[comp.sys.amiga.hardware] FAST SCSI controllers

gilgalad@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) (08/20/90)

With all the SCSI controllers that are around, boasting of having
the best performance, I am surprised that nobody has come out with
a truly HIGH PERFORMANCE SCSI controller.  How about a controller with
space for a large cache and other performance improving attributes.

			See ya, Ralph

 
gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu       gilgalad@zip.eecs.umich.edu
gilgalad@caen.engin.umich.edu     Ralph_Seguin@ub.cc.umich.edu
gilgalad@sparky.eecs.umich.edu    USER6TUN@UMICHUB.BITNET

Ralph Seguin               |  In order to get infinitely many monkeys to type
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(313) 662-1506

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (08/23/90)

In article <1990Aug20.161300.12419@zip.eecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes:
>With all the SCSI controllers that are around, boasting of having
>the best performance, I am surprised that nobody has come out with
>a truly HIGH PERFORMANCE SCSI controller.  How about a controller with
>space for a large cache and other performance improving attributes.

ASDG had a critter like this in prototype form many moons ago.  It has it's
own memory and 68000 (which could manage buffering and even run a custom
filesystem, in theory), DMA, etc.  Only problem was, it would cost much more
than a basic DMA controller.  And when FFS came out, the performance 
difference would have been much less than they were hoping for.

Of course, there's still room for improvement.  Most good controllers are
going about as fast as SCSI will permit these days.  I'd like to see what
you might be able to do with a couple of SCSI drives running in parallel.

>			See ya, Ralph
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
      Get that coffee outta my face, put a Margarita in its place!

steve@iphase.UUCP (Steve Kappes PER) (08/23/90)

In article <13956@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) writes:
>In article <1990Aug20.161300.12419@zip.eecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes:
>>With all the SCSI controllers that are around, boasting of having
>>the best performance, I am surprised that nobody has come out with
>>a truly HIGH PERFORMANCE SCSI controller.  How about a controller with
>>space for a large cache and other performance improving attributes.
>
>ASDG had a critter like this in prototype form many moons ago.  It has it's

> ( deletions for our character counting usenet utility )

>going about as fast as SCSI will permit these days.  I'd like to see what
>you might be able to do with a couple of SCSI drives running in parallel.
>
>>			See ya, Ralph
>-- 
>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"

One problem with getting to the next level of performance with host adapters
is that they end up costing nearly as much as the system they go into and
they take about 4 man-years of code development to get them stable.

I am curious though,  does anyone know of applications for the amiga
that could use say 6 megabytes continuous throughput from about 6 WREN
class drives?  Keep in mind that is about $9000 worth of drives.

For the observant that would be 2 SCSI cables.

One other question, would the Amiga OS benefit from caching or is it
more like UNIX for which simple catching is a hinderance?

These questions are for my own interest, not my present employer's.

Steve Kappes  Interphase Corp. uunet!iphase!steve