InnerEXPRESS Review
by Paul Klenk

What's this I exclaimed when I saw the LRO Computer Sales
advertisement in inCider Magazine?  The InnerEXPRESS will
improve the efficiency of an InnerDrive or OverDrive by 200% to
300%.  My first question was what am I going to pay for such an
improvement?  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could
purchase this illusive speed device for under $100.00.  I just
had to find out more about what it was that I was planning to
buy.

I placed a call to Larry O'Connor from LRO Computer Sales and he
explained that I would be purchasing an EPROM chip for the
InnerDrive control card and a software package to change the
interleave and to format the hard drive.  I ordered the product
that day.

There was a delay in shipping attributable to a software
problem, but Larry was conscientious and when the item was
available it was shipped by UPS 2nd day air at no charge.  The
package was really quite rudimentary.  It consisted of a well
packaged EPROM, one 3.5" disk and a no nonsense manual.

It took me but a few minutes to install the EPROM chip.  If you
can use a flat blade screwdriver or a bent wire, then you can
replace the EPROM.  You should be certain to discharge any
static electricity by touching the power supply casing.  Using
the software is a bit more complex, but certainly not
overwhelming.  Make sure that a recent backup has been completed.

The InnerEXPRESS program is booted from the 3.5" drive and opens
into the desktop environment.  Double clicking the EXPRESS
application icon launches the program.  Radio style buttons
allow the user to select the appropriate type of hard drive. 
The first task to complete is setting the appropriate
interleave.  The formula is as follows: a 6:1 interleave is
chosen for an unaccelerated IIGS, while a 5:1 interleave is
optimum for a machine using an accelerator.  Low level
formatting can then be accomplished in a short period of time. 
Prior to partitioning, it is necessary to quit and reboot the
program.

Selecting the size of partitions involves moving a box on a
scroll bar.  A 20 meg InnerDrive has only one partition so the
size is 100%.  Once again, this task can be accomplished very
quickly; however, it is necessary to quit the program and reboot
so that GS/OS recognizes the partitions.  After the second
reboot, the drive can be named.  Users should be cautious to
name the drive the same as the name used in the backup process. 
The only remaining task was to place the InnerEXPRESS driver in
the appropriate system subdirectory.


The only problem that I discovered was the inability to use the
installer to copy the InnerEXPRESS driver.  Apparently there is
a minor script error in the program.  Once the driver was
installed, I was prepared to boot from the InnerDrive enhanced
by the InnerEXPRESS.  I was not disappointed!  The speed
improvement was so great, it was visually apparent.  Furthermore,
I've operated with this system for over three weeks without any
failures whatsoever.  What more could a user want: greater speed,
reliability and a reasonable price.

I'm really not one for statistics, but the access speed utility
in Prosel resulted in the following numbers:

		1) linear read efficiency	3.69 milliseconds
		2) random read efficiency	19.53 milliseconds
		3) OS overhead efficiency	1.42 milliseconds