Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!adelie!munsell!klm From: klm@munsell.UUCP (Kevin (my watch has a touch screen) McBride) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: StepRate ... a utility that makes your floppies FASTER! Message-ID: <1282@knopfler.munsell.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Oct-87 17:45:13 EDT Article-I.D.: knopfler.1282 Posted: Tue Oct 6 17:45:13 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 9-Oct-87 23:05:29 EDT References: <15607@amdahl.amdahl.com> Reply-To: klm@knopfler.UUCP (Kevin (my watch has a touch screen) McBride) Organization: Custom Abrasives Unlimited, Ltd. Lines: 73 Keywords: grinding noise pitch control benchmarks sausages maybe Summary: Oh Yeah? Couldn't prove it by me. In article <15607@amdahl.amdahl.com> kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: > >Here is a really nifty utility! It allows you to set the stepping rate >of your floppy drives, which in turn can improve the performance of your >system considerably! > >The author says he can halve the access time on his drives ... down to >about 1500 ticks (from the stock AmigaDOS* value of 3000). I can't get >my old NEC drives to work that fast ... both of them will fail to read >at 1800, but work at 1900. So I've set them for 2000 to leave a little >more margin (at least my old NEC's work with noKLICKstart). Anyway, >an improvement of 1/3 in the stepping rate is still quite noticible ... >especially on dir listings of fat directories! > >I dunno if there any negative implications due to the faster stepping rates, >such as increased wear and tear, reduced reliability, etc., so this is >definitely a "use at your own risk" deal! Perhaps our friends at CBM, or >other knowledgeable disk-wise folks (Hi, Bryce!) could comment? Um, Kim, did you really test this out thoroughly or is your noticable speed improvement a variety of the "rec.audio Monster Cable sounds better because it should. Shouldn't it?" syndrome? Maybe on your system there was a noticeable improvement, but I sure couldn't detect any on my system. For example (after write protecting my Workbench disk, just in case), I ran the following tests: At the normal step rate of 3000, a "list df0:c" command on my Workbench disk took 11.7 seconds. This is the average time of 5 such tests. At the "souped up" rate of 1500, the same command on the same disk in the same drive took 11.6 seconds. Again this is the average time of 5 tests. At a super slowed down rate of 39999, the same test averaged 12.4 seconds. Formatting a disk benchmarked at exactly the same speed regardless of what stepping delay I used. Does this not count? More subjectively, with the rate accelerated to 1500, drawers that had lots of icons in them did appear to open a tad faster, but I didn't do exact timing tests on them. They certainly did slow down dramatically at the 39999 stepping rate. Opening a rather large worksheet in MaxiPlan yielded no noticeable differences between tests using the 3000 stepping rate and the 1500 stepping rate. This definitely looks like something that Bryce should look into and possibly enlighten us on. Perry, could this utility have an effect on FACC in any way? Does the fact that I "Addbuffers" 20 extra buffers pretty much override any benefit that "StepRate" might provide? One thing I did notice, there was a definite improvement in the sound quality of the "grindgrindgrind" noise that my drives make when I increased the stepping delay time. The noise became much lower pitched and much quieter. More like a pleasant purr than the usual annoying grinding noise that reminds me of going to the dentist. All in all, it's a real neat idea and I'm not knocking the program or it's author, but it just didn't seem to do anything for me. -- Kevin McBride | "Is that a real | harvard -\ I/O Software Group | poncho, or is that | ll-xn ---adelie----> munsell!klm Eikonix - A Kodak Co. | a Sears poncho?" | decvax -v talcott -v | Billerica, MA | - Frank Zappa | allegra ------------encore