| From: | Neil Bothwick |
| Date: | 4 Aug 2001 at 23:47:57 |
| Subject: | Re: AA22 review of the PlexWriter |
Jonathan Day said,
> Neil seems to be a great SCSI fan, and TBH I can understand this given it's
> merits over 'Classic' IDE solutions. The standard IDE interface in my A1200
> is crap and the review of the PlexWriter reflected this, being very anti
> IDE.
Not anti-IDE, just pointing out the limitations of the very oild IDE
implementation on the Amiga motherboard.
> The thing is many users now own Flyers, and in 3 months many (hopefully) of
> us will be using AmigaONEs which will have a decent IDE interface.
> The main thing that came across in the review, to me anyway, was that this
> drive was IDE, and IDE is crap.
Not IDE in general, this IDE interface. My PC's IDE hard drive is
slightly faster than the U/W SCSI drive on my CyberstormPPC :(
> I acknowledge that Neil does clearly state
> that Flyer users should find it okay, and I think it was right for Neil to
> point out the crap abilities of standard Amiga IDE and compare them to a PC,
> but should "IDE is crap" really form the major premise of the review?
It's not that IDE is unsuitable for this sort of work, Plextor wouldn't
have made the drive if that's the case. It's that the Amiga's IDE simply
isn't up to the job. A product has to be reviewed in context, a review
written for, say, Linux format would be different.
> The boxout states:
> SYSTEM: Any Amiga with a fast IDE interface and plenty of RAM.
> SUMMARY: A good drive, but the Amiga with it's slow IDE interface, really
> needs a SCSI version.
> 2/4
> Plenty of RAM? Eh? What's this? There's no mention of RAM in the review. Is
> there a minimum required? And what is "plenty" nowadays on an Amiga, it used
> to be 8Mb? (I have 32Mb Fast, BTW)
CD writing generally requires plenty of RAM, and more helps offset the
disadvantages of the slow interface.
> I would have thought something like the following would perhaps have been a
> little better:
> SYSTEM: Any Amiga with an IDE interface and at least x Mb RAM, but the more
> the better.
It's hard to put a figure on X though, which is why I didn't.
> In the editorial of the same issue, David Stroud says we "can't keep AA
> going exclusively 'Classic Amiga' magazine forever..." Whilst I know David
> was talking about content not directly Amiga related, I feel that it is all
> part of the same thing. To me, it seemed as if the PlexWriter got a "bad"
> review cos the Amiga IDE interface is crap where-as it should have been the
> other way round.
The drive was reviewed in the context of using it with an Amiga. In this
context, it's not a particularly good buy. A PC magazine would give it a
better rating, because it works better with a PC.
> PS. Once we do get a decent IDE interface with the AmigaONE, what is the
> comparison going to be like with respect to SCSI v IDE? Does SCSI still come
> out hands down, or should someone like me who no-longer has SCSI hardware
> keep to the cheaper IDE, or even go for USB?
You can do everything with IDE that you can do with SCSI.Those
application usually have USB alternatives, but USB requires drivers,
which isn't always true with SCSI. Provided drivers are available, IDE +
USB should be sufficient for most needs.
OTOH a PCI SCSI controller for the AmigaONE will only cost around £25.
Cheers
Neil
"Woody, I said TUCK the children in bed!" --Mia Farrow
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