Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!ncc!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!sl
From: sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Disk drives -- speed of?
Message-ID: <1732@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 88 10:12:05 GMT
References: <2746@sundc.UUCP> <76700012@uiucdcsp> <2759@sundc.UUCP> <887@gethen.UUCP>
Reply-To: sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne)
Organization: Public Access Network, Vancouver, BC.
Lines: 20

In article <887@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
>In article <2759@sundc.UUCP> bwong@sundc.UUCP (Brian Wong) writes:
>magnetic medium.  While this can be improved, there are limits there.
>I don't see that the 3600 RPM speed is cast in stone, but it does

It isn't, it's cast into the interface specifications e.g. the st-506
interface used by all smaller systems (pc's). 

With SCSI interfaces being built onto disks drive manufacturers only present
an ordered set of blocks from 0..n. This allows them to do weird and wonderful
things to achieve n which just wouldn't be possible if they had to stick to
the st-506 interface. At least one manufacturer (Rodime) spins the platter a
little slower to pack more data onto the surface to achieve a higher storage
capacity at the expense of a slightly slower average access time (increased
rotational delay). 



-- 
{ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!Stuart.Lynne Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532