Fast/Slow 6386s

[~XT6510300~Frank McGee~C23~M24~6326~]

In article <1060 at vsi.COM> droman at vsi.COM (Dave Droman) writes:
>
>I have a customer who is running two (almost) identical 6386 16Mz systems.
>One has a 135MB ESDI drive and the other has a 40MB ST506 drive; both have
>4MB RAM.
>
>Both the systems are running ix386 and VP/IX and the identical applications.
>The 40MB is "blowing the doors off" the 135MB.  Indeed, DOS applications under
>VP/IX are actually reasonable on the 40.  
>
>Dave
>-- 
>David C. Droman				      {uunet!attmail}!vsi!droman
>V-Systems, Inc.				              droman at vsi.com
>(714) 545-6442                                           GREEAAT!!!

You might want to check which controller versions you have, there are
3:1 and 1:1 versions of both the ESDI and ST 506 controllers.  It's
conceivable that a 1:1 ST 506 could beat out a 3:1 ESDI.  On the back of
the controller there should be a small white tag that identifies the
controller as :
	a WD 1003-WAH (3:1 ST 506)
	a WD 1006-WAH (1:1 ST 506)
	a WD 1005-WAH (3:1 ESDI)
	a WD 1007A-WAH (1:1 ESDI)

Remember that if you decide to upgrade to a 1:1 controller you have to
back up the drive and re-do your low-level formats.  Also, since you
have 4 MB you might want to look at Chapter 5 in the System V/386 Release
3.2 Operations/System Administration Guide; it recommends some tunables
you can adjust to get better performance.

-- 
Frank McGee
Tier 3 Indirect Channel Sales Support
attmail!fmcgee