Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU!C506634
From: C506634@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Eric Edwards)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Looking for a disk cache
Message-ID: <901229.145803.CST.C506634@umcvmb.missouri.edu>
Date: 29 Dec 90 20:58:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: Hackers Without Hard Drives
Lines: 55

In Message-ID: <186ed84b.ARN1370@adspdk.UUCP>
          hclausen@adspdk.UUCP (Henrik Clausen) said:
>> In article <1990Dec21.163546@lemur.inria.fr> colas@lemur.inria.fr (Colas Naha
>> >I am looking for a disk cache (preferably for floppies, PD or commercial) wi
>> >these features:
>> >- able to buffer whole track when accessing one sector.
>> >- buffering writes.
>> >- allocating buffers in Fast Ram.
>> >reads...)
>> >
>> >Does FaccII or BlitzDisk have these features?
>> >Do they work with FFS?
>> >Did they trash your disks ? :-)
>
>   I used BlitzDisk for quite a while, when I ran the old ConfMail that
[stuff deleted]
>   I wouldn't run it with buffered writes. Suppose you crashed with the
>disk in an uncertain state?

    FFS does delayed writes which is the same principle.  However, I agree
that buffered writes is a bad idea for a cache of any size.

>   Buffers go to Fast ram by default.
>
>   BlitzDisk II works with FFS - I'm quite sure FaccII doesn't.

You are quite mistaken. :-)
Actually, FaccII works directly with trackdisk.device
It doesn't give a hoot what the file systems is.  I was impressed when it
automagicly cached my newly mounted fast file floppies.  The down side is
that you have to Zap the executable in order to use FaccII on hard disks or
any other non-trackdisk device.

[still more stuff deleted]
>for sure. I think FaccII is a much larger executable, though.

 FaccII is 9368 bytes.  In either case I think the memory for the cache will
be so much larger than the executable size will be irrelevent.

>   You'd be pretty well off with BlitzDisk.

Probably true.  FaccII has served me well 2.5 years but there have been no
updates.  It looks like Blitzdisk has taken up where FaccII left off.  Unless
ASDG does something unexpected like release a FaccIII I would say go with
Blitzdisk.

In the last round of disk cache discussion somone mentioned patching FaccII to
word with a hard drive.  It turned out that FaccII actually slowed down the
drives performance.  The point is that most FaccII is slower than most hard
drives.  I would expect similar results with Blitzdisk but has anyone out there
actually done this?

Eric Edwards: c506634 @    "The 3090.  Proof that by applying state of the
Inet: umcvmb.missouri.edu   art technology to an obsolete architecture,
Bitnet: umcvmb.bitnet       one can achieve mediocre performance."