Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!evan From: evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) Newsgroups: can.usrgroup Subject: Is it the interleave? Message-ID: <1989Sep27.022039.14752@telly.on.ca> Date: 27 Sep 89 02:20:39 GMT Distribution: can Organization: Telly Online, Brampton, Ontario Lines: 29 Telly's recent disk problems supposedly provided a long-term benefit, by enabling me to install a Maxtor 140 Meg drive. I'm told the seek and transfer rates for this beast are supposed to be pretty good. The AT-bus controller is an OMTI, same as for the previous drive. The system is a 386 clone. The disk was low-level formattted with a 1:2 interleave. Why, I don't know. Anyway, since installing this thing the disk speed has been OK, but INCOMING uucp throughput on the Trailblazer has been severely reduced. Outgoing speed has not been affected, nor has traffic at 2400 baud. Here's what happens. The transfer starts, at full-tilt PEP speed, for a few seconds. Then I hear the disk head move and the modem transfer stops dead. A second or two passes, then it starts again - until another disk seek in a few seconds, another pause, etc... If I didn't know better I'd swear it was dropping characters on input. I know that telly's modem, on COM1:, would be radically sped up if put on an intelligent card. That's the next piece of hardware coming. But is it possible that a badly-done interleave could have this kind of effect? What *is* the optimal interleave for a decent-speed ST506 drive? Please mail suggestions. Thanks. -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software, Brampton, Ontario - evan@telly.on.ca She was looking for a vacation, and he was the last resort.