Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: SCO UNIX BOOT :sfmt  for ESDI drive
Keywords: esdi unix boot sfmt low-level format
Message-ID: <1059@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 31 May 90 03:34:57 GMT
References: <519@synopsys.COM>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 20

In article <519@synopsys.COM> stevej@synopsys.synopsys.com (Steven Jukoff) writes:

| I don't know if this is disk skew or head skew or cylinder skew, etc.
| What does skew mean and what is the correct answer?
| 
| Hardware: SMS OMTI 8620 controller board attached to a Micropolis 1355.
| 
| Both SCO and MICROPOLIS claim they do not use skew, so what's the answer?
| And what is the penalty for being wrong?

  Skew usually means the offset between sector zero on one cylinder and
the next. No penalty for being wrong, but some performance gain for
being right. To be conservative figure the # of sectoers per track
divided by seven. This is a "magic number" which is not optimal but
usually improves the cylinder to cylinder time by about 80%.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me