Re: Unidisk vs. Disk II

[Rick Kerman <rkerman@brutus.bright.net>]

In Article<Pine.PMDF.3.91.960206131905.4821358C-100000@ewu.edu>, 
<ierickson@ewu.edu> writes:

> I'm gettin the IIe Emulator for my LCII and a Unidisk 5 1/4.
> Would it be worth getting a unidisk controller card for my IIe?
> I've gotten very little reliability out of every Disk II drive I've
> used.  Is the Unidisk any better or does it have other advantage?
> (chaining/speed/reliability/longevity?)

I don't know what your problem is.  The Disk II is probably the most
reliable drive ever marketed.  In the years when I was an Apple service
tech, and in all the years since, I have never seen a Disk II fail.
People break the doors and blow them up a lot by plugging the cables
in wrong, and they need an occaisional cleaning and speed adjust, but
they are basically very rugged and reliable.  The Unidisk (and Duodisk),
unfortunately are based on the same cheap Alps mechanism that Commodore
users found impossible to keep aligned.  The Unidisk is more compact,
more power-efficient, and you can chain two of them together, but don't
expect them to be as reliable as the Disk II.
rkerman@brutus.bright.net