How good is Esix + Adaptec 1542B + Fujitsu M2263?

[Evan Leibovitch]

I'm planning to put the above combination on an AGI (everex clone) 386
system, but I have a few questions about it.

1) Does anyone have any experiences with the Adaptec and this model
   Fujitsu (670Mb formatted) drive as a matched set? The price and
   warranty seem incredibly good.

2) The Fujitsu literature states that its SCSI models come with a 64K
   cache buffer, which can be disabled. I had heard that the Esix SCSI
   driver may have trouble with controller-based caches. Will it be
   necessary to disable the Fujitsu's cache, and if so, what's the
   performance hit?

3) The Fujitsu spec sheets note that there are two SCSI models of the
   same drive - the M2263SA (single-ended) and M2263HA (differential).
   What's the difference when it's time to buy?

4) Is there any kind of tuning of the Adaptec jumpers, Unix kernal, or
   reformatting of the drive (to a different number of bytes/sector) to
   increase performance?

5) What companies make/sell a bare SCSI tape drive that will make
   QIC-150 format tapes?

Thanks for any help.

-- 
Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
     evan at telly.on.ca / uunet!attcan!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
      Keep an open mind -- you'll never know what might fall in.