Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!lll-lcc!pyramid!octopus!pete
From: pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Awesome IO Card
Message-ID: <374@octopus.UUCP>
Date: 26 Dec 87 05:23:44 GMT
References: <900@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann)
Organization: Octopus Enterprises, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 56
Summary: Nice, but limited. Not sure who would want one

In article <900@louie.udel.EDU> farber@udel.EDU (Dave Farber) writes:
>I have been testing on of their cards. It a disk accelerator and is
>a winner in hardware . I have less kind words about the software
>-- its not bad just does not conform to the manual and has some bugs.
>
>Anyone out there with one.
>
>Dave

We've been testing one. Here's a summary:

WHAT IT IS:

512K of fast RAM (and some kind of CPU) on a card, managed by software that 
intercepts BIOS hard disk requests (as far as we can tell). Needs a window 
of addressable memory.  Minimum 16K, 64K preferred. You can give it from 
D000 to DFFF, for example, if not used by another BIOS ROM. No cabling involved.

WHAT IT IS GOOD FOR:

Very intelligent hard-disk-controller-front-end. Does disk cache+lots more.
Does read-ahead on disk, assuming you are going to want track N+1 next.
Has hardware data compression to do that on the fly. Can do de-fragmentation
('Disk Optimizer' stuff) when your system starts up.

PRO:

If it works on your system, in a configuration you are willing to live with,
then it works very well. It *IS* very fast. The 3ms 'seek' time is a number
that takes into account disk caching. It is faster and nicer than a normal
disk cache program.

CON:

Can't handle most RLL controllers (DTC is the only one that works). Can't
handle drives with >1024 cylinders (e.g. Maxtor 1140/2190 drives). Drives
MUST be set up as: Drive 1 = C: = one large partition. Drive 2 = D: = one
large partition. No more drives, no more partitions. Thus, for large
drives (>32 MB) you get gigantic cluster sizes, which wastes a lot of disk
space in most applications. Rather pricey (around $600 is a discounted
price).

SUMMARY:

Who would want this thing? For the money, it would be best to first buy a
reasonably fast hard disk and use disk caching software to speed things up.
If you already have a fast disk and disk cache software, you're probably
a rather high-end user. At that point, you might want to consider this thing.
But you'll probably be frustrated by its configuration limitations. Oh well...
forewarned is fore-armed, I guess. They *are* working on these problems, but
some of them require hardware changes. Maybe their next edition will be better.
-- 
  OOO   __| ___      Peter Holzmann, Octopus Enterprises
 OOOOOOO___/ _______ USPS: 19611 La Mar Court, Cupertino, CA 95014
  OOOOO \___/        UUCP: {hpda,pyramid}!octopus!pete
___| \_____          Phone: 408/996-7746