Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!beta!hc!ames!amdahl!kim From: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: StepRate ... a utility that makes your floppies FASTER! Message-ID: <15772@amdahl.amdahl.com> Date: Wed, 7-Oct-87 19:51:43 EDT Article-I.D.: amdahl.15772 Posted: Wed Oct 7 19:51:43 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Oct-87 11:09:13 EDT References: <15607@amdahl.amdahl.com> <1282@knopfler.munsell.UUCP> Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Lines: 86 Summary: Anything free is worth what you paid for it! In article <1282@knopfler.munsell.UUCP>, klm@munsell.UUCP (Kevin (my watch has a touch screen) McBride) writes: > > 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? Good question! No, I didn't. When I first played with, it *seemed* to make a very noticeable difference, and it sure *sounded* alot faster (ain't the subjective mind wonderful)! > Maybe on your system there was a noticeable improvement, but I sure > couldn't detect any on my system. Upon performing a few quick tests, I still do find an improvement though; not as much as I had "felt", but still better than you found ... On a relatively unfragmented floppy, 99% full, with 54 files, and no subdirectories, my dir times were (+/- 0.1): ticks secs ----- ---- 3000 21.2 2000 19.0 6000 23.1 or about 11% improvement, at 2000 tics. In another test, I tried doing a completely floppy based compile using Manx 3.40a, on a medium sized set of files (no Facc buffers, no ram:, no vd0:). The source disk is pretty well fragmented, but the compiler disk is as unfragmented as it's possible to get (though file locations are not necessarily optimized for the best performance). ticks mins ----- ---- 3000 16.1 2000 15.4 or about 4.5% improvement. So, I dunno. If I were to swag it, I'd say that disks that are highly fragmented could show a meaningful amount of improvement (whatever "meaningful" is), since they are doing alot more seeking around. Disks that are not fragmented would then show the least improvement, by that line of reasoning. But that could be entirely wrong ... I have never been able to figure out how and where AmigaDOG decides to stuff the next sector, etc. My best guess thus far, is that it rolls a 9-sided die to determine this (no :-)'s ). BTW, I've decided to refer to Tim King's "contribution" to the Amiga, as AmigaDOG, and to the entire collective OS as AmigaDOS ... is that reasonable? > Formatting a disk benchmarked at exactly the same speed regardless of > what stepping delay I used. Does this not count? I don't know. I do know that there is something fundementally different about Format and Diskcopy, as they both will put up a requester asking for the WB on their 1st invocation, if WB isn't in a drive. What is it that they need? > 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. Yes!!! This improvement alone is worth the price of StepRate :-)! My drives, however, went *up* in pitch, but then they normally sound like a cement mixer full of rocks, rather than a dentist's drill ... /kim -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,uunet,oliveb,cbosgd,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25