Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!limonce From: limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Request for 1.4 Keywords: One Drive User, Diskcopy, Meg Message-ID: Date: 30 Apr 89 05:12:16 GMT References: <2134@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <570001@hplchm.HP.COM> <161@dunkirk.DKK> Organization: NJ InterCampus Network, New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 25 I've been trying to avoid posting "In 1.4 I want to see..." but this last request got me thinking. When a disk is formatted, the sectors mostly store zeros... right? Couldn't diskcopy require less memory and do fewer swaps if it took advantage of this? Right now it takes the same number of swaps to copy a blank disk as it did to copy a full disk. That kind of compression scheme isn't anything that couldn't be written in a day. So why not? Well, one-drive copies are no longer the norm and tons of memory is going to be the norm. But actually, with a hard drive many people only have one 3.5" drive and I'm the kind of person that always wants each program to use the minimum RAM. (I guess that happens when your first programming experience was on a 5K VIC-20!) Of course, another option would be to have an option that would say, "use xxx as swap space" so that you could use DH0:, etc as swap. Just a suggestion, Tom -- Tom Limoncelli -- tlimonce@drunivac.Bitnet -- limonce@pilot.njin.net Drew University -- Box 1060, Madison, NJ -- 201-408-5389 Standard Disclaimer: I am not the mouth-piece of Drew University