Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!jwhitnell
From: jwhitnell@cup.portal.com (Jerry D Whitnell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Does 38ms vs 65ms make any difference?
Message-ID: <14879@cup.portal.com>
Date: 20 Feb 89 20:18:29 GMT
References: <4313@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU> <2597@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 22

From article <4313@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU>, by zz1he@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Heather Ebey):     
> Does 28ms or 38ms vs 65ms make any difference on a hard disk                 
> connected to a MacPlus?  Is the MacPlus too slow to take                     
> advantage of the faster access?                                              
                                                                              
It depends on the drive (and the software).  It can make a difference, but there
are a lot of other factors that can affect performance as well.  For example,
the DataFrame XP40 (the model replaced by the XP 60), used a 65 ms drive
(according to the spec sheet).  However it was one of the fastest drives
available at the time of its release.  This is becuase of other
software/hardware tricks that SuperMac played to make it faster.  

The best place to measure a drives performance is at the user's level, not
a the drive level.  To see if a drive one drive is faster then another,
set up your normal configuration and try the things you normally do.  Copy
some files, launch the applications etc.  Playying with the size of the cache
can help, if you have memory to spare.
--
Jerry Whitnell                    Several Species of Small Furry
jwhitnell@cup.portal.com          Animals Gathered Together in a
..!sun!cup.portal.com!jwhitnell   Cave and Grooving with a PICT.
                                  -- Pink Floyd