First post, by Disruptor
- Rank
- Oldbie
I'd like to present a fact:
I've a 486/160 that has a HighPoint IDE controller and an 80 GB HDD that is definitively too fast for this computer.
In my test using the command line (command.com or cmd.exe) I copy an 130 MB file to NUL device.
copy /b file NUL
Under plain DOS I get over 30 MB/s
Starting smartdrv performance drops below 20 MB/s (tested with a smaller file)
Under Windows 98 SE I get ~ 12 MB/s
Under Windows 2000 I get below 10 MB/s
The reason is, that copying from PCI bus using busmaster transfer is about as fast as memory transfers themself.
So, putting file contents to (kernel mode) cache and copying them to (user space) applications will drop performance.
Please draw your own conclusions.