Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!ll-xn!ames!jaw From: jaw@ames.arpa (James A. Woods) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Why is A/UX disk I/O only 50KB/sec? Message-ID: <2363@ames.arpa> Date: Wed, 15-Jul-87 17:50:30 EDT Article-I.D.: ames.2363 Posted: Wed Jul 15 17:50:30 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 00:36:23 EDT Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Lines: 20 During Phoenix USENIX, at the Unisoft booth, on the Mac II, a "time cat /usr/dict/words > /dev/null" took about four seconds of clock time. Staffers knew little about the disk or controller, except that it was made by Qualogy. Is the sluggishness due to: (a) xfer rate of the disk (the Dataframe, for example is spec'ed at just 5 Mbits/sec)? (b) an underpowered controller? (c) the Sys5-derived filesystem (BSD would do better) (d) suboptimal interleave factors for above combination? The informal comparison between the new Sony 68020-based machine and the Mac II in the August Unix/World also hints at unbalanced I/O on the Mac II. Would disk performance under the default Mac OS be similar? ames!jaw