26 May
1999
26 May
'99
4:56 p.m.
On Wed, 26 May 1999, Allison J Parent wrote:
<Someone should correct me if I'm wrong
(I'd be interested in knowing that
<I'm wrong!), but the largest capacity MFM geometry is that of the Maxtor
<XT2190 (1024 cylinders * 15 heads), giving you just under 150 Mbytes (M=10*
<after formatting at 19 sectors/track. And the RLL version gets
<another 30% or so of capacity.
The 2190 is 1224*15. However the number of cylinders can be increased (it
was controller limit not the drive) the limit, I think is closer to
4096*16*18*512 or roughly over 600mb. The problem is that RLL with the
Do you mean that Maxtor used only about the first third of the available
platter for data? That seems like a bit of a waste. I do recall - years
back - discussion about how the XT1085 could be extended, but not by a
factor of three!
- don
higher bit packing, and EDSI with the higher data
rates put more data on
a square inch of media and make more sense than pushing the mechanics of
the drive.
<Of course, large embedded-controller SCSI drives are readily available on t
<surplus market these days. 9 Gbyte drives start below $150.00, and
<2 Gbyte drives seem to get around $40.
And they are small too!
Allison