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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uunet!mcsun!chsun!hslrswi!aut!nbladt From: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt) Subject: ISA is faster than EISA ? (Was: Re: DOS and 386BSD (and NT and OS2)) Message-ID: <1992Oct22.093459.13824@autelca.ascom.ch> Organization: Ascom Autelca AG, Guemligen, Switzerland References: <1992Oct16.175743.19250@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <1992Oct21.160231.6516@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 09:34:59 GMT Lines: 36 eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad) writes: >A Wizard of Earth C (terry@cs.weber.edu) wrote: >: I can definitively say that the IDE on AT&T 386SX WGS and Compaq Deskpro >: 486/33M boxes use *soft* translation... that is, the translation is done [endless discussion about soft- or hard translation on IDE drives deleted] >This is reason IDE is faster and more reliable than anything else. The signal >path does not exist, unlikde ESDI >, and there is only one controller, unlike 2 for SCSI, > less communication overhead. > SCSI 2 looks fast because it has 32-bit bus between controllers, >but it still has to communicate via ISA 16-bit bus, even if you have >the 32-bit EISA bus, the speed of the EISA bus may not match with the speed of >the SCSI-2. ISA bus is still much faster than any hard-disk controller. You say, that the EISA bus is too slow for SCSI-2, but the ISA bus is still faster than any hard-disk controller. It indirectly follows: You say that the (16-bit 8Mhz) ISA bus IS FASTER than EISA bus ? This must be wrong ! The DMA rate on the ISA bus is about 5 (or 5.7) MB/sec. while on the EISA bus it is (up to) 33MB/sec. Quite a difference in my opinion. Did you ever use a system with an EISA bus ? I have one at home and can tell you it's very fast in accessing the disk ! Confused, Norbert. BTW: Thanks for your example of an Xconfig file. I used it to get the X386mono server running. -- Norbert Bladt, Ascom Autelca AG, Worbstr. 201, CH-3073 Guemligen, Switzerland Phone: +41 31 999 65 52 FAX: +41 31 999 65 44 Mail: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch UUCP: ..!uunet!mcsun!chsun!hslrswi!aut!nbladt