Hume Smith wrote:
> > Peter Naylor <e4315555@student.uq.edu.au> :
> 
> > I think you should get a SCSI disk for a start... IDE/EIDE are not a good 
> > idea for a multi-threaded, multi-tasking, multiuser OS which probably 
> > depends quite heavily on virtual memory.
> 
> this reminds me... back when i first had to get my own UNIX up,
> i was deciding between putting one on my Amiga (having no idea
> at the time how well anything would work) or renting a PC and putting
> Linux on it.  (NetBSD had slipped my mind.)
> 
> I had thought maybe i'd -buy- the hard disk; figuring once i had
> a UNIX installed on it i could keep it around for awhile in case
> i needed it again.
> 
> when checking out places to rent an IBM-type PC, i mentioned
> that i'd like to buy a SCSI disk (figuring if i -didn't- need it
> again, i could put it in my Amiga).  The guy flatly declared that
> IDE (maybe EIDE) was much faster than SCSI.  Much.

That's because most PCs are used for single-tasking things (e.g. Winslows in
its varying incarnations). SCSI is better suited for multi-tasking environments,
while the top speed of EIDE is higher than that of Fast SCSI (not wide).

Additionally most modern IDE drives have very small caches, which make them
slower for multi-threaded operation. My old (2 years) 540 MB IDE Conner (256K
cache) is noticeable faster than my new (5 months) 1080 MB IDE Quantum (83K
cache) when the Workbench is executing all the stuff in WBStartup (just an
example, I almost never use AmigaOS anymore).

Greetings,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven                     Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Wavelets, Linux/m68k on Amiga          http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/
Department of Computer Science -- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven -- Belgium