>
>
> >On 15 Apr 96 at 11:48, Martin Buck wrote:
> >> The DOS-fs does no read-ahead on the FAT. So whenever you read a cluster of
> >> a file that's located in a yet unread sector of the FAT, the head has to
> >> move to track 0 to read the next part of the FAT.
[...]
> >seeking). As already stated some time ago, MS-Smartdrive now reads
> >complete tracks on the floppy; why not Linux? (The floppy controller
> >has a read-track command, BTW)
>
> The floppy driver does read and buffer complete tracks. However, only
> one track at a time may be buffered. Thus the data is lost (and has to
> be reread later) if it isn't transferred to the buffer cache before
> reading the next track. For this reason, read ahead of the FAT still
> would be useful.
Then I suspect the modified buffering scheme again (knowing that
Stephen Tweedie won't agree). Maybe the new scheme is more selective
that the old one, but for slow devices like CDs and floppies (ZIP
drives?) different policies are required.
>
> Alain
Ulrich