[comp.sys.att] My 8mm drive is *way* slower than yours....

et@ocf.berkeley.edu (Eric Thompson) (03/17/91)

I finally got this new 8mm drive to work w/my 3B2/700.  It's a Comtemporary
Cybernetics Group (CCG) 8200, and they got me the cable that works w/the
3B2.  So, it works, using the standard Unix utilities.  That's fine, but I
want to know if there's a way to speed it up.

The manual says:

	"The maximum burst data transfer rate is limited by performance
	 of the SCSI Host Adapter and the CY-8200 buffer control hardware.
	 The maximum burst data transfer rate will not exceed 1.5MB/s.
	 Typical burst performance is expected to be approx. 1.2MB/s.  This
	 level of performance has been measured when operating the CY-8200
	 attached to an Adaptec SCSI development system."
			^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I need to find out more about such a system.  Right now I'm getting bursts
of 150KB/s.  The manual also mentions that the drive will run as a streaming
device if the computer sends at a minimum of 246KB/s.  Even that would be a
MAJOR improvement.

Any information about Adaptec, Adaptec systems on a 3B2, or improving per-
formance on a 8mm hooked to a 3B2 using tar/cpio is appreciated.