> On Sun, Nov 15, 1998 at 06:30:25PM +0100, Martin Mares wrote:
> > Track-to-track seek speeds are not directional, but inter-sector
> > speeds are and since the algorithm has no information on physical
> > disk geometry, it cannot distinguish whether two sectors are on
> > the same track or not.
>
> well perhaps it should
> all this crap to deal with logical block number has lost all the optimization that
> is possible by taking into account physical distances on the disk.
>
> i think it was rsx-11 which used to format the disk to take into account
> retational delays
>
> of course the other side of the coin is that all this sorting increases the
> potential for problems when metadata on the disk becomes inconsistent. i know
> disks are pretty reliable these days, but the os has been know to crash now and
> then :-)
> --
> simon
>
Does anyone else think it might be time for a hard-disk/controller which did _not_ do
any of this funky optimization? That way, people with smart OS's (like Linux) can
have disk drivers optimized both for disk geometry and usage, instead of trying to
work their way around black boxes of hardware optimization. Possibly another option
would be a disk/controller which could be switched (DIP switches, etc.) between
hardware optimized for DOS, and unoptimized for Linux.
David Feuer
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