Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!usc!apple!uokmax!d.cs.okstate.edu!minich
From: minich@d.cs.okstate.edu (Robert Minich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: ROM Disk (cacheing on AppleShare client?)
Message-ID: <1990Nov15.042635.26282@d.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: 15 Nov 90 04:26:35 GMT
References: <1990Nov11.194615.15478@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Oklahoma State University
Lines: 45

by philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick):
| My experience of running off a server (both MacServe and later AppleShare)
| is you absolutely have to have plenty of RAM and big RAM caches to get
| respectable performance. The caches need to be on the user machines;
| more RAM on the server doesn't help nearly as much. The exact size of
| cache needed depends on your application. If you have things carefully
| set up, the performance should come close to local diskette (I haven't
| tried ethernet; if you can afford this, you can probably also afford
| local hard disks). I don't know how your MacJanet machines are
| configured. I suggest you look in the Control Panel and see if you can
| bump the RAM cache up a bit.
| -- 
| Philip Machanick
| philip@pescadero.stanford.edu

  I thought AppleShare volumes weren't cached!?!? This could conceivably
cause big problems with shared files. Regardless, trying to run a bunch
of Macs with a System located across LocalTalk is probably Not A Good
Idea. Unless Apple switches to a write-through cache and implements a
protocol to invalidate cache entries, I doubt upping the Control Panel's
cache size will be a big win except for floppies.
  Last night OSU had all the Mac models (including LC) and I
cornered the Apple person with a Classic booted from ROM and asked "Why
doesn't Apple mention this to anyone?" Something about AppleShare 3.0
and not talking about unannounced products. :-) Anyway, I'm more curious
what the other new machines have tucked away. He said they all had the
ability to boot off a server (whether boot = boot off ROM and mount a
server, he couldn't say). What happens on ethernet? What happens with
System 7? I feel making Macs dependent on a server or, worse yet,
floppies does a lot to make Macs look slow and useless. Sys 7 sure as
heck is not floppy-usable so spend those extra pennies to get even the
most meager of hard disks. If you can afford it (and have enough to
justify it), put in ethernet. It's a heckuva lot faster and can easily
handle the demands of a bunch of AppleShare clients.
  While I'm at it... there was a IIfx with the 8.24GC. They gave a demo
with a little program (called Diatom, me thinks) which drew
spirograph-like patterns made up of straight lines. What is the
bottleneck here? Without acceleration, the IIfx appeared to be running
about the same speed as the IIsi. Is the IIfx tripping over the NuBus?
Of course, with acceleration, things were a bit more peppy. :-)
-- 
|_    /| | Robert Minich            |
|\'o.O'  | Oklahoma State University| A fanatic is one who sticks to 
|=(___)= | minich@d.cs.okstate.edu  | his guns -- whether they are 
|   U    | - Ackphtth               | loaded or not.