ideas

Adonijah adonijah at gmail.com
Fri Jul 23 10:50:31 PDT 2004


Matthew Dillon wrote:
:..................................................................
:
:4) If I'm not wrong DMA for CD drives is disabled by default. This means that 
:the installation from the CD takes more time than it could. I think that 
:setting somewhere in the installer sysctl hw.ata.atapi_dma="1" could improve 
:the CD drive throughput and reduce the time needed.

    As Joerg indicates, ATAPI DMA is fraught with compatibility issues and,
    besides, I really doubt that that turning on DMA would make the CD go
    any faster.  CD transfer rates (even on 50x drives) are quite slow and
    the real bottleneck is track seeking, which is ultra slow on any CD
    drive.
I wish I could agree, but when one does CD burning, DMA is extremely 
helpful in keeping the system reponsive and can dramatically increase 
performance. I think you'll hear the same thing echoed by many who do CD 
burning.






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