scsi rll trade off questions?

[Byron Lunz]

In article <14978 at ut-emx.UUCP> allred at ut-emx.UUCP (Kevin L. Allred) writes:
>I'm putting together a low end workstation for my personal use at home.
>It will have a 386SX, 4MB memory and monochrome VGA graphics.
...
>I was only considering an RLL drive with 1:1 interleve controller until
>I had pointed out to me that Segate has recently started marketing a
>low cost SCSI addaptor (ST01 and ST02) suitable for use with its
>ST296N 80MB hard disk.  This combination reportedly offeres about 750
>KB/sec transfer rate, which is comparable to the 1:1 interleve RLL
>transfer rate, and it is more cost effective.  Apparently the SCSI

I received my new Gateway 2000 386/20 a few days ago.  It arrived with
a Seagate ST296N and SCSI controller (not sure of the model #).  Transfer
rate was one of my reasons for purchasing this system, and I was assured
prior to the purchase by the salesperson that I could expect 800KB/sec.
I was quite disappointed when both Spintest and Coretest 2.7 gave me
data transfer rates of 440-460KB/sec!  Then, just today Mark Davis
<davis at cs.unc.edu>, reported that some users are seeing transfer 
rates of 950KB/sec!  

The interesting part is that when I called Gateway, the salesman
immediately began reciting what sounded like a prepared statement to
the effect that Seagate had lied to them!  Then he quickly offered
me a ST4096/DTC controller combo as a replacement, with a transfer
rate of 550KB/sec.  It's in the mail.  If someone out there is 
actually seeing transfer rates around or over 800KB/sec, I'd sure
like to hear about it.

P.S. The drive documentation supplied with my system says the
  interleave is 1:1.  And the access time, rated at 28ms, is measured
  at 33.7ms by Coretest.
-- 
Byron Lunz
Tektronix Logic Analyzer Division
byronl at copper.MDP.TEK.COM
Beaverton, Oregon