Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!fuug!nokia.fi!xerver!jel From: jel@xerver.data.nokia.fi (Jerry Lahti) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans Subject: Re: UN*X ffs vs. OS/2 hpfs for file server Message-ID: Date: 14 Jun 91 08:41:14 GMT References: <1991Jun11.175144.24736@cfctech.cfc.com> <1991Jun12.161147.12874@ohsu.edu> Sender: usenet@noknic.nokia.fi (USENET at noknic) Organization: Nokia Data Systems Oy Lines: 20 Nntp-Posting-Host: xerver.data.nokia.fi kozowski@ohsu.edu (Eric Kozowski) writes: >From the specs I've seen the AT&T StarServer E should blow the PS/2 95 >out of the water. I'm not familiar enough with OS/2 to say that ffs is >faster than the OS/2 file system (but I suspect that it is). Well, I would not bet on it. As far as I know OS/2 HPFS uses quite similar techniques as the Berkeley FFS to optimize performance in addition to some of its own ideas (like implementing directories internally as B-trees). In addition the HPFS-386 provided with LAN Manager 2.0 integrates the network file server very tightly to the file system and disk drivers. As a result it can often respond to the most common file service requests from within the network adapter interrupt handler. This seems to provide quite a performance boost compared to running a LAN Manager server with the standard OS/2 HPFS. On the other hand, AT&T Stargroup implements the file server as a user process and the required context switching is quite likely hurt performance and especially server response times. Jerry Lahti Nokia Data Systems Oy, Networking/Network Operating Systems