CDC wren V drives

[Karl Denninger]

In article <2919 at gaboon.UUCP> asv at gaboon.UUCP (Stan Voket) writes:
>A client is interested in a CDC wren V hard disk 383 or 442 Mbyte drive. 
>I'm convinced these are fine pieces of equipment having used several wren III's
>in the past with great success. The question is has anyone used these 
>lager drives for xenix and if so what ESDI controller do you recommend. Can 
>xenix understand disks of greater than 1024 cylinders and 16 heads?

16 heads, no.  1024 cyls, yes.  The CDC drives are excellent in my
experience, but a little pricey.

>What is a good controller for this purpose? I understand that the
>WD1007WA2 ESDI controller will not work with the larger drives. Any
>advice and/or "war stories" will be appreciated.

Bunk.  Enable translation mode and off you go.  We use the WD1007-WA2
boards with Maxstor XT4380E drives all the time (16ms, 338MB), they work
fine.  You end up with something that the system thinks has 63 sectors per
track, and some strange number of cylinders and heads, but it works.

Plug it in and go if your drive is preformatted (most ESDI drives are).

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.		"Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"