It's only going to ever be, as good as the OS's implementation of it. So you're mileage will vary greatly, depending on what, and where it's implemented. Version is also a variable to consider. They're all based on the BSD/SUN implementation (links to follow(1, 2)) which dates back to the late 70's to the early 80's, and hasn't changed much, since then. My point being; your results won't have absolute returns -- they all pretty much suck. The client side/implementation is also a factor. Are/will you be testing on/for that, as well?

The references I provided were just as good for use as modules, as they were for references for a better understanding of the underlying protocol(s). You could have just as easily "cobbled" up something that suites your needs using the code/references therein.

You also might be interested in mmap for more efficient use of reading/writing of data from/to memory, from disk.

--Chris

1) unix history repo
2) berkeley software distribution