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From: blarson@skat.usc.edu (Bob Larson)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: /dev/swap - possibility of it being a ramdisk
Message-ID: <5602@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 8 Dec 87 18:18:58 GMT
References: <712@qetzal.UUCP> <213@unicom.UUCP>
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Reply-To: blarson@skat.usc.edu (Bob Larson)
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Organization: USC AIS, Los Angeles
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Keywords: /dev/swap

In article <213@unicom.UUCP> physh@unicom.UUCP (Jon 'Quality in - Quantity out' Foreman) writes:
>	A friend of mine had an idea for a product which was a hugh
>array of cheap slow memory which emulated a disk drive, and even would
>have come in a disk drive case.  The object here was that there would
>be no latency, and you could still hang it on a DMA disk controller.
>Could this be what you're really looking for?

Several companies already make these.  We are currently testing one
(megaram?) with an esmd interface on one of our Primes.  Transfer time
is the same as a real disk, where it wins is seek time.  As others
have said, using such a device for swaping is mainly a win if you are
already at maximum memory on your system.

Bob Larson	Arpa: Blarson@Ecla.Usc.Edu	blarson@skat.usc.edu
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