fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish) (12/31/86)
A few weeks ago I purchased an ASDG Minirack-C with two of their 2Mb
boards. I have been very happy with it and this "mini-review" is
my attempt to share some of my experiences.
HARDWARE
--------
The Minirack-C is a quality metalwork box about 6" wide by 10" tall by
10 inches deep. Both the metalwork and paint are first class (though
I would rather have a beige shade than black). Inside is a two slot
card cage and a very hefty looking power supply.
Each 2Mb board measures 7" high by 8.5" wide and displays a very high
level of component quality and workmanship in assembly. You have to
look VERY hard to see any cuts or jumpers (there are only a couple).
SOFTWARE
--------
The ASDG expansion comes with a recoverable ramdisk. The ram disk can be
set up to use any portion of the available expansion memory, up to 8Mb.
I have GURU'd my system MANY times since I have had the ram disk and have
yet to have the ram disk get corrupted. Not that it isn't possible with
certain failure modes, just that under normal development/test conditions
it appears to be very rare.
PERFORMANCE
-----------
To get a feel for the performance gains possible, I ran some tests using
the gadget editor on my library disk 46. I measured the amount of
time necessary to completely rebuild the gadget editor from the source,
using Manx 3.30E.
Standard dual floppy 24:10
CLtd 20M hard disk 14:55
ASDG recoverable ramdisk 9:30
Notes:
(1) For all cases, compiler temp files stored in ram:
(2) For dual floppy setup, manx and workbench files in df0:
and gadget editor sources on df1:
(3) For CLtd case, workbench, manx, and gadget editor in hd0:
(4) For ASDG case, workbench, manx, and gadget editor in vd0:
I then tried Rick Spanbauer's diskperf.c program.
Amiga Amiga Amiga Amiga Sun
ASDG Ramdisk Floppy CLtd 3/50
vd0: ram: df1: dh0:
File creations (files/sec) 18 5 <=1 7 6
File deletions (files/sec) 43 10 1 15 11
Directory scan (entries/sec) 51 5 38 50 350
Seek+read (seek+read/sec) 132 51 2 40 298
Read speed, 512 buffer (bytes/sec) 70849 201649 11014 17133 240499
Read speed, 4096 buffer (bytes/sec) 109226 655360 12024 17133 234057
Read speed, 8192 buffer (bytes/sec) 113975 873813 12080 17133 233189
Read speed, 32768 buffer (bytes/sec) 119156 873813 12136 17133 236343
Write speed, 512 buffer (bytes/sec) 46811 137970 4974 12603 215166
Write speed, 4096 buffer (bytes/sec) 63937 262144 5180 13512 182466
Write speed, 8192 buffer (bytes/sec) 65536 291271 5170 13653 179755
Write speed, 32768 buffer (bytes/sec) 67216 327680 5190 13797 187580
Notes:
(1) All tests done under 1.2 release 33.46.
(2) df1: tests done after "addbuffers 32" & fresh formatted disk
(3) vd0: tests done with 2Mb recoverable ram disk, nearly full.
(4) ram: tests done with ASDG ram attached and active for ram: use
(5) All Amiga timings done by Fred Fish. Sun-30/50 timings
by Rick Spanbauer.
SUPPORT
-------
ASDG has a very high commitment to quality, both hardware and software.
They have announced a buy-back policy to allow users of older hardware
to upgrade to the newer hardware.
DISCLAIMER
----------
Neither I nor my employer have any financial interest in ASDG.
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Fred Fish Motorola Computer Division, 3013 S 52nd St, Tempe, Az 85282 USA
{seismo!noao!mcdsun,hplabs!well}!fnf (602) 438-5976
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