colas@lemur.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) (12/21/90)
I am looking for a disk cache (preferably for floppies, PD or commercial) with these features: - able to buffer whole track when accessing one sector (yes I have a lot of ram, although this being an option would be nice) - buffering writes, and when flushing, sorting the sectors by numbers so that it can do a smooth fast single-direction head movement - allocating buffers in Fast Ram Or other nice features (automatic bufferring of headers, do not buffer "big" reads...) Does FaccII or BlitzDisk have these features? Are there other such programs available? Do they work with FFS? Did you use them? Did they trashed your disks ? :-) etc... -- Colas Nahaboo, Bull Research France -- Koala Project -- GWM X11 Window Manager Internet: colas@mirsa.inria.fr, Phone: (33) 93.65.77.70, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 66 INRIA Sophia, 2004, rte des Lucioles, B.P.109 - 06561 Valbonne Cedex, FRANCE
fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (12/24/90)
I tried BlitzDisk; worked fine for floppies, but wouldn't work with my
Tiny Tiger HD. It has all the features you're looking for, and the instructions
do say that it may not work on all HD controllers.
--Rick Wrigley
fhwri@conncoll.bitnetm0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT) (12/27/90)
In article <1990Dec21.163546@lemur.inria.fr> colas@lemur.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) writes: >I am looking for a disk cache (preferably for floppies, PD or commercial) with >these features: > >- able to buffer whole track when accessing one sector (yes I have a lot of > ram, although this being an option would be nice) > >- buffering writes, and when flushing, sorting the sectors by numbers so that > it can do a smooth fast single-direction head movement > >- allocating buffers in Fast Ram > >Or other nice features (automatic bufferring of headers, do not buffer "big" >reads...) > >Does FaccII or BlitzDisk have these features? >Are there other such programs available? >Do they work with FFS? >Did you use them? >Did they trashed your disks ? :-) >etc... > >-- >Colas Nahaboo, Bull Research France -- Koala Project -- GWM X11 Window Manager >Internet: colas@mirsa.inria.fr, Phone: (33) 93.65.77.70, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 66 >INRIA Sophia, 2004, rte des Lucioles, B.P.109 - 06561 Valbonne Cedex, FRANCE I have used FaccII for a couple of years now, and have had no problems with it. It can store its buffer in FAST RAM; you set the size of the cache (and you can change it while FaccII is running, too). FaccII knows the difference between "special" (directory and file header) blocks and regular data blocks. It can also detect low-memory situations, and will release cache memory when there is a shortage. As far as I can tell, it does not buffer writes; all disk writes go straight through to the disk. FaccII can be told to preserve the special blocks in prefrence to data blocks when it is running out of cache space. For a dual-floppy system, 512 blocks (256k of cache) gives a good performance boost without chweing up too much RAM. Of course, you could always ask for 880k of cache per floppy of you wanted to ... I use FaccII every time I boot up my Amiga. I have had not Guru's or trashed disks which I can attribute to FaccII. Only Gripe: FaccII flushes the cache whenever a disk is ejected, even if something still has files locked on the disk (it would be nice if it kept the disk's cache around until I was all done with the disk). Wildstar
hclausen@adspdk.UUCP (Henrik Clausen) (12/28/90)
In article <640@tnc.UUCP>, GUY GARNETT writes: > In article <1990Dec21.163546@lemur.inria.fr> colas@lemur.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) writes: > >I am looking for a disk cache (preferably for floppies, PD or commercial) with > >these features: > > > >- able to buffer whole track when accessing one sector. > > > >- buffering writes. > > > >- allocating buffers in Fast Ram. > > > >Or other nice features (automatic bufferring of headers, do not buffer "big" > >reads...) > > > >Does FaccII or BlitzDisk have these features? > >Do they work with FFS? > >Did you use them? > >Did they trash your disks ? :-) I used BlitzDisk for quite a while, when I ran the old ConfMail that would scan a N file message directory N*N times! BlitzDisk sure ran cool on my harddisk, never trashed anything. Used it on floppies as well, but having a HD, floppies tend to collect dust :-) It doesn't buffer by track, but by sector. Meaning you will have to read a sector once to have it in the buffer. In my experience, this is quite reasonable, though not really optimal if you have lots of memory to burn. I wouldn't run it with buffered writes. Suppose you crashed with the disk in an uncertain state? Buffers go to Fast ram by default. BlitzDisk II works with FFS - I'm quite sure FaccII doesn't. > Only Gripe: FaccII flushes the cache whenever a disk is ejected, even > if something still has files locked on the disk (it would be nice if > it kept the disk's cache around until I was all done with the disk). You can ask BlitzDisk to only buffer directory blocks and file headers - real handy for my purpose. It will avoid buffering large files, and can be set to hold stuff when you eject a disk. Everything is setable on the fly, and in general, it does about the same as FaccII. I've heard that in some details, Blitzdisk is a bit smarter, but not having FaccII, I can't tell for sure. I think FaccII is a much larger executable, though. You'd be pretty well off with BlitzDisk. -Henrik ______________________________________________________________________________ | Henrik Clausen, Graffiti Data | If the Doors of Perception where cleansed, | | ...{pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax! | Man would see Reality as it is - Infinite. | \______cbmehq!adspdk!hclausen___|_________________________________W. Blake___/
C506634@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Eric Edwards) (12/30/90)
In Message-ID: <186ed84b.ARN1370@adspdk.UUCP>
hclausen@adspdk.UUCP (Henrik Clausen) said:
>> In article <1990Dec21.163546@lemur.inria.fr> colas@lemur.inria.fr (Colas Naha
>> >I am looking for a disk cache (preferably for floppies, PD or commercial) wi
>> >these features:
>> >- able to buffer whole track when accessing one sector.
>> >- buffering writes.
>> >- allocating buffers in Fast Ram.
>> >reads...)
>> >
>> >Does FaccII or BlitzDisk have these features?
>> >Do they work with FFS?
>> >Did they trash your disks ? :-)
>
> I used BlitzDisk for quite a while, when I ran the old ConfMail that
[stuff deleted]
> I wouldn't run it with buffered writes. Suppose you crashed with the
>disk in an uncertain state?
FFS does delayed writes which is the same principle. However, I agree
that buffered writes is a bad idea for a cache of any size.
> Buffers go to Fast ram by default.
>
> BlitzDisk II works with FFS - I'm quite sure FaccII doesn't.
You are quite mistaken. :-)
Actually, FaccII works directly with trackdisk.device
It doesn't give a hoot what the file systems is. I was impressed when it
automagicly cached my newly mounted fast file floppies. The down side is
that you have to Zap the executable in order to use FaccII on hard disks or
any other non-trackdisk device.
[still more stuff deleted]
>for sure. I think FaccII is a much larger executable, though.
FaccII is 9368 bytes. In either case I think the memory for the cache will
be so much larger than the executable size will be irrelevent.
> You'd be pretty well off with BlitzDisk.
Probably true. FaccII has served me well 2.5 years but there have been no
updates. It looks like Blitzdisk has taken up where FaccII left off. Unless
ASDG does something unexpected like release a FaccIII I would say go with
Blitzdisk.
In the last round of disk cache discussion somone mentioned patching FaccII to
word with a hard drive. It turned out that FaccII actually slowed down the
drives performance. The point is that most FaccII is slower than most hard
drives. I would expect similar results with Blitzdisk but has anyone out there
actually done this?
Eric Edwards: c506634 @ "The 3090. Proof that by applying state of the
Inet: umcvmb.missouri.edu art technology to an obsolete architecture,
Bitnet: umcvmb.bitnet one can achieve mediocre performance."