Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!van-bc! From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: Controller Speed tests Message-ID: <2319@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> Date: 3 Dec 90 18:57:27 GMT Lines: 24 Return-Path: To: van-bc!rnews In <6033@crash.cts.com>, hawk@pnet01.cts.com (John Anderson) writes: > When Hard drive speed-test programs are run, they usually show four speeds. >With 512 buffers, 1024, etc. My question is why do the need to show with >different amount of buffers and why do people always pick the one with the >most when comparing speeds? If the different speeds were for different sized >files etc, then people should average them together to give an average speed >not the fastest in rarest cases? Is this correct? I don't understand? Though none of the figures given can be relied upon to give a really good comparison between drives (due to different amounts of fragmentation on any given drives), the reads using the largest buffer are the most indicative of drive/controller performance. The reason for this is that the smaller the buffer size, the more of it is Amigados overhead, and perhaps other overhead as well. -larry -- The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches and IBM PCs. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+