http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/Dev/App_Themes/C9/images/feedimage.pnghttp://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Parallel-Computing-Platform-An-Integrated-Approach-to-Tooling/Parallel Computing Platform: An Integrated Approach to Toolinghttp://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Parallel-Computing-Platform-An-Integrated-Approach-to-Tooling/en-usWed, 29 Oct 2008 14:24:13 GMTWed, 29 Oct 2008 14:24:13 GMTEvNet (EvNet, Version=1.0.3608.3122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null)<P>You have to be careful with parallel execution when it comes to disk I/O. <BR>If each thread is accessing a file, the whole thing slows down to a crawl as the hard disc read head has to jump to each file every 20ms. It would be MUCH better if the operating system could allocate more time to read a file before it allowed a context switch. say 500ms. that would allow more data to be retrieved from the hard disc, less head thrash, less time waiting for the head to move,&nbsp;and performance would go up greatly.<BR><BR>Just try creating 2 or more zip archives at the same time, then time it again but only doing 1 at a time. Winrar has a feature where it will wait (probably using a global mutex) for other winrar windows to finish before the next one starts.<BR><BR>You can context switch CPU threads till the cows come home, but a phsical device needs more time to read/write when the head arrives.</P>http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Parallel-Computing-Platform-An-Integrated-Approach-to-Tooling/?CommentID=436736Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:24:13 GMThttp://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Parallel-Computing-Platform-An-Integrated-Approach-to-Tooling/?CommentID=4367360http://channel9.msdn.com/436736/WebViewBug.aspx?EVT=0You have to be careful with parallel execution when it comes to disk I/O. If each thread is accessing a file, the whole thing slows down to a crawl as the hard disc read head has to jump to each file every 20ms. It would be MUCH better if the operating system could allocate more time to read a file&#8230;Simon Hughes0http://channel9.msdn.com/436736/Trackback.aspxThat was really cool, it makes a lot of sense that we don't really want to be working purely with threads, but expressing concurrency with an abstraction which can more intelligently handle threads and thread pools etc.. the task panel seems like such a natural thing that should exist.http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Parallel-Computing-Platform-An-Integrated-Approach-to-Tooling/?CommentID=432365Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:44:55 GMThttp://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Parallel-Computing-Platform-An-Integrated-Approach-to-Tooling/?CommentID=4323650http://channel9.msdn.com/432365/WebViewBug.aspx?EVT=0That was really cool, it makes a lot of sense that we don't really want to be working purely with threads, but expressing concurrency with an abstraction which can more intelligently handle threads and thread pools etc.. the task panel seems like such a natural thing that should exist.stevo_0http://channel9.msdn.com/432365/Trackback.aspx