jsin@seashell.seas.ucla.edu (Just Another John) (09/02/90)
I have a 25MHz 386 clone (No name), and I'm curious about its hard disk speed/performance. When I ran coretest 2.92, I get 180kb disk transfer rate, 35ms average seek time, and 5.7ms Track-to-track. This is just slightly better than an original IBM AT, according to the coretest program. Is this normal for a 25MHz 386 system? I get about 26 si ratings (for whatever that's worth), and I have no complain about the system as a whole, but I can't understand why the hard disk performace is so lousy. I have a Miniscribe 6085 which formats to 70 MB, and has 1024 cylinders, 8 heads, 17 sectors - but I don't have the seek/access time on this drive. It was formatted with SpeedStor utility at 1:1 interleave. The controller is from Western Digital. It supports 2 floppies (both 3.5 high density and 5.25 high density) and 2 MFM hard disks. It seems to have a 16-bit connector edge, and is in fact in one of my 16-bit slot. There is a marking on the bottom that reads "WA6V", and in smaller letters "K2200028". There are no jumpers on this board, and it is a half-card (on the large side). The largest chip on the board reads: WDC '87 WD42C22A-JU 10-02 8849 05789190502 PROTO 03 What is the rated access time for 6085 Miniscribe drive? What kind of disk controller do I have? Why is my disk so slow? Is this normal? What can I do to speed it up? Currently I use smartdrv.sys and sometimes pc-cache.exe (from PC-TOOLS 6.0) which makes it bearable, but I can always use some help. Thanks for any help you can give, -- John (Jonghoon) Sin (Above opinions are my own etc, etc, etc...) UCLA SEASnet Facilities InterNet: jsin@seas.ucla.edu 2567 Boelter Hall UUCP: ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!seas.ucla.edu!jsin Los Angeles, CA. 90024 Phone: (213) 825-3556
RFM@psuvm.psu.edu (09/03/90)
if you get the new Norton version 5.0, you can reconfigure the drive "on the fly", including changing your interleave factor. That's the only way I know of to speed up a hard drive physically. Caching you already do. Maybe SPinrite does the same thing, I don't know.
poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) (09/05/90)
In article <1023@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> jsin@seashell.seas.ucla.edu (Just Another John) writes: > >I have a 25MHz 386 clone (No name), and I'm curious about its hard disk >speed/performance. When I ran coretest 2.92, I get 180kb disk transfer >rate, 35ms average seek time, and 5.7ms Track-to-track. This is just >slightly better than an original IBM AT, according to the coretest program. > >Is this normal for a 25MHz 386 system? I get about 26 si ratings (for >whatever that's worth), and I have no complain about the system as a whole, >but I can't understand why the hard disk performace is so lousy. > >I have a Miniscribe 6085 which formats to 70 MB, and has 1024 cylinders, >8 heads, 17 sectors - but I don't have the seek/access time on this drive. >It was formatted with SpeedStor utility at 1:1 interleave. > >The controller is from Western Digital. It supports 2 floppies (both >3.5 high density and 5.25 high density) and 2 MFM hard disks. It seems to >have a 16-bit connector edge, and is in fact in one of my 16-bit slot. >There is a marking on the bottom that reads "WA6V", and in smaller >letters "K2200028". There are no jumpers on this board, and it is a >half-card (on the large side). The largest chip on the board reads: > > WDC '87 > WD42C22A-JU > 10-02 8849 > 05789190502 > PROTO 03 > >What is the rated access time for 6085 Miniscribe drive? >What kind of disk controller do I have? >Why is my disk so slow? Is this normal? >What can I do to speed it up? > >Currently I use smartdrv.sys and sometimes pc-cache.exe (from PC-TOOLS 6.0) >which makes it bearable, but I can always use some help. > >Thanks for any help you can give, >-- Sounds like a WD1006 controller. Either the interleave is not what you think, or the system/controller cannot run at 1:1 interleave. I used to get 250Kb/sec with a WD1003 at 2:1 until I got my SCSI system which gets 1.3Mb/sec. Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276 San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254