Subject: Re: PD drive (was Re: Unsuccessful attempt on 1.2...)
To: RiscBSD <port-arm32@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Robert Black <r.black@IC.AC.UK>
List: port-arm32
Date: 08/12/1996 13:37:52
On Aug 12,  1:03am, Phil Radden wrote:
> Subject: PD drive (was Re: Unsuccessful attempt on 1.2...)
> On Sun 11 Aug, Kim G. S. yhus wrote:
> > [mucho snips]
> > I dont have a HD on my
> > cumana scsi card. I have an optical PD instead. This makes the
> > boot sequence crash. Programming like that sucks.
> With only a reasonable amount of fiddling I managed to get RiscBSD working
> on Cumana SCSI II and PD drive (1.1+X16, not 1.2beta) - except unixfs which
> resolutely refuses to write to anywhere without crashing the machine...
> But the main thing about it is that it is SLOW.  Very.  Even in 8Mb you are
> better off with no swap than swap on the PD, which is fair enough given the
> PD write-speed...
> But, IIRC, reading speed is comparable to HD, although seek/write is much
> slower.  Despite this, during startup etc. the system often freezes for
> extensive disk activity when it should only be reading/minimal seeking (due
> to optimisation).  Is this a lost cause, or can I improve anything?
> Obviously I'm saving for a SCSI HD... :)

Well, it does do a *lot* of seeking and it writes its log files...

> Cheers
> Phil
>
> ObSillyQuestion: Support for RiscTV? ;)

ObSillyAnswer: RSN :) (where soon is measured in months)

Cheers

Rob

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