john@wizard.UUCP (John Danner) (05/23/89)
Can someone explain to me why a Mac using the same hard drive as a Sun386i might be significantly slower as an NFS server? There seems to be a significantly longer amount of time needed to transfer large files or to save a large file under emacs, etc. I have heard something like A/UX's I/O buffer is too small and slows down transfers, but I would like to hear from people with more A/UX expertise. We are also thinking about making a Mac our gateway to the Internet, but I am worried that we would experience a similar problem when doing large ftp's, although I doubt it would be as painful as NFS. John Danner Tandem Computers ...!decwrl!pacbell!tandem!wizard!john
dwells@Apple.COM (Dave Wells) (05/23/89)
In article <415@wizard.UUCP> john@wizard.UUCP (John Danner) writes: >Can someone explain to me why a Mac using the same hard drive as a Sun386i >might be significantly slower as an NFS server? There seems to be a >significantly longer amount of time needed to transfer large files or to >save a large file under emacs, etc. I have heard something like A/UX's ... The method used to prepare the disk for A/UX use is very important to the performance of any drive. I take it you've already tried and experienced poor performance? The most common pitfall in preparing HDs for A/UX use has to be the mkfs command. What options did you specify? Be _very_ careful with the gap parameter It defaults to 7 and can kill disk performance. -Dave -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Dave Wells, Apple Computer, Inc. MS: 37-O (408) 974-5515 Mail: dwells@apple.com or AppleLink d.wells or GEnie D.WELLS These opinions may be nothing more than the ramblings of a fatigued tinkerer -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There's one big difference between genius and stupidity. Genius has limits. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (05/26/89)
john@wizard.UUCP (John Danner) wrote: > Can someone explain to me why a Mac using the same hard drive as a Sun386i > might be significantly slower as an NFS server? The Mac uses the System V filesystem, which is slower than the Berkeley filesystem used on Suns. Apple has put some effort into making it faster for 1.1 (mostly work by Gene Dronek of Vulcan Labs, on contract). It makes the difference between intolerable and tolerable. Also, we were unable to find any good Ethernet cards for the NuBus. The Apple and Kinetics ones both drop packets at the 'drop' of a hat, especially when they come quickly, like from a Sun-4. We had to throttle our Sun-4 WAY back (write and read in 1K rather than 8K chunks when talking to our A/UX machines) to avoid long hangs. And this Sun-4 has the cruddy Intel Ethernet chip, which is quite a bit slower than the clean AMD LANCE in the newer Suns. Not even Apple makes a Mac their gateway to the Internet -- they use a Vax running Berkeley Unix, and recently upgraded it significantly rather than switch to A/UX. -- John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/26/89)
>Not even Apple makes a Mac their gateway to the Internet -- they use a >Vax running Berkeley Unix, and recently upgraded it significantly >rather than switch to A/UX. John's made a couple of assumptions here that aren't correct. The primary reason we use a Vax for our gateway is because at any one time there are 40 or 50 people logged in. No currently released Mac can handle that many users -- and putting the multiple Eagles and things that keep the data (and NETNEWS) on that machine would also be hard to duplicate on an A/UX box. My group is also planning on putting an A/UX box on the net in the next few weeks (hopefully...) for support purposes, so there will be A/UX machines on the net soon. (Actually, I know of some at other sites that are already out there). John assumes we don't use A/UX because we can't. Wrong. We don't use a Mac for our internet gateway because we aren't hyper about wedging our hardware into places where the technology is inappropriate, and we never claimed that an A/UX box would be able to be a 45 user Internet gateway and Usenet host... Chuq Von Rospach =|= Editor,OtherRealms =|= Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com =|= CI$: 73317,635 =|= AppleLink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] This is....The Voice....of USENET....in special English. 1300UTC on 11525.