Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!qmsseq!pipkins
From: pipkins@qmsseq.imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ESDI controller/disk recommendations wanted
Keywords: ESDI disk recommendations wanted
Message-ID: <52@qmsseq.imagen.com>
Date: 30 Nov 89 17:01:21 GMT
References: <259@cica.cica.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: pipkins@qmsseq.UUCP (Jeff Pipkins)
Distribution: na
Organization: QMS Inc., Mobile, Alabama
Lines: 21

CompuAdd sells a HardCache ESDI controller card.  It is a pluggable
replacement for "normal" ESDI controllers, but it comes with 1MB
of cache on board!  You can get with 256K, expandable to 1MB, or
better yet get it with 1MB expandable to 4MB!  This is a tremendous
advantage over all of the ramdisk and soft caching programs that
eat up main system ram, takeover interrupts, and steal CPU cycles.

The only thing on the con side is for existing users: it appears
that anytime you change ESDI controllers, you have to low-level
format again.  No problem if the machine is new, and worth the 
trouble if you're switching.

This board will read and buffer the whole track when you read one
sector, so the next time you ask for a sector (if it's a sequential
file it will probably be in the same track) it will be there.  DOS
4.xx will do this in software, but why spend memory and CPU time?
This board can even access both hard disk and floppy simultaneously.

I always wondered why they didn't do that before...

(Not connected with CompuAdd in any way, my views are my own, etc...)