[comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware] SCSI slowness

liggio@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Vincent J. Liggio) (03/26/91)

I have a Quantum ProDrive 170S and an Adaptec 1522 controller (SCSI-2).
Supposedly, I should be getting upwards of 2 MB/sec out of this
combination, but when I use coretest (v 2.91), it tells me I am getting a
mere 900 k/sec.  The ProDrive has a 64k cache built in on board.  Some
system details:
	Mylex MXA-33, 386 33 mhz motherboard
	8 mb ram
	Adaptec 1522 SCSI-2 contoller
	Quantum ProDrive 170S
	DOS 4.01

I called adaptec but they weren't helpful.  They said call your dealer,
since their dealers are supposedly knowledgeable about the card.  Of course
this didn't work.  I checked out all the manuals, and I think that I have
the zillion and one jumpers set correctly, but I am still sluggish.  Any
clues???  Any ways I can check on the cache being implemented (it goes on
and off and changes sizes depending on the mode that the drive is running
in).

Vince


Stallion                                                                Tigger
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iverson@xstor.com (Tim Iverson) (04/03/91)

In article <1991Mar25.161209.564@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> liggio@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu writes:
>I have a Quantum ProDrive 170S and an Adaptec 1522 controller (SCSI-2).
>Supposedly, I should be getting upwards of 2 MB/sec out of this
>combination, but when I use coretest (v 2.91), it tells me I am getting a
>mere 900 k/sec.  The ProDrive has a 64k cache built in on board.

This is perfectly normal.  The Quantum ProDrive 170S has a maximum sustained
transfer rate of about 900KB/s.  The burst rate can be much higher than that,
but 900 is the best you'll ever get out of CoreTest.

The 170S is actually just your average, every-day, middle of the road,
mass-market drive.  If you really want *fast* you should think about
Imprimis' Elite (4-5MB/s) or Wren VII or Wren Runner (2-3MB/s).  Of course,
*fast* implies *bucks* :-).

>| INTERNET :             liggio@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu
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- Tim Iverson
  iverson@xstor.com -/- uunet!xstor!iverson

liggio@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Vincent J. Liggio) (04/03/91)

In article <1991Apr02.214925.10627@xstor.com> iverson@xstor.com (Tim Iverson) writes:
>This is perfectly normal.  The Quantum ProDrive 170S has a maximum sustained
>transfer rate of about 900KB/s.  The burst rate can be much higher than that,
>but 900 is the best you'll ever get out of CoreTest.
>
>The 170S is actually just your average, every-day, middle of the road,
>mass-market drive.  If you really want *fast* you should think about
>Imprimis' Elite (4-5MB/s) or Wren VII or Wren Runner (2-3MB/s).  Of course,
>*fast* implies *bucks* :-).
>
>- Tim Iverson
>  iverson@xstor.com -/- uunet!xstor!iverson

Interesting, because the drive manual says that the drive can sustain 2.5
Mb/sec.  And the adapter can do 5 asynchronous, 2.5 mb synchronous (or
vise-versa).  Doesn't sound like the middle of the road, mass market drive.
Just a wee bit faster... :-)

Vince

poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) (04/04/91)

In article <1991Apr3.015013.2129@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> liggio@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Vincent J. Liggio) writes:
>
>In article <1991Apr02.214925.10627@xstor.com> iverson@xstor.com (Tim Iverson) writes:
>>This is perfectly normal.  The Quantum ProDrive 170S has a maximum sustained
>>transfer rate of about 900KB/s.  The burst rate can be much higher than that,
>>but 900 is the best you'll ever get out of CoreTest.
>>
>>The 170S is actually just your average, every-day, middle of the road,
>>mass-market drive.  If you really want *fast* you should think about
>>Imprimis' Elite (4-5MB/s) or Wren VII or Wren Runner (2-3MB/s).  Of course,
>>*fast* implies *bucks* :-).
>>
>>- Tim Iverson
>>  iverson@xstor.com -/- uunet!xstor!iverson
>
>Interesting, because the drive manual says that the drive can sustain 2.5
>Mb/sec.  And the adapter can do 5 asynchronous, 2.5 mb synchronous (or
>vise-versa).  Doesn't sound like the middle of the road, mass market drive.
>Just a wee bit faster... :-)
>

They are talking more about thoeoritical rates than actual rates. You can get
these high rates if you happen to read from the cache on the drive. However
the maximum rate you can peel off the disk is purely a function of how fast
the bytes fly past the head. This is determined by the rotational rate (usually
3600 RPM for most drives, 5400 coming soon), and the number of sectors per
track. If you read more data than the cache has in it, then the disk rate is
what limits you.

900K/sec sounds reasonable.

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies       UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
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