BBS and the Internet FTP service are open to both DPS dealers and end-users. *Note: DPS does not sell hard drives directly and some of these models are no longer in production. Drives are available from our dealers and from hard drive speciality distributors. Do to the high performance nature of these drives, it is important to ensure that adequate airflow is provided. In most cases, a supplemental cooling fan is required. Figures listed are for total time on a given drive. Because adaptive sampling routines are employed by the DPS Personal Animation Recorder, it is not possible to provide an absolute recording time. Factors such as image complexity, Q-factor, block size and the amount of total hard drive capacity used for motion video storage can cause significant variations in these numbers.