“Don't hide power”

Abstract

A standard PC today has an I/O throughput in excess of 100MBps. It can, therefore, be used as a continuous-media server. Since PC hardware is also cheap, it is surprising that not many continuous-media servers today are built on PC hardware. This paper describes two things. First, we give a summary of I/O measurements on a 200MHz Pentium-Pro based machine. Second, we present the design and implementation of a continuousmedia server called Clockwise whose design was partially dictated by the measured characteristics of the hardware.