[SPARCbook] Which 2.5" IDE 6gb+ disks work well in 3GX?

[Bob Krzaczek]

On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Sunder wrote:
; I'd like a reccomendation for a drive that others have tried and know
; to work - I'd rather not buy a disk that won't fit in the sled, or
; will time out, etc...

Just last week I upgraded my 3GX with a 6GB drive from MCE (Mac Components
Engineered, <http://www.powerbook1.com/>).  I went to them because I
previously had a 1GB drive, and therefore needed the IDE/SCSI converter;
they're one of the few vendors selling that adapter bundled with a drive
for less than an arm and a leg.

The drive, with the adapter, fits into the sled without a problem. It came
up, formatted, newfs'd, and took the restore of my old system from an
external drive, all without a hitch.

Following advice I'd seen regarding system sleep/restore from other list
people, I partitioned the disk into three pieces, to ensure that the /CPR
file could never appear "too far" into the disk.  I created a 2GB root
filesystem, a healthy swap space, and left the rest for a home filesystem.

The 3GX still boots, sleeps, restores, and runs just fine.  It's probably
my imagination, but the system seems to restore from sleep faster than
before (sure, a faster drive would explain that, but I always assumed the
SCSI controller itself on the 3GX was the bottleneck).

Anyway, that drive is a winner in my book.  You can get it (MCE calls it
the "MobilStor 6400SCSI") for $400; a little pricey for 6GB, but not a bad
deal when you add in the SCSI/IDE converter.  It works well, no problems
yet, so I'll recommend it.

About the only oddity is that the drive has some interesting idle
characteristics; being a touch louder than the old 1GB IBM, you can
actually hear it as it randomly seeks around during idle periods.  Cute.

Good luck...

// boba


-- 
// Bob Krzaczek, RIT Center for Imaging Science, <krz at cis.rit.edu>