On Fri, 19 Jan 1996 16:09:37 -0800 <Elbert E Silbaugh> said:
>Ron Seybold writes...
>>Expect HP to be moving ever upward in capacities they're willing to build.
[...snip...]
 
>Does this mean that until they get the transfer rates up to match
>the potential volume for a fairly full 8gb drive, we will see
>systems with a bunch of 8gb drives at only 25% full because of
>transfer rate/performance problems?
 
Some vendors [blue-blooded mainframe-types] sell high capacity disc units
with parallel access paths.  Yes -- more than one set of heads to access the
media.  The concept of an 8Gb drive isn't limited by the transfer rate as
much as access time.  Multiple access mechanisms can improve on this.  But
I agree that single-threading access to an 8Gb disc doesn't sound pretty.
I could run both of our systems on a single 8Gb drive but the performance
would likely stink.
 
Similarly for RAID arrays - if the controller interface is single-threaded,
that may not be a Good Thing(tm).  Of course it will sell memory, to hold
all those prefetches to keep I/O rates to a reasonable level.
 
Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>