Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: Performance differences between 386 Unices Message-ID: <2285@sixhub.UUCP> Date: 14 Nov 90 03:57:30 GMT References: Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) Distribution: na Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY Lines: 33 I have no doubt that the results Everex quotes so frequently are true, in that they really ran benchmarks of some nature and got the results they show. I have not verified that this reflects the number I would get from another benchmark, or that either is a good predictor of how well the system would perform under normal load. When I benchmark I do measure system call overhead, but only for a few calls. I use getuid(), since that is unlikely to involve any i/o in a rational system. I also measure file system throughput for single large files. I write a single file of size 6MB or size of physical memory, whichever is larger. I then read it back in. I measure the time it takes and get a write speed and read speed. I find this useful to me, because it reflects performance on the largest file I am like to copy on a regular basis on that machine. I realize that caching will help the performance, but it will in real application, too, so that's fair. Using this test of disk performance I find that SCO Xenix has better performance than any of the V.3 or V.4 variants I've tried. Test conditions: unloaded system, multiuser mode, typically 4MB to 8MB memory. Write performed by a C program looping writing 1k blocks. Time from the time system call. You are the sole judge of how well the results of this test apply to any productive work you may run on the machine. -- 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