Well, I got one a few days ago, and I must say I am very pleased.
The drive runs much cooler than I expected--by the super-scientific index finger method, the 36GB model runs about at warm as my 60GB IBM 120GXP.
It is very quiet (much quieter than my 7200 and 5400 RPM Maxtors) but the noise it does make is very high pitched. (About 15kHz
) Seeks are loud, but not as nearly loud as my DGVS09U.
The controller is a LSI8955U, with a LSI53C1010 chip. The documentation I was able to find lists it as a single channel 64-bit 66MHz PCI card, but the docs also say the card is supposed to have a LSI53C1000 chip. It is supposed to be backwards compatible with 32-bit 66MHz PCI, but works fine (so far) in a 32-bit 33MHz PCI slot, for me.
The card's BIOS shows two channels, though, and both Win98 and W2K install the drivers twice, once for each channel. (well, W2K does; Win98 hangs when trying to install the drivers for the second channel...)
The card has one internal 68-pin and one external 68-pin header, but the PCB layout can accomodate another 68-pin and a 50-pin internal header. I haven't had a chance to do any testing to see if the installed headers are actually on separate channels (which I would doubt), or if I'll have to do some soldering to access the second channel.