Media Share 9/MEDIASHARE_09.ISO/mag&info/kgl_9401.zip/DAISYDRV.RVW

Text File | 1994-02-03 | 6KB | 127 lines

The Daisy Disk MicroWinchester Rodeo Universal External
  Hard Drive Back-up
A Harware Evaluation
by Peter Bates


The MWR Universal External Hard Drive Back-up is one of a new
breed of portable hard drives that attach directly to the
parallel port of an IBM PC or compatible.

   The reason for such a configuration is threefold: to
facilitate backing up data on one PC, to transfer large amounts
of data between PCs, and to run occasional programs on it,
preferably those that aren't resource intensive.  In this
article I'll discuss how the MWR handles all of these tasks, in
addition to commenting on its installation program.  The MWR I
received was a Maxtor 120 megabyte hard drive with a rated 28ms
disk access time.  I performed all tests on a Gateway 2000
386/25.


Installation and Configuration

Hardware installation was a cinch.  All I had to do was plug the
MWR cable into the parallel port and the power cord into an
outlet.  "Aha," you say, "what a fool! You've just lost your
parallel port!  Now how are you going to print anything?"  I'm
not such a fool.  In the back of the MWR unit is another
parallel port!  I plugged my printer into that port and presto!
it was back in operation, printing as energetically as ever.
This particular setup is called "daisy-chaining," and may have
something to do with how the Daisy Disk Corporation got its
name.

   So that your PC recognizes that the MWR is part of your
system, you must both install its driver and insert a line in
your CONFIG.SYS file that loads it.  The MWR automatic
installation program accomplishes these tasks quickly and
efficiently.  The manual then tells you how to format and
partition the drive.  These tasks are not really necessary,
since the MWR comes preformatted, a detail the manual doesn't
mention until the end.  (This is a good argument for reading a
manual from beginning to end BEFORE installing and configuring a
product.)

   Should you want to partition the drive, the MWR Corporation
provides its own program, VLFDISK, that accomplishes this task.
I did not try this, because personally, I have never found disk
partitioning that useful, unless I want to run two different
operating systems on the same drive, such as UNIX and DOS.  I
will have to assume it works as advertised.

   After I rebooted my PC, the MWR was ready for operation.  Its
device driver does not take up much memory and can be loaded
high.  I then did some elementary disk operations, copying and
moving files with XTREEPRO GOLD.  It accomplished these
operations fairly efficiently, slightly slower than my Maxtor
internal hard drive, but nowhere near as slowly as a floppy
drive.

   I then ran some programs.  I found it could load and run
small utilities like Norton's Speed Disk and XTREEPRO quite
acceptably.  However, it took twice as long to load my
configuration of Microsoft Word 5.5 (DOS), which is a more
complex program, with overlay files, etc.  Once loaded, WORD ran
acceptably, albeit slightly slower during operations such as
writing to the disk.

   For Windows 3.1, I tried defining my permanent swap file on
the MWR, thinking that since I had all this extra space, I could
use it to swap my Windows operations.  Not the best idea.  There
was a perceptible drop in speed, particularly when loading
Windows programs.  So, expect a drop in speed if you run complex
programs on the MWR (or any other disk drive that uses your
parallel port).  The parallel port interface is designed for
print, not disk access, so naturally it adds more overhead to
the computing process.


Conclusions

   The MWR really shines in two areas: portability and backup.
Its rugged design most likely insures it against data loss
during bumpy transport.  I say "most likely" because I've only
transported it twice, both times with non-disastrous results.
Weighing only five pounds and measuring 6.5" X 3" X 9.25", it is
easy to transport between two locations.  Bear in mind that if
you turn on a PC that's configured for an MWR, but has no MWR
attached, your startup sequence will tell you that the external
hard drive is missing.  You'll just have to "press any key to
continue."

   The MWR is excellent for data storage and backup.  While I
don't recommend it for running resource-intensive executables
like Windows, it's fine for storing data files.  It doesn't take
that much longer for them to load.  Also, the MWR is an
excellent backup source for standard files.  By standard files,
I mean files that you can perform standard DOS commands on, like
Copy and Delete.  (I use the term to distinguish them from files
comprising a backup set generated by PC Tools' CPBACKUP or
Norton Backup for Windows.  Some of these backup programs do not
recognize external hard drives as backup destinations.  For
example, I could not get Norton Backup for Windows to work with
the MWR, but I was successful with PC Tools' CPBACKUP.  Norton
Backup apparently expects to find either floppy or tape drives;
a parallel port backup disk is just too arcane for it.)

   I haven't tested disk compression software like Stacker on
the MWR.  But since Stacker 2.0 can now compress floppy drives,
I assume it's smart enough to compress removable hard drives as
well.

   The Daisy Disk Corporation offers MWRs in notable brand names
(like Connors, Seagate, Maxtor, and Western Digital), and in
capacities from 20 to 500 megabytes.  Naturally, prices run
higher than those for comparable internal hard drives.  In this
case, though, I think it's worth it.

-----------------------------
Daisy Disk Corporation, 395 Bridge Rd., Rt.1, Salisbury, MA 01952
Telephone: [phone]

--------------------------------------------------------------
(Peter Bates is a writer who lives in Brookline, MA., and often
reads aloud in Cambridge.)

                -thirty-