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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: SimonV on July 30, 2012, 09:48:26 AM

Title: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: SimonV on July 30, 2012, 09:48:26 AM

I am currently building a RBM Towerhawk with the RBM busboard and I can choose between these 3 HDcontrollers:

An Oktagon SCSI controller on the Zorro board
SCSI kit on the BLizzard MKIV 1230
Original IDEcontroller on the A1200 motherboard.

I tested 2 HD drives and their speed with SYSinfo, both drives have FFS as filesystem.

The speeds measured:

Oktagon.device with IBM UW-Scsi HD : +/- 2,1MB/s
scsi.device (OS3.9) with Maxtor 60GB IDE : 2.7MB/s
1230scsi.device : 3.2Mb/s with the before mentioned IBM UW-scsi drive

Can this be right ? Or should I use another app to test the speed ? I also found it strange the internal IDE was faster compared to the oktagon and so little difference with the 1230scsi.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: zipper on July 30, 2012, 10:26:17 AM

Was 1230scsi.device set on synchron? Asynchron mode is clearly slower.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: SimonV on July 30, 2012, 12:09:07 PM

That's new to me ... how do I change / check that ?

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Zac67 on July 30, 2012, 06:59:45 PM

The 53CF94 can do Fast SCSI w/ DMA. RAM speed shouldn't be a problem, so 10 MB/s should be realistic, depending on the harddisk. Accelerator SCSI is always the fastest option.

From the manual (http://amiga.resource.cx/install/P5-SCSI-Tools-24.dms):

Quote

The two checkboxes "Synchron" and "Reselection" allow you to specify that a
hard  disk  or  another  SCSI  device  is to be automatically switched into
Synchronous  or  Reselection mode at system start-up.  You can change these
settings  and  store  the  changes  in  the  main window without losing the
existing  data.   For  the meanings and advantages and disadvantages of the
operation modes, please read the description of UnitControl.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: zipper on July 30, 2012, 07:00:40 PM

Check the software you used to setup the drive - there should be an option to enable the synchron mode. As the max is 10 MB/s you should easily get 7...upto 9 MB/s. My Blizzard 2060 did about 8 MB/s.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Robert17 on July 30, 2012, 09:58:55 PM

I Had to use a program called "MyUnitControl" From Aminet to set my SCSI Devices to run in Synchronous mode with a Blizzard 2060 - The speed doubled with that set though I have to disable it if I Plug an external CD Drive in. It has instructions on how to put it into your startup-sequence.

Phase5 Had a utility called unitcontrol on their setup disks, but I wasn't able to find any information about getting it to run or set at boot time, I could only use it by running it manually after boot and it would only change the settings for one use.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: zipper on July 30, 2012, 10:22:53 PM

You could run unitcontrol from startup-sequence/user-startup (I never did, could set the synchron flag via other software or early startup of the accelerator).

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: SimonV on July 31, 2012, 08:59:25 AM

Is this also possible with the Oktagon ? Or am I limited by the busboard there ?

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: zipper on July 31, 2012, 10:23:02 AM

Oktagon gains a little from synchron,too. But stays well under 5 MB/s I think - never used a decent drive with it. 3.5 MB/s is the max for ZorroII.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: SimonV on July 31, 2012, 12:49:40 PM

Does it matter what filesystem I use ? For the test with Sysinfo ?

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: zipper on July 31, 2012, 02:23:17 PM

Sysinfo reads just raw speed, no file operations afaik.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Zac67 on July 31, 2012, 06:49:27 PM

Quote from: Robert17;701621

The speed doubled with that set though I have to disable it if I Plug an external CD Drive in.

Crappy cabling or termination...

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Robert17 on July 31, 2012, 09:33:50 PM

Zac67 - You mean on the external side or both? Inside has only 1 Drive on a decent flat SCSI Cable, and is terminated both ends :-S

Robert

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Zac67 on August 01, 2012, 07:30:48 AM

... and you do remove termination on the Blizzard and add it to the external drive, don't you? Active terminators?
Fast SCSI can run for 3m in total and if it doesn't there's something wrong.

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Robert17 on August 01, 2012, 08:21:42 AM

Termination is enabled on the external, I thought the blizzard external SCSI port was auto terminating?

Title: Re: Optimal hardrive speed in my A1200 / 030 RBM busboard
Post by: Zac67 on August 01, 2012, 06:25:35 PM

Have you tried forcing it off? Or another cable?