IO91461@MAINE.BITNET (Tom Nezwek) (08/03/90)
There has been a lot of talk about "Which HD controller should I Buy"
Well I've had 3 different controllers in my a2500 and I have finally
settled on a Hardframe 2000. I had a GVP and it measured about 250k per
sec. The 2090a (which i liked alot) measured in at 650k per sec. W/Quantum
my new Hardframe 2000 measures in at 695k per sec. (not really any faster
than the 2090a). One problem with the 2090a was that the boot partition
could not use the Fast File System and thus reeked of long boot-ups. This
is easily avoided by making the first partion very small; about 300k.
This partion would only mount one of the fastfilepartions and then
transfer full control to that fastfile partition's startup-sequence.
One problem that I have encountered with the Hardframe is that
whenever I warm-boot or turn on the system for the first time, The
controller pauses at the initial white screen for say 8 seconds while
the 2090a only paused for about 2 seconds. This may not seem like
much but it is a pain to wait when you are used to almost instant
execution of the boot process that the 2090a yeilded. If I had not
sold my 2090a prior to my aquireing the Hardframe 2000, I probably
would have kept the 2090a and bagged the Hardframe idea. I judge the
speed of the 2090a and Hard Frame as about equal and that I would have
prefered to work around 2090a's little problem rather than wait 6 seconds
for the Hardframe to boot.
I know people with Trump cards and they agree that they are a
slower than the 2090a or Hardframe. I can't comment on the Fireball
only that It seems a little too good to be true, kind of like the
out-rageous claims that the Synchro Express made in its first showing.
Fireball claims DMA speed without DMA, So why haven't we seen a review of
it any Amiga mags? Sounds a little too good to be true. And Mast says
that their Fujitsu drives are as good as Quantums.. Ya another pipe-
dream. Quantum has a 2 year warranty. what is fujitsu's? 90 days?
My main opinion is go with what is proven.. Why mess around? If
your buying a Hard Drive then your investing a good sum of money..
It dosen't make sense to take a chance on a Fireball or Advantage w/40meg
for say $499-$549, When you can get a Hardframe2000 & Quantum 40s for
$599. You could spend a lot of money and get a good controller or you
could end up with a dog slow one. Why take the chance when your only
talking about $50 more for a sure thing? Its not worth the chance IMHO.
The 2090a, the newer 2091 and Hardframe 2000 have all been proven as
lightning fast Hd controllers. I recommend all three. If the 2091 was
discounted enough to compete with the Hardframe's price then I'd get
a 2091 no question. If you have a 2090a I'd hold onto it and maybe
put a Quantum 40s on it to replace the 'dog slow' MFM rodime drive.
When all is said and done all 3 of these are DMA controls that work,
are proven fast, and don't rely on gimmicks that claim DMA speed. I had
a GVP, Its nice but not fast enough to compete with these.
Lets try to avoid flames, I gave My time to inform people of what I
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Know and to not take un-needed risks. I am not saying that specific
controllers are bad, only that these 3 are proven. So I would appreciate
it if the flame club would take a vacation instead of hauling out the
slam-wagonTM on this one.
Well I hope this helps someone,
Tom Nezwek
PS: I know the 2090a has a slow down problem in 16 color Hi-res. But
patch 2090a (PD) cures that with speeds of 270k per sec. Down
from 650k per sec. Still respectable speeds..drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) (08/04/90)
Just a comment on speeds. I too have the Hardframe 2000. I also have the GVP A3001 accelerator (28Mhz) with a hard drive attached. Currently I have a 40Meg Quantum AND a SyQuest removable media on the Hardframe and an 80 Meg Quantum AT on the accelerator. What follows is a comparison of these hard drives to the stock internal B2000(*) floppy (OFS) and to the regular and recoverable RAM disks (done with DPerf2 in '030 mode with Burst, Cache, and FastROM enabled): ------------------------------------------------------- DiskPerf2. Testing RAM DISK: Create Files: 37 files/sec. Directory Scan: 39 entries/sec. Delete Files: 74 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 370 seek/sec. Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.) Buffer: 512 Read: 562,540 Write: 337,379 Buffer: 4k Read: 2,788,765 Write: 873,813 Buffer: 8k Read: 3,404,467 Write: 926,303 Buffer: 32k Read: 3,971,878 Write: 985,503 Buffer: 64k Read: 4,369,066 Write: 985,503 Buffer: 256k Read: 4,766,254 Write: 985,503 ------------------------------------------------------- DiskPerf2. Testing RAMB0: (880K Recoverable RAM disk) Create Files: 125 files/sec. Directory Scan: 263 entries/sec. Delete Files: 273 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 620 seek/sec. Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.) Buffer: 512 Read: 302,706 Write: 231,371 Buffer: 4k Read: 762,046 Write: 503,155 Buffer: 8k Read: 816,647 Write: 519,097 Buffer: 32k Read: 891,646 Write: 537,180 Buffer: 64k Read: 876,735 Write: 542,741 Buffer: 256k Read: 891,646 Write: 549,568 ------------------------------------------------------- DiskPerf2. Testing Empty: (880K OFS floppy) Create Files: 0 files/sec. Directory Scan: 102 entries/sec. Delete Files: 1 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 2 seek/sec. Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.) Buffer: 512 Read: 10,213 Write: 3,979 Buffer: 4k Read: 14,081 Write: 5,874 Buffer: 8k Read: 14,461 Write: 5,969 Buffer: 32k Read: 14,465 Write: 5,944 Buffer: 64k Read: 14,144 Write: 5,890 Buffer: 256k Read: 14,229 Write: 5,887 ------------------------------------------------------- DiskPerf2. Testing Hardframe: Create Files: 19 files/sec. Directory Scan: 462 entries/sec. Delete Files: 54 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 294 seek/sec. Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.) Buffer: 512 Read: 187,245 Write: 22,302 Buffer: 4k Read: 298,909 Write: 174,182 Buffer: 8k Read: 441,319 Write: 259,548 Buffer: 32k Read: 605,413 Write: 400,219 Buffer: 64k Read: 716,240 Write: 476,625 Buffer: 256k Read: 695,342 Write: 508,031 ------------------------------------------------------- DiskPerf2. Testing GVP 1: (A3001/28Mhz AT controller) Create Files: 21 files/sec. Directory Scan: 417 entries/sec. Delete Files: 52 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 284 seek/sec. Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.) Buffer: 512 Read: 104,439 Write: 21,929 Buffer: 4k Read: 240,941 Write: 152,232 Buffer: 8k Read: 310,597 Write: 208,050 Buffer: 32k Read: 502,191 Write: 312,821 Buffer: 64k Read: 613,920 Write: 403,919 Buffer: 256k Read: 695,342 Write: 503,155 ------------------------------------------------------- DiskPerf2. Testing Graphics: (SyQuest 44 Meg removable) Create Files: 12 files/sec. Directory Scan: 442 entries/sec. Delete Files: 54 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 227 seek/sec. Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.) Buffer: 512 Read: 119,156 Write: 19,213 Buffer: 4k Read: 160,529 Write: 127,937 Buffer: 8k Read: 255,252 Write: 186,579 Buffer: 32k Read: 449,646 Write: 295,207 Buffer: 64k Read: 525,338 Write: 352,344 Buffer: 256k Read: 549,568 Write: 383,812 ------------------------------------------------------- From this I infer (at least with DPerf2) that data organized into a disk (or pseudo-disk) format can't easily be read at much above 900K/sec. When I saw these results, I was even more pleased with my hard drive performance, and I was pleasantly surprised by the speed of the SyQuest drive (now roughly two weeks old). Happy Hard Driving!. _______ __________ _/____) ' __ /_/ / ' / / __ _ "N.I.N.J.A.J.I.S."-Me / \___/__/___/ |_ /__/__/__/_/_-_/__/_/ The Displaced Razorback. ___________________________________________/ Founder: IDGAFF Ltd. The Amiga Computer - "...a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperbolic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve..." -D.Adams; Well, almost.