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From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga NFS
Message-ID: <2569@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Oct-87 17:36:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2569
Posted: Wed Oct 21 17:36:35 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Oct-87 09:28:35 EDT
References: <8710171825.AA13108@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 40

in article <8710171825.AA13108@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) says:
>>	My big question is, if 1.3 enhancements for the hard disk arrives, what
>>impact will this have on Ethernet interfaces? Do they share the same I/O
>>bottlenecks? Will improvements on the OS interfaces regarding I/O affect 
>>Ethernet as well as the hard drives?
> 	Software wise.... none.  NFS is usually done via a DOS device of
> sorts and never touches the hard disk interface.  Since this device probably
> goes directly to the ethernet controller, changes to the OS would not effect
> its efficiency.
> 				-Matt

Well, yes and no.  It depends upon what's changing, and what isn't.  If your
NFS is implemented as a device using the built-in file system, as are the
floppies and the current hard disks, its possible that an enhanced/improved/
whatever file system could drive the NFS.device more efficiently, just as it
might drive a harddisk.device more efficienly.  If, instead, the NFS 
implementation is a complete handler (I think this the more likely of the
two possibilities), then some hard disk speed up won't effect it directly.
Or, graphically, some DOS devices look like this:

   DOSNAME:  ->   Dos-Handler  ->   Exec.Device     (DF0:, DH0:, VD0:)

while others look more like this:

   DOSNAME:  ->   Dos-Handler                       (RAM:)

Of course, mainly what you want in an NFS or other shared file system is to
get files off someone else's hard disk, so if your host is an Amiga, a Hard
Disk speedup will likely help your performance on the net as much as on the
host itself.  And of course, if anything is done to speed up the general
DOS system itself (eg. a faster system interface to each handler), then the
performance would increase as well.  This kind of performance increase would
be automatic when the new OS was installed, while an increase through use
of an alternate filesystem handler might have to wait for the next release of
your exec device, since most devices currently don't support multiple file
systems.
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
   "The B2000 Guy"              PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
    "Computers are what happen when you give up sleeping" - Iggy the Cat