“Maths” is somewhat of a colloquialism or archaism…. it is/was used fondly-matter-of-speach in some countries in Europe. I have not heard the expression in a long while…but it’s a cute expression, nonetheless. In a more real sense, it means, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, etc… the many “maths” sciences ;-)

You’ll get better result if you know what you want from the start.

That’s true even for “hard science”! :-)

Mine was not a pre-conceptions mine was an hypothesis…well, sort of! :-)

David, I’d be cautious about the _serial_direct_reads, but the paralle option is viable: provided you realise it will (at least) double the impact on your disks – albeit for a shorter period of time.

Noons: I’m in favour of the same approach – although the cost/benefit analysis for trivial systems often comes out in favour of throwing excess hardware at it and using “fire and forget”.
Question: Should one say “Maths are not something that …”, or “Maths is not something that …”
Answer: Don’t ask me, I teach Maths, not English. :-)

Antonio, facts cannot be derived by hoping or by voting – a fact that people from all shades of the political spectrum find hard to appreciate. At some stage, hard science needs to be applied without pre-conceptions.