Re: SCSI Partition question

[dreamer@ods.sol.net]

IS>If the new drive is slower than your old hard drives then perhaps
IS>your interleave is not optimally set. Most drives are low level
IS>formatted these days with a 1:1 interleave. I believe that on your
IS>IIe your interleave should probably be greater than this -- although
IS>you didn't indicate what type of SCSI adapter you have. I assume it
IS>isn't a RamFAST since you didn't mention using the RamFAST built-in
IS>utilities. If you have an old Apple Rev. C SCSI adapter then you
IS>definitely will need to adjust your interleave -- this requires a
IS>low level format.

Having just had to go through this obnoxious process, I think I can
help.  First of all, I had originally formatted it with a 1:1
interleave, using the SCSI HD Utils V0.98 or somesuch thing.  It's a
290+Mb CDC HD.  I managed, with ProDOS 2.0.3 on a //e, to get 7
partitions.  However, I found that it was intolerably slower than my
older, smaller (80Mb) HDs, and so I asked a friend about it.  He
suggested this:
1)Format your HD with a 1:1 interleave.  (partition it too)
2)Copy a LARGE file onto it (I used a, I believe, 1000 block file).  Time
how long it takes to copy the file onto the HD.
3)Copy that same file to either a different directory or partition on
the same HD and time it.
4) You ARE writing these times down, aren't you?  BTW - I suggest using
Cat Dr., which seems to be faster than Copy II Plus.
5) Reformat it at 2:1 interleave.  Go to step 2.

At some point, you will notice that your times are starting to increase
again.  When this happens, STOP!  You've found the best interleave.
In my case, I had a bit of a quandry.  At 3:1, it copied the file within
the HD faster, but at 4:1 it copied the file TO the HD faster.  It was a
trade-off, and since it's for a BBS, and I do more transferring from
disk to HD (or whatever) rather than moving files about the HD, I opted
for the 3:1 interleave.

NOTE:  at 1:1 I could NOT copy files within the HD.

Hope this helps someone!
Glenn
Lord Wilderness

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