gpm@dukempd.UUCP (Guy Metcalfe) (02/01/88)
Recently I aquired four formaters: the Atari standard,
the Twister, format11 and DCformat. All but the Atari came
over the net and I would like to thank the people who posted
them- even though I can't remember the names. Over dinner one
evening I deceided to compare the read from and write to
times of these four formaters. I collected this information
using the time command of the Gulam shell, so the times are
in units of 5 millisecond clock ticks. The Gulam command df
reports the disk sizes. The list is ordered as to increasing
size of formatted disk.
formater size(kb) write to read from
-------- -------- -------- ---------
Atari 728 12,354 7,586
Twister 810 5,470 5,112
DCformat 830 5,547 4,864
format11 925 14,933 8,421
Reformatting the same disk on each trial, I moved 220 kb of
files (programs, archives, 1st Word documents et al) from a
ram disk d: to disk drive a: using the Gulam sequence "time
mv *.* a:". This gave the "write to" time. I then moved all
the files back to the ram disk with "time mv a:\*.* d:".
This gave the "read from" timing. All these operations were
moves ie copy and delete, so the more common straight copy
will be faster: this is a comparison not an absolute
performance test.
As most of us already know the Atari standard formater
produces small, slow disks. Format11 makes a big but
enormously slow disk; although, it is so large as to be a
suitable archival material, but not for everyday use. I find
Twister and DCformat very close in performance and good for
everyday use. I personally use DCformat for its versitiliy;
but only after haveing used and been satisfied with Twister
for many months. The DCformatter is more versitile, and this
has swayed me to its side. I should mention that I used
DCfomatter in its 82 track, 10 sector/track fast mode with the
write verify turned off; the other three have only one way to
use them.
Disclaimer: I neither know nor understand anyone who writes
or distributes formaters, these four included.
P.S. I'd still like to hear from someone about my desire
to find a resizeable and reset survivabl ram disk.
At least tell me why it's hard to do. I got no responce
to an earily inquiry except for requests to pass any
information along.
--
Guy Metcalfe gpm@dukempd.uucp
Duke University Dept. of Physics mcnc!duke!dukempd!gpm
Durham, N.C. 27706 despot@tucc.bitnet