Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!bbn!apple!amdahl!dwl10 From: dwl10@uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Which SCSI interface??? Message-ID: Date: 7 Aug 89 14:57:05 GMT References: <10467@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <795@medsys.UUCP> Reply-To: dwl10@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Houston TX Lines: 50 In article <795@medsys.UUCP> wendell@medsys.UUCP (bbs amiga user) writes: >rademach@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Simon Rademacher) writes: > > >>Has anybody heard anything about the Xetec controller (esp. for the 500)? >>Would it be worth the $239 the local store wants? I would suspect its DMA >>and hence a little better than the Supra. > >>Thanks > >>======================================= >>= Simon Rademacher = >>= rademach%tramp@boulder.colorado.edu = > >Simon, I also asked this question a while back, and in no uncertain terms >was recommended away from the Xetec controller. Seems it dies on very large >program loads. The fix is to make the Max Transfer value something like >128K, so the drive has to load larger files in 2 or more requests. From >what I've gathered, this fix would have to be run every time you boot up >and is not a good fix at that. The controller uses what the company terms >DMAx which is just a very efficient processor-intensive approach. A salesman >at Lightspeed Distribution told me that the rating Amiga World gave the >Xetec controller was downright lies! He also said that same about their review >of the Supra, (AmigaWorld said it only got 50K/sec reads or some such >nonsense). If you find out any other pertinent info concerning this >or any other 500 controllers, I'd appreciate hearing about them. > The September Amiga World has a 2/3 page "update" on the Xetec controller. The author claims that Xetec didn't tell him about the MaxTransfer problem until after publication! His NEW Dperf 2.0 results are as follows: Read/Write 510K/310K Bytes per secons (overscan Read/Write 198K/124K) He claims that the Xetec Fasttrak (for the A500) is still the fastest of the group he tested. But the Xetec FastCard (for the A2000) dropped to third in the "speed race". He goes on to say that for the A2000 "The CBM A2090A and the MicroBotics HardFrame are faster. The HardFrame remains the controller of choice.". For what it's worth! For details on how to re-format the drive to runn correctly, see the article. -- "What is another word | Dave Lowrey | [The opinions expressed MAY be for 'Thesaurus'?" | Amdahl Corp. | those of the author and are not | Houston, Texas | necessarily those of his Steven Wright | amdahl!dwl10 | employer] (`nuff said!)