[comp.sys.dec] Vaxstation 3100 Disk Speeds

forrest@sybase.com (09/16/89)

I just got off the phone with Trimarchi. I called them up to talk
about the disks that they sell for Vaxstation (and Microvax) 3100's.
Although they sell for at least half of what roughly equivalent
drives from DEC cost, I was concerned about the speed of SCSI drives
on a 3100 compared to a Q-BUS based system using the same chip (I
think this is a Microvax 3500). This is a topic I'd like to hear
comments on.

Anyway, the person I was talking to said that DEC's driver for
the SCSI drives doesn't release the drives after sending commands
(this isn't a direct quote) resulting in much reduced performance.
Is this the synchronous vs. asynchronous distinction we've been
hearing about? Trimarchi has a driver that they claim does it right
that gives about a 2x performance improvement.

Is anyone using the Trimarchi driver? Is anyone using the Trimarchi
drives? (I'm only interested in the SCSI drives not the RD equivalents
they used to sell).

Jon Forrest
forrest@sybase.com
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