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From: ian@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ (Ian Dall)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Real disk FASTER than Ram disk
Message-ID: <641@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ>
Date: 27 May 90 05:38:37 GMT
References: <1990May22.174627.11610@hcr.uucp> <637@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <5461@titcce.cc.titech.ac.jp>
Reply-To: ian@sibyl.OZ (Ian Dall)
Organization: Engineering, Uni of Adelaide, Australia
Lines: 31

In article <5461@titcce.cc.titech.ac.jp> mohta@necom830.cc.titech.ac.jp (Masataka Ohta) writes:
>In article <637@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> ian@sibyl.OZ (Ian Dall) writes:
>
>>If the 386 is a real computer, what use is a ram disk? Increase the
>>disk block cache to 4MB. That should be just as fast(*) and much more
>>flexible.
>
>Ram disk is actually effective when many sync writes are issued, such as
>compilation of many small files.

Can you elaborate? What are these sync writes? If they consist of an
fsync or whatever after every write (or after each process completes),
then why are the fsyncs being done in the firstplace. If the compiler
is broken, fix it. I still see no reason to add a RAM disk. I am,
however, genuinely interested though if there is any reason I can't
think of for putting a ram disk on a machine with a "proper" operating
system.

I kind of get the impression that people offer unix ram disk drivers
to ex messy dos users because that is easier and more profitable than
explaining to them that they don't need one!

>But, even in such a case, there is a better solution than memory disk
>approach. See my paper of the next USENIX.

Hmmm. I won't be going, but it could be worth finding it in the
proceedings...

-- 
Ian Dall     life (n). A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts
                       some people more severely than others.