Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: more soap box
Message-ID: <456@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 89 12:47:54 GMT
References: <21962@cup.portal.com> <1989Sep12.031453.22947@wolves.uucp> <1SsYy5#6pYhHg=eric@snark.uu.net>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 18

In article <1SsYy5#6pYhHg=eric@snark.uu.net>, eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) writes:

|  As well they might. For most job-mixes, 16MHz+ UNIX micros are disk-limited
|  rather than processor-limited. To see this, rip out your crufty old ST406/512
|  controller/drive pair and drop in a track-buffering ESDI or SCSI controller
|  with 1:1 interleave -- and watch your real performance *double*.

  This holds pretty much true for track buffered RLL, too. When I went
from an Adaptek to WD controller (WD has hardware buffering) I noted
about 3:1 disk improvement. Then I measured the raw disk speed of a
number of systems from PC's to supermicros doing a dd of a raw device to
dev/null. The RLL and ESDI interfaces look pretty good on transfer,
although the seek time is often slower on a micro.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon