#Hard Disk Drive
23 messages in this thread
Sorry I havn't been on the Forum for a while, but we have been busy shipping
our New 20MEG drives.
We have been shipping for about three weeks and are starting to get some
feedback.
If any of you have any questions leave them here or in EASY-PLEX I will be back
on the Forum and answer them Late Sunday Night.
20 MEGs w/SCSI controller – $999.95 Sug. Retail
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd.
Wichita, KS
(316) 267-6321
Hi Ed! Say, I don't really want a 20MB drive, I'd like to start at 100MB or
more (if I can afford it…). Do you sell the SCSI controller board (and
driver) seperately, and if so, how much?? I assume that your controller will
work with any SCSI drive I can find…
A couple more questions… does the controller pass the bus through, and is
the Amiga<>controller interface a DMA channel?
One more: any chance of an ST506 interface or a ST506->SCSI converter? I've
got a 44MB ST506 drive that I might be able to talk myself into hooking up to
my Amiga… – Bela
Bela, wanna lose the 44 MB st506? it will (or so they say) fit into my uforge
box.
Bri
No, no, it's in heavy use right now in my Sperry IT. I'm just thinking that it
would be even more useful in my Amiga, if I only had a controller… – Bela
PS: the same drive can be found for <$600 in magazines… tell me if you want a
more definite reference.
Aw, c'est la vie.
I got Computer Shopper and saw the prices.
Thanks,bri
Ok, it's the MiniScribe 6053, 44MB, 28ms access time. Voice coil, automatic
head retraction on power off. Very nice drive, at $600 it's virtually a steal.
(The $600 price I saw was with an IBM PC controller board; probably cheaper
without, if you can talk the company into selling it that way). – Bela
Bela:
Yes, by all means, the controller is available seperately.
As a stand alone, the Suggested Retail is $299.95 with our standard
discounts available to Authorized Commodore Dealers and Authorized
Commodore Developers.
As a stand alone, the controller will address up to seven
standard SCSI devices, which means drives of any size imaginable.
(Formatting a 1 Gigabyte drive may take a while, however.) We
will be offering larger drives in the future and will get anybody
any size or configuration on a special order basis. For example,
we are now putting together a 270 MEG MaxStore 8" HD system for
a customer at a cost of about $4,000.00. A Special Order 80 MEG
would be $1500 – $1800 Retail, depending on your requirements.
Of course, the controller passes the bus. Would you
expect any thing different from us? And of course it works with
our aMEGA 1 MEG RAM Board. More importantly, is that the SCSI
controller will be the hardware base for our upcoming network,
which will allow several users to access to the HD and each other.
(B.E.S.T. accounting package will probably be the first to offer
software designed to take advantage of this networking system.)
Sorry! No support is anticipated for ST-506/412, SCSI is
the emerging standard, so why go backwards. And as for DMA, see
my response to Joergen's MSG # 43470.
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd.
Wichita, KS
(316) 267-6321
Ed, thanks for the answer. At $300 for the bare controller, I'm pretty
interested! May get in touch with you soon. The reason for ST506/412 support
is that drives for that standard are available at extremely low prices, because
of the PC. I can get a 85MB, 28ms access time drive, with IBM PC controller,
for $1000. I can probably talk them into selling it without the controller for
about $900. If a ST506->SCSI converter was in the $200 range, then total cost
for the 85MB subsystem would be $1400. Not greatly cheaper than $1500-1800,
but enough for me to care. Especially because I'm not sure that the
ST506->SCSI converter would be as much as $200. – Bela
The reason to go backwards is that there are a heck of a lot of
(inexpensive) ST-506 type drives on the market… I have *4* 20 mb
drives, extremely fast ones, languishing in the closet. This is
aggravating, to say the least. I'd trade a couple of them for a
controller… or, of course, I'd buy a controller if there was
such a thing (at a price like yours… not 999.99!) Hopefully,
you'll reconsider. If not; oh well. I tried. –Ben– <grin>
Ben– Most all drives on micros are ST506 drives. SCSI is the interface between
the computer and the controller, while ST506 is the I/F between the controller
and the drive. Perhaps a picture would make it more clear for you and any
others…
———————–
| Computer I/F bus |
———————–
V <—— This is the Amiga bus
——————-
| SCSI interface |—> to other controllers for disk, tape, etc.
——————–
V <—— This is the SCSI bus
———————–
| disk controller #1 |—————– <–These are 2 ST506 connections
———————– |
V V
———————- ———————-
| Hard disk drive #1 | | Hard disk drive #2 |
———————- ———————-
C Ltd sells the SCSI I/F. You can buy the disk controllers made by Adaptec,
Western Digital, OMTI and others for <$200. The SCSI interface will support
several controllers which may be for disk or tape. Most disk controllers only
support 2 drives but with 5.25 disks now in the >200Meg range you probably
don't need more than one controller. The controllers typically are the same
size as a 5.25" drive and bolt onto the top of the drive.
My preference in disk controllers is the Adaptec ACB-4070 which supports 2,7
Run Length Limited (RLL) encoding. This allows 50% more data on a disk than a
simple controller. ie, 30meg from a 20, or 120 from a 80. I think other outfits
now have RLL controllers but this is the one I'm familiar with. If you contact
a mail order outfit for a controller make sure you ask for SCSI as IBM PC (ugh)
versions exist for most of these and they are far more common.
Tom
ok, thanks… (I think I knew that, but…) in any case, I prefer
one piece of hardware to two; it gets expensive, not so? I will
check into those, however, and if the combined price isn't too
high, I'll bite. Unless someone offers me a trade? –Ben–
Gee, 300 for C Ltd controller, maybe 200 for each SCSI-ST506 box, and virtually
any hard drive combo doesn't sound too pricy to me. At least not yet. I have no
doubt that prices will come down eventually though.
Regards, Larry.
Did I understand you correctly, when you said that
a) there is room in the box for another 20 MB drive, which just can be
plugged in ?
b) that in case of power failure, the disk head will automatically retract ?
(options possible: no action, head lift, full head retraction)
-Joergen
Joergen:
Yes! A second HD (or Tape Streamer) can be put in the same box.
There is room, and the power supply is sufficient (depending on
your chioce of drive/tape unit) for satisfactory operation. Our
SCSI controller will support up to seven devices, so future ex-
pansion is a piece of cake. We will be offering larger drives
in the future and will get anybody any size or configuration on
a special order basis. For example, we are now putting together
a 270 MEG MaxStore 8" HD system for a customer at a cost of about
$4,000.00. A Special Order 80 MEG would be $1500 – $1800 Retail,
depending on your requirements.
And our controller will be the hardware base for a network,
which will allow several users to access to the HD and each other.
(B.E.S.T. accounting package will probably be the first to offer
software designed to take advantage of this networking system.)
About power failure protection, I know there is some kind
of protection in the case of power outage and during normal off
time, but I am not sure what it is. I will find out and get back
to you, or you can call me at the office.
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd.
Wichita, KS
(316) 267-6321
If I want to add a second drive after going to Timbuctu or C Ltd. has filed for
Chapter 11, how will I interface that to the Amiga softwarewise ?
Does the driver you are supplying (?) with the controller support up to 7
devices as is or how ?
-Joergen
Another question:
Not being DMA, how is the SCSI – CPU interface ? Will the CPU issue an I/O
request (read) and later on be interrupted by the controller when a block (how
large?) of data is ready for moving from the controller to memory (at full
memory/CPU speed ?). Or is the CPU more involved in the operation ?
Basically, it boils down to the question: What is the impact on multi-tasking?
-Joergen
Joergen: (Again)
RE: DMA and the C Ltd. SCSI Controller.
I will try to clear the air once and for all on DMA for
Hard Disk Access, why we chose not to use DMA and the net effect
on the end user.
First, we built our own DMA drive before we built the non-
DMA unit we are marketing. True DMA (ala Atari ST) is not possible
on the Amiga, even though a HD is "DMA" doesn't mean that is fast.
Our production non-DMA drive ranged from 'about as fast' (+/- 15%)
on opreations like loading Dpaint, Modula compilations from disk,
Database operations and opening windows full of icons; to 'half as
fast' on operations like loading some long files. In many cases,
like loading V.I.P. and Analyze! files, where the loading is done
from the program while computation was going on, the non-DMA drive
was actually faster. (Has something to do with DMA Interrupts,
which I don't understand, even after our techies tried to explain
it to me.) – So, overal speed of a DMA HD is faster, but not all
that much.
Second, the DMA version cost 50% more that the non-DMA unit.
Which would have meant the retail would have been well over our
'under a thousand dollars' target price.
Last, the DMA unit would not have been as easy to adapt to
our upcoming SCSI Local Area Network as our non-DMA unit. The DMA
activity, it seems, does at times preclude (over-ride?) the multi-
tasking ability of the Amiga, a situation which would be very very
difficult to deal with when your network is designed to run as a
high-priority task in one window of the machine.
Your analysis was mostly correct, we are using a pseudo-
DMA 'cashe' scheme. We are grabbing 5K hunks (optimal by our
tests) and dropping them into memory using the DMA channel. This
allows us to set our task priortiy down far enough to allow higher
priority (multi-) tasks to over-ride us.
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd.
Wichita, KS
(316) 267-6321
Ed,
I saw your hard disk at the World of Commodore show, and must say that I am
impressed. You have managed to come out with a reasonably priced alternative to
the rest of the market, and I think your company, in producing the controller
as well as the aMEGA card, are well on the way to becoming and remaining a
success in the Amiga area.
Too bad you couldn't make it to Toronto yourself. It was quite a show, and
served to reinforce my gut feeling that the Amiga is not only a great machine,
but that it has a future unrivalled by any other low cost machine on the
market.
Regards, Larry.
Larry:
Thanks for the good words about our new Hard Drive, I'm
glad you liked it. (By the way you can tell your members that
they can hook their old Micro-Fudge 20 and 40 MEG units directly
to our SCSI controller and use our software, so they don't need
to worry about future support from Micro-Fudge, and they will
get a 30 to 100% speed increase as a bonus.)
The controller will address up to seven (six additional)
standard SCSI devices, which means drives of any size imaginable.
(Formatting a 1 Gigabyte drive may take a while, however.) We
will be offering larger drives in the future and will get anybody
any size or configuration on a special order basis. For example,
we are now putting together a 270 MEG MaxStore 8" HD system for
a customer at a cost of about $4,000.00. A Special Order 80 MEG
would be $1500 – $1800 Retail, depending on your requirements.
Did you know that the SCSI controller sold with the Hard
Drive unit will be the hardware base for our upcoming network,
which will allow several users to access to the HD and each other.
(B.E.S.T. accounting package will probably be the first to offer
software designed to take advantage of this networking system.)
We, also, believe that the Amiga is "unrivaled by any other low
cost machine," and we are going to prove it. If you want to see
the future, WATCH US!
By the way, we are self funded and the biggest reason that
we don't have several more products (designs completed and tested)
on the market is simply lack of money to tool up production and to
buy the necessary inventory. Gee, I wish I had a rich uncle. I'd
even settle for a rich cousin!
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd.
Wichita, KS
(316) 267-6321
Thanks for the extensive info Ed.
One thing… is there any way to tell what type of interface a drive has by
just looking at the ads? I see a lot of ads for cheap HDs, but few mention the
interface. Would I be safe in assuming that if they were SCSI that they would
mention it in the ad?
Regards, Larry.
Larry:
Yes, if a drive is SCSI they would say so. Most drives you
see in mags include an I.B.M controller. If you can buy the Drive
without the Controller (saving about $50-$100) you should be able
to buy a SCSI adapter for it from OMTI or ADAPTEC for in the
range of $100-$175. Some of the newer controllers even include
RLL encoding which increases the capacity (and speed) of the
drive by 50%, so buying a 40 MEG with a SCSI/RLL controller
would give you a very cheap 60 MEG Drive.
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd.
Wichita, KS
(316) 267-6321
What software options come with the SCSI interface for the various disk
controllers and drives? Is there software support for an Adaptec ACB-4070 rll
controller and perhaps for a Western Digital 1002-SHD? Also, could I configure
for various disks with a choice of heads, tracks, etc? The controller looks
like a good way for me to get a hard disk on my Amiga and make use of old
hardware I have lying around.
Tom
Pant, pant. )$')'$%"'"$*@ uForge!
Bri