aio_read/write versus O_NONBLOCK

Hi!

Could someone point me to some articles or give me some hints on the
advantages/disadvantages of asynchronous operations on files (aio_read/
aio_read) versus normal operations (read/write) used with O_NONBLOCK
when opening a file.

aio_read/aio_write are indeed more flexible. But, at least on Linux/
glibc, they are implemented using POSIX threads. Wouldn't a carefully
designed program using O_NONBLOCK for files best a program using
aio_read/aio_write? I think my question should be: are asynchronous I/
O operations only more flexible or are they also faster?

So, if I were to design a raw speed-priority application, should I
consider using aio_read/aio_write? (assuming I would be a very clever
programmer and all the negative aspects related to using O_NONBLOCK
would vanish).

Razvan
.