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3]C880 DISK DRIVE REVIEW
3]By BARRY SILVERSTEIN
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     C880 External Disk Drive
     California Access
     780 Montague Expressway, Suite 403
     San Jose, CA 95131
     List $229.95
     90-day warranty

     The CA-880 3 1/2" Disk Drive (hereafter the 880) is fully compatible
with the Amiga 1010 disk drive but offers many advantages. The most obvious
difference is size. The 880's dimensions are 1.12 x 4.09 x 7.95 inches and
takes up about 1/3 the space of the 1010. It has an anti-dust door and a
longer interface cable. As with the 1010, there is also a pass-through to
add an additional drive, but unlike the 1010, the casing is metal.
     The 880 hooks up to the Amiga like the 1010, via the provided cable. I
use the 880 as df1: and the 1010 as df2:. Some of you may be saying that you
have heard you cannot have two external drives because the Amiga power
supply cannot handle it. I use an Amiga 1000. This is not true because the
880 consumes 0.22W in standby, 1.5W in read/write operations and a maximum
of 4.5W. According to The Amigan, Vol.II No. 4, page 169 "A 512K Amiga
system unit nominally takes 18 watts plus 2.3 watts for each disk drive
(only when accessed). Since this was published in September 1987, you can
assume with confidence they were referring to the 1010 drives. I have had
all three drives (df0:, df1:, and df2:) going simultaneously and my Amiga
has had no problems. I should also mention I have a 2 meg MicroBotics memory
expansion that draws power from my 1000.
     When you first use the 880, you may do a double take as you access the
drive. Where is all the noise? Is the thing working? Let me tell you, folks,
this drive is quiet. What a pleasure not to hear the grinding and grunting
that made the 1010 famous.
     I ran the speed check program on Marauder II on the 880. It runs at a
constant 6382-6383 bytes per revolution. The Marauder manual states a drive
should run between 6300 and 6400 bytes.
     There is a disable switch that lets you turn off the drive even when
the computer is running. My particular drive does not have this, or at least
not where I can see it.
     The only wishes I have for this drive (now that the disable switch is
available) are an optional external power supply and "no-click" when there
is no disk in the drive. However, the external power supply will probably
not be as critical as using just 1010's and the click is more bearable on
the 880.
      So far, all disks I have placed in the 880 have run properly and only
time will tell how long the drive will last. I have had it for about four
months and the speed check (as mentioned above) has been consistent. If
quiet is a measure of quality, the 880 is definitely high quality.
     Some additional facts and figures: Storage capacity = 880 kilobytes
formatted, Track density = 135 TPI, Number of cylinders = 80, number of
tracks  = 160, number of R/W heads = 2, data transfer rate = 250 kilobytes
per second, rotational seed = 300 rpm. Reliability: MTBF = 10,000 power on
hours; MTTR = 30 minutes and Life = 5 years. I'm not sure what the
reliability figures mean but I include them for the more knowledgeable. As
you can see from other figures, it is no faster or slower than the 1010 and
identical in most other respects.

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