Re: [NTLK] ATA Linear flash speed

Paul.. It's cool .to have you chime in on this. oooo.... and with so much
wonderful technical goodies too! Good reading, real good reading. I do have
a question or two.

What do the Cache settings in the Preferences mean? What do they do and how
do they help? A technical, detailed answer would be sufficient ;-)

Are there optimal settings for this cache? Are binary round numbers (I set
both of mine to 128) better? What's the maximum setting before you see
negative effects? What is the Cache Security Net do?

Below are some results from my timed speed tests. Some technical details
first.

I'm using a Newton 2100 with a 24MB Linear Flash in one slot and in the
Other a PCMCIA CFII adapter (eBay generic model # CA-122) loaded with a
Ridata 1GB 150x Compact Flash (CF) Card. The eMate has the Memory upgrade.
I easily can move the PCMCIA/CFII adapter (with the 1GB Ridata 150x CF
Card) between my 2100 and eMate without any technical difficulty.

The 1GB CF card was freshly partitioned into a 4MB (automount) partition
plus (3) 330MB partitions. I did this because I'm (guessing) you offered
this setting for some specific purpose. Besides, it made sense to have a
smaller "automount" partition (for often used extensions, apps, etc.) those
I didn't want taking up space on the Internals store of my eMate.

The test file was the Newton Movie, 1984.pkg. It's size on my Mac is
2,446,774 bytes (2,389K). Once downloaded to the Newton, it compressed
itself (SOP) to 2,232K.

OK now some numbers...

First test: Downloading this movie from NCU in Classic Mode via AppleTalk
Wifi Bridge on my G4/500AGP.

Wifi to Linear Flash:
        2,389K 182 Seconds 13.126KB/sec
Wifi to ATA Card:
        2,389K 2,940 Seconds 0.891KB/sec

        LINEAR/ATA DIFFERENCE:
                        6.19% 14.73 time faster

Second Test: Filing the same movie from one store to another.

Filing ATA to Linear:
        2,232K 73 Seconds 30.575KB/sec
Filing Linear to ATA:
        2,232K 603 Seconds 3.701KB/sec

LINEAR/ATA DIFFERENCE:
                12.11% 8.261 times faster

Third Test: Filing the 1984.pkg from one ATA partition to another ATA
partition,. within the same card.

Filing from ATA to ATA:
        2,232K 390 Seconds 5.723KB/sec

Some interesting things can be seen as possibly obvious. Reading from an
ATA partition is (3x ?) faster than Writing to it. Reading/Writing
simultaneously and Moving things around from one ATA partition to another
is not as bad as I thought it would be.

For the Fourth test, I decided to see how much faster Internal Flash RAM
differs from a Linear Flash Card in a slot. I had to use a smaller file
size due to limited space on my Internal stores. The file used is the
LargeUS.pkg Dictionary from Merlin/WordSleuth software collection. File
size on the Mac is 866,782 (846.47K) and compresses (SOP) to a size of
409K.

Wifi to Internal
                846.47K 136 Seconds 6.224KB/sec
Wifi to Linear
                846.47K 61 Seconds 13.877KB/sec

Internal to Linear
                409K 17 Seconds 24.059KB/sec
Linear to Internal
                409K 23 Seconds 17.782KB/sec

hmmm... Internal seems to be slower. This slower appearance may actually be
due to fragmentation of my internal store. With a about 1MB available,
storing a 409K file on the internal store may be pushing it. Especially
since it's been about a year since my last erase/restore. I would classify
the results as inconclusive or closely matched for speed.

Thanks again, Paul. Lots of fun playing with ATA!

Ron

--
Sent with GoFetch and a Wireless MessagePad 2100.
--
RAParker
QuadzillaNET
       |\/|\ @ Newted.ORG
       |/-|/ @ Quadzilla.NET
       |\ |  @ TahoeSunsets.COM
--
My name is R A Parker. I own a Newton and a Mac.
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