barry@primerd.prime.com (09/13/89)
Does anyone have any experiences, good or bad, to report about the
Turbo Cache software Peripheral Land (PLI) provide with their hard
drives and Syquest drive?
I've been comparing the features/specs on about a dozen incarnations of
the Syquest removable 45MB cartridge drive. A local dealer claimed that
the PLI software (Turbo Cache, Turbo Optimizer, Turbo Spool, and Turbo
Backup) was *much* better than what other packages provided. When I
spoke to a product manager at PLI, he said that Turbo Cache was a
"intelligent" RAM cache that *significantly* boosted performance for
usage patterns that had heavy disk access. He claimed that a 25MS disk
would appear to have an effective access time of 8MS and cited
improvements of as much as 2-3X. All of this sounds great, but a bit
unbelievable. I don't use the Apple RAM cache because I'd rather have a
slower system with a reduced chance of damaged disk files. How is Turbo
Cache different?
Thanks for any info ...
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Barry Wolman | barry@s66.prime.com
Principal Technical Consultant | 492 Old Connecticut Path
Prime Computer | Framingham, MA 01701
| 508/626-1700, ext. 4187
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Nothing in this posting reflects an official position of Prime Computer.c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU (Alex Lau) (09/15/89)
In article <160700066@primerd> barry@primerd.prime.com writes: >I've been comparing the features/specs on about a dozen incarnations of >the Syquest removable 45MB cartridge drive. A local dealer claimed that >the PLI software (Turbo Cache, Turbo Optimizer, Turbo Spool, and Turbo >Backup) was *much* better than what other packages provided. When I >spoke to a product manager at PLI, he said that Turbo Cache was a >"intelligent" RAM cache that *significantly* boosted performance for >usage patterns that had heavy disk access. He claimed that a 25MS disk >would appear to have an effective access time of 8MS and cited >improvements of as much as 2-3X. All of this sounds great, but a bit >unbelievable. I don't use the Apple RAM cache because I'd rather have a >slower system with a reduced chance of damaged disk files. How is Turbo >Cache different? The reports I've been getting about the Turbo Cache is that it doesn't speed up access much more than Apple's RAM Cache. I doubt if TC does what the PLI product manager said it would. Also, I don't think that PLI's software package is "much better" than what anyone else gives away with their drives. In fact, PLI adds a special ROM chip to their Syquest-mechanism drive that can screw things up royally, plus the original casing made it impossible for the fan to cool the actual cartridge. That last problem has been fixed, but the first one hasn't. Moral: don't believe what marketing people tell you. --- Alex