Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!oberon!cit-vax!cit-vlsi!wen-king
From: wen-king@cit-vlsi.Caltech.Edu (Wen-King Su)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: The NeXT Problem [Disk Swapping]
Message-ID: <8326@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 16 Oct 88 16:33:02 GMT
References: <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <452@oracle.UUCP>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: wen-king@cit-vlsi.UUCP (Wen-King Su)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 46

In article <452@oracle.UUCP> csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) writes:
>In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes:
<
>>4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly
<>   slower (seek times) than magnetic drives.  What is the advantage of the
>>   optical drive?  Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K
<>   magnetic drive.  But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its
>>   i/o performance (using the optical drive).
<
>Something to factor into your price performance picture:  I believe another
<article pointed out that the optical drive was under $1500 dollars.  So,
>for $1550, I get 256MB of disk storage.  For $1600 I get 512MB of disk
<storage.  For $1700 I get 1 Gigabyte of disk storage.  Admittedly, my
>seek time gets a little bit long (2 to 3 seconds) when I have to swap disks...
<
>For the 330 MB winchester, I'm fairly certain that you can't pop the
<disk in and out of the machine.  To get massive amounts of storage,
>you'ld have to attach a tape drive or floppy disk drive.  256 MB of
<floppy disk storage, in volume, should cost you around $250.  For
>the tape drive, your seek time is probably somewhat worse than 2 to 3
<seconds.

I am curious about how one might remove the disk containing the root
partition and the swap space without killing UNIX.  I believe NeXT
will need another disk for the root partition if you want to swap the
optical disk.

The way I see it, and as a previous poster has pointed out, the
greatest advantage of NeXT is that each user gets to own his/her own
256M file system that can be removed and mounted on the dorm wall when
not in use.  It is also perfect for people who has to commute between
two work places.  I know a professor who uses a Sun here during week
days, a PC at home during weekends, and he often has to dial in and
copy files using Kermit.  For him NeXT would be perfect.  He can get
one for his office and one for his home and take all of his work from
one place to the next on a single optical disk.  Right now he has
only about 30 Meg of data crammed into a set of file systems that is
busting at its seams.

If Sun counters NeXT by quickly introducing its own removable optical
disks and comparable systems, however, I think Sun will be successful
in maintaining its dominance in schools.

/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*\
| Wen-King Su  wen-king@vlsi.caltech.edu  Caltech Corp of Cosmic Engineers |
\*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/