Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!purdue!gatech!hao!noao!mcdsun!fishpond!fnf
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: A/UX disk I/O (real numbers)
Message-ID: <6@fishpond.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 88 06:18:19 GMT
References: <11540137@hpsmtc1.HP.COM> <1049@uokmax.UUCP> <1693@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: fnf@fishpond.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Organization: occasionally
Lines: 47

In article <1693@ssc-vax.UUCP> benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
>But what alot of wishful thinking A/UX users are forgetting is that the
>3/60 also can act as a server (remember the thing will proabably also have
>much faster disk I/O thanks to the DMA).  The person I'm working with
>bought a diskless 3/50 and can use the 3/60 disk. Cheap and relatively
>fast compared to what an A/UX Mac II can or can't do.  Of course the whole
>idea of a fast server for many Mac II's hung off of it, is something yet
>to be addressed by Apple.  Second, the diskless Sun will soon be able to
>boot off of non-Sun equipment!

Ok, with all the speculation about disk I/O, and the advantages/disadvantages
of DMA, I decided to drag out and dust of a disk performance benchmark written
by Rick Spanbauer a LONG time ago and used to test Amiga hard disks when they
first became available.  Since I already had Sun 3/50 timings, all I had to
do were the A/UX ones.  Here are my measured results using the diskperf.c
program, and ballpark verified using the Unix dd program:

Performance timings using Rick Spanbauer's diskperf.c program.

					Amiga	Amiga	Mac-II	Sun
					Floppy	CLtd	A/UX	3/50
					df1:	dh0:	HD80SC	

File creations (files/sec)		<=1	7	6	6
File deletions (files/sec)		1	15	8	11
Directory scan (entries/sec)		38	50	371	350
Seek+read (seek+read/sec)		2	40	110	298
Read speed,    512 buffer (byte/sec)	11014	17133	55168	240499
Read speed,   4096 buffer (byte/sec)	12024	17133	53708	234057
Read speed,   8192 buffer (byte/sec)	12080	17133	54013	233189
Read speed,  32768 buffer (byte/sec)	12136	17133	53644	236343
Write speed,   512 buffer (byte/sec)	4974	12603	44181	215166
Write speed,  4096 buffer (byte/sec)	5180	13512	47211	182466
Write speed,  8192 buffer (byte/sec)	5170	13653	46832	179755
Write speed, 32768 buffer (byte/sec)	5190	13797	46930	187580

Notes:
	(1)	All Amiga tests done under 1.2 release 33.46.
	(2)	df1: tests done after "addbuffers 32" & fresh formatted disk
	(3)	All Amiga and Mac-II timings done by Fred Fish.
	(4)	Sun-30/50 timings by Rick Spanbauer.



-- 
# Fred Fish    hao!noao!mcdsun!fishpond!fnf     (602) 921-1113
# Ye Olde Fishpond, 1346 West 10th Place, Tempe, AZ 85281  USA