Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:72723 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:4740 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!xenitec!lemsys!clemon From: clemon@lemsys.UUCP (Craig Lemon) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Speed of HardFrame/2000 and Quantum Q105S (problem) (longish) Summary: Why is my drive so slow? Keywords: HardFrame, Quantum Message-ID: <3989.659757130@lemsys.UUCP> Date: Tue Nov 27 19:52:10 1990 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware This has been something that's been bugging me for a long time now.... In the near past I have heard people with low-cost type HD controllers (even for the 500) giving performances of around 500K/sec (KBytes), even when used with lower cost drives (ie. Seagate). Some people with better controllers on stock 2000s have given speeds of 900K/sec. (ie. HardFrame/2000 and Quantum Drive). I have a REV 4.2 B2000 with a HardFrame/2000 and Q105S and since the day I installed it I've gotten the following performance : -- DiskPreformance - V3.0 - 03/21/89 Testing drive dh0: with big files (harddisk mode) File create/delete: create 12 files/sec, delete 40 files/sec Directory scan: 102 entries/sec Seek/read test: 114 seek/reads per second r/w speed: buf 1024 bytes, rd 104509 byte/sec, wr 47880 byte/sec r/w speed: buf 8192 bytes, rd 204268 byte/sec, wr 122401 byte/sec r/w speed: buf 32768 bytes, rd 227951 byte/sec, wr 140434 byte/sec -- What is wrong with this picture? Just now (as I write this article), the performance with small files (floppy mode) has dropped to 65 K/sec read and 17 K/sec writes. I got no documentation with my drive and I am using whatever defaults were set by RDPrep. I have a capacity of 102MB so I lost some space somewhere, but I'm not worried about that right now. Could my 64KB read ahead cache be disabled? (I also heard people mentioning that the Amiga never uses the cache. Is this true?) What about SCSI termination? Hardframe/2000 ROMS? If needed my full sys.config is : B2000 REV 4.2 KS 1.2 WB 1.3.2 A2088 Bridgecard (ancient model) 2x2052 memory (4MB total) 68010 Hardframe/2000 (obviously) Quantum Q105S Miniscribe 30MB (BRIDGECARD) with some controller I thought that it was possible that the Bridgecard was having some effect (ie. eating cycles for the bus or something) but I've run the test without the Bridgecard installed and it still gives these numbers. I believe I even tried it without the memory. This is what RDPrep says the settings are for my Rigid Block setup : Existing Partitions on this disk. block 27, Name "DH0" TableSize : 16 SizeBlock : 128 SecOrg : 0 Surfaces : 1 SectorPerBlock : 1 BlocksPerTrack : 201 Reserved : 2 PreAloc : 0 Interleave : 0 LowCyl : 1 HighCyl : 1018 NumBufers : 5 BufMemType : 5 MaxTransfer : 131072 Mask : 0x0fe BotPri : 3 DosType : "DOS^A" What about my MaxTransfer setting? Could this be the culprit? I've left it at default as well. I haven't tried playing with it because I haven't got a backup of this drive and I don't want to accidently do something or encounter a power out at the worst possible time or something like that. (BTW, I use addbuffers dh0: 30 in my startup). One thing I do notice is that when I access a very large file (ie. copying Maker from DvideoIII, about 500K, and copying it to RAM: or something, disk access consists of about 3-5 very short bursts about 0.75-1.0 seconds apart. If I could line these bursts up into one big burst, then I'd be happy. What about the 68010? I can't see any effect that it would have. I don't autoboot from my drive (KS 1.2 until 2.01 is released) so that explains my bootpri. While I have you, one more Hardframe guru question. If I set my bootpri as high as it will go to the hardframe, will I still be able to boot from floppy if one is inserted. This may sound stupid but I have heard of controllers that won't let you unless you disable it. -- Craig Lemon - Kitchener, Ontario. Amiga B2000/10--2400 bps--AmigaUUCP 1.03D clemon@lemsys.UUCP or lemsys!clemon@xenitec.on.ca ....!{uunet}!watmath!xenitec!lemsys!clemon