IO92257@MAINE.BITNET (10/25/90)
So, harddrive owners out there, is the HardFrame still the Fastest, Meanest, Best SCSI controller- without-any-cheezy-RAM out there? What do you folks with the GVP Series II and TrumpCard Pro get on 11ms Quantum Drives? I think a lot of people would like to know the answers to these questions, as AmigaWhirled and other mags seem to be to scared of losing advertising to review the new controllers. (I mean, what if AW did a comparison of the HardFrame and the GVP II's and the Hardframe was said to be twice as fast as the GVP? They would have a P*SSED off MAJOR advertizer, wouldn't they now? :) Send replies to Comp.sys.amiga or me, and I will compile them and repost! -Brent Cook
jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu (John 'Vlad' Adams) (10/26/90)
In my *first* hand experience, the GVP II FAAAASTROM is slower than the A2091 which is slower than the Kronos. I love my Kronos/Quantum combination. This is by using devspeed for comparison. -- John M. Adams --**-- Professional Student on the six-year plan! /// Internet: jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu -or- vladimir@maple.circa.ufl.edu /// "We'll always be together, together in electric dreams" Moroder & Oakey \\V// Sysop of The Beachside. FIDOnet 1:3612/557. 904-492-2305 (Florida) \X/
visinfo@ethz.UUCP (VISINFO c/o Sascha Schnapka) (10/26/90)
In article <90297.223722IO92257@MAINE.BITNET> IO92257@MAINE.BITNET writes: >So, harddrive owners out there, is the HardFrame >still the Fastest, Meanest, Best SCSI controller- >without-any-cheezy-RAM out there? This is a question I (as a former hardframe enthusiast) have heard quit often in recent times. This is what I can tell you about it: - Hardware: The Hardframe is still the only HD-Controller with an Adaptec AIC-6250 SCSI chip that is capable of doing 2.5Mb/sec without using synchronous transfer. This chip also has other advantages over the commonly used Western Digital : on-chip intelligent caches and stuff. These advantages show up on every drive I have ever tested, ranging from Seagate 50Mb to CDC 660Mb. + 1) the limiting factor for maximum sustained throughput is higher than on the WD (the latter having something like 1.5Mb). + 2) the chip apparently always does some read-ahead, which considerably increases overall reading-speed on cheap drives, namely Seagate St-277N-1, St-296N. All these drives run interleave 1 on hardframe only. (Since I do no longer own such, I have not yet tested them on the latest GVP) + 3) You also get more performance with extremely expensive drives having internal caches. Namely the reading-speed for short files (important almost anytime, namely during execution of startup-sequence) is much higher with the HardFrame. The most extreme case I have ever seen was with a CDC Wren VI (660Mb), where the read transfer rate at a file size of only 4kb was about 300kb with 2091,2090 and even less with the former GVP version compared to over 800kb on a HardFrame. + 4) Some diskspeed tool I tested showed that the HardFrame also has a more powerful data path from the board into memory. The tool had an optional 'DMA contention' which turned on all bitplanes, copper and stuff. The HardFrame was the ONLY controller that did not show the slightest performance degradation at full load. - 5) You cannot use the HardFrame on the A3000 (as all DMA-HDControllers) because it does not DMA into the A3000's outside 24bit FAST RAM. Everything goes from/to Chipram and must then be copied from the Buffer to the location in FastRAM USING THE CPU. - Software This is the weak point of the HardFrame. Although the HardFrame was kind of state-of-the-art when it came out and had some very clever features like built-in FileSystem.resource, the software Version 1.5 is not satisfying. To explain it quickly: WHEN your drive runs with HardFrame, usually everything is fine. But try to get a drive running on HardFrame that refuses to. (And that I have often experienced) Not only is the HardFrame kind of choosy and simply does not accept some strange drives (like Maxtor...) but the device driver is improper. It makes assumptions about the internal state of the drive, lacks timeout functions for bus signals and VERY OFTEN crashs when the drive does not behave the way HardFrame thinks. These deficiencies will HOPEFULLY be fixed in the new 1.9 release Microbotics announced recently. But there are more disadvantages in the software: - Microbotics refuse to cooperate with Commoddore for UNIX drivers (This may have changed since I got this information at the last Ami Expo in Basel) - Microbotics are almost the only people not to support A-MAX. What reasons they have, I cannot understand. I even think someone like Ralph Babel should go and make a HardFrame.AMHD. >HardFrame and the GVP II's and the Hardframe >was said to be twice as fast as the GVP? That was with the old, slow version of the GVP. This can no longer be claimed and either way depends on the drive you use. Peter Simeon & F.Burgel, authors of 'HD-Tools' (available on BIX, FTP) /* -------------------------- SG (Simeon Graphics) ---------------------- */ /* Peter Simeon, UUCP: | // // */ /* visinfo@bernina.ethz.ch | // Long live the AMIGA! // */ /* BIX: hardwiz | \X/ \X/ */ /* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- */
rbabel@babylon.UUCP (Ralph Babel) (10/26/90)
In article <6381@ethz.UUCP> visinfo@ethz.UUCP (VISINFO c/o Sascha Schnapka) writes: > - Hardware: The Hardframe is still the only HD-Controller > with an Adaptec AIC-6250 SCSI chip Might be true. > that is capable of doing 2.5Mb/sec without using > synchronous transfer. Not true! The WD33C93A (as used by Commodore and GVP) can do likewise! (See WD manual.) > + 1) the limiting factor for maximum sustained throughput > is higher than on the WD (the latter having something > like 1.5Mb). Not true! WD supports 2.5 Mbytes/sec async and 5.0 MBytes/sec sync transfer. The latter uses a 12-byte FIFO. > + 2) the chip apparently always does some read-ahead, > which considerably increases overall reading-speed on > cheap drives, namely Seagate St-277N-1, St-296N. All > these drives run interleave 1 on hardframe only. > (Since I do no longer own such, I have not yet tested > them on the latest GVP) With FFS and DMA, I can't see a problem here. Should work. > + 3) You also get more performance with extremely > expensive drives having internal caches. Namely the > reading-speed for short files (important almost > anytime, namely during execution of startup-sequence) > is much higher with the HardFrame. The most extreme > case I have ever seen was with a CDC Wren VI (660Mb), > where the read transfer rate at a file size of only > 4kb was about 300kb with 2091,2090 and even less with > the former GVP version compared to over 800kb on a > HardFrame. I'm getting similar figures with an Imprimis drive and the new GVP controller. (But I don't see how this relates to either HardFrame or GVP - it's the clever caching scheme that's part of the drive.) > + 4) Some diskspeed tool I tested showed that the > HardFrame also has a more powerful data path from the > board into memory. How is this supposed to work? HardFrame doesn't have any on-board RAM, so it cannot take any shortcuts during DMA. If you transfer data between the SCSI bus and GVP's on-board RAM, however, it doesn't even use the Zorro-II bus, so you could run yet another bus master (e.g. an Ethernet DMA card) transferring data to some other RAM at full Zorro-II speed. If DMA is to or from non-local RAM, GVP has to use the normal Zorro-II DMA-protocol, of course. > The tool had an optional 'DMA contention' which > turned on all bitplanes, copper and stuff. Who cares - as long as DMA is to and from Fast-RAM? > The HardFrame was the ONLY controller that did not > show the slightest performance degradation at full > load. Of all the controllers _you_ tested ... > - 5) You cannot use the HardFrame on the A3000 Maybe yes, maybe no. > (as all DMA-HDControllers) Again: not true! What's the problem in comparing the address mask against the lower 16-meg and - if io_Data points to some region outside this area - doing buffered I/O to some DMAable memory region? GVP's latest driver can even handle a MountList mask of 0xFFFFFFFF. > because it does not DMA into the A3000's outside > 24bit FAST RAM. That's a limitation of Zorro-II. > Everything goes from/to Chipram and must then be > copied from the Buffer to the location in FastRAM > USING THE CPU. So what? Having non-DMA memory in your system usually implies that you have a fast processor. On my A2000 w/ GVP '030, I can see almost no difference in speed when using buffered mode vs. full DMA mode (e.g. w/ a Quantum P80S). > - Software > This is the weak point of the HardFrame. Joanne would kill you for a statement like this! :-) > Not only is the HardFrame kind of choosy and simply does > not accept some strange drives (like Maxtor...) In case of the MaxTor, this is not really the HardFrame's fault: Some MaxTors behave in a non-standard way during startup, very similar to Seagates. > - Microbotics are almost the only people not to support > A-MAX. What about those German manufacturers? > I even think someone like Ralph Babel should go and make > a HardFrame.AMHD. Who? Me? :-) :-) :-) >> HardFrame and the GVP II's and the Hardframe >> was said to be twice as fast as the GVP? > > That was with the old, slow version of the GVP. It might be "slower", but I wouldn't call it "slow". It is possible to use the new software with the old controller. > This can no longer be claimed Thanks! > and either way depends on the drive you use. That's really the problem! Nowadays, the drive is the bottleneck - unless you spend a _lot_ of money, of course. > Peter Simeon & F.Burgel See you in Cologne, I guess! Ralph P.S.: I'm biased. (But you knew that, didn't you? :-)
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (10/27/90)
In <04619.AA04619@babylon.UUCP>, rbabel@babylon.UUCP (Ralph Babel) writes: >In article <6381@ethz.UUCP> visinfo@ethz.UUCP (VISINFO c/o > >> Not only is the HardFrame kind of choosy and simply does >> not accept some strange drives (like Maxtor...) > >In case of the MaxTor, this is not really the HardFrame's >fault: Some MaxTors behave in a non-standard way during >startup, very similar to Seagates. Though I can understand the sentiment, it is tough on the credibility when my Maxtor LXT-100 won't work on my HardFrame, but works perfectly well on the 2090, 2091, and the A3000. -larry -- It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs. -D.Wolfskill +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) (10/31/90)
In article <6381@ethz.UUCP> visinfo@ethz.UUCP (VISINFO c/o Sascha Schnapka) writes: >> The tool had an optional 'DMA contention' which >> turned on all bitplanes, copper and stuff. In article <04619.AA04619@babylon.UUCP> cbmvax.commodore.com!cbmehq!babylon!rbabel (Ralph Babel) writes: >Who cares - as long as DMA is to and from Fast-RAM? But DMA to Fast RAM cannot be done without the CPU's permission. The CPU cannot grant permission if it is hung up waiting for a previous access to Chip RAM to go through. DMA directly to/from Fast RAM is still impacted to some extent by overscanned 16-color hires screens. -- Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com or jms@gemini.tymnet.com BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms PO Box 49019, MS-C41 | BIX: smithjoe | 12 PDP-10s still running! "POPJ P," San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous dislaimer: "My Amiga 3000 speaks for me."