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Author Topic: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?  (Read 6356 times)

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Offline MugoTopic starter

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Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« on: May 29, 2006, 07:03:20 PM »
        Hello Guys,

I have an A4000D, with a CPPC (060@50/604e@200), and a 17GB SCSI HD (68 pin) connected to it's onboard interface.

The problem is that i can only have transfer rates of 11MB/s top.

Tried some benchmark utils (DiskMonTools, SCSIBench and SysSpeed) and all of them shows about the same results. These figures are with sequencial read, using 156kb files or higher !

This HD is the only device in the chain. The cable is attached to the CPPB by a connector in the middle of the cable, and there's an active terminator after it (on the end of the cable), then the other end goes to the HD, that have termination enabled.

Everything works fine, but i feel it could be faster.

So i would like to know if any of you guys have a similar configuration, and can achieve higher transfer rates ?

If so, could you tell me your settings in the PPC firmware's menu ?

Thanks !

PS to moderators: sorry if this is the wrong forum section . . .
 

Offline Piru

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2006, 07:32:48 PM »
I'd play with UnitControl a bit. My guess is that you might need the unitcontrol command in user-startup sequence for the drive.
 

Offline patrik

Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2006, 07:36:34 PM »
The only thing you should need to do is to set the transfer-mode to synchronous and 20MHz for the ID-number of your harddrive in scsi-part of the bootmenu-settings (entered by pressing esc at boot). For the other settings of the harddrive id, just set them to auto. If your cabling/termination/harddrive doesn't manage those speeds, the controller will sense that and run it slower.


/Patrik
 

Offline amiga4001

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2006, 07:39:28 PM »
I have same setup only 9 GB harddisk.
Just tried with sysspeed gave me around 18 MB/s
Only I am using SFS instead of FFS because is quite faster!
I used to have same speed as yours until I adjusted the scsisettings and using the other filesystem(SFS).

 

Offline billchase

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2006, 08:09:00 PM »
 

Offline patrik

Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2006, 08:30:37 PM »
The two flags which are contained in the RDB - the Synchron and Reselection flag, are only used if "Async/Synchron" (Auto) mode respective "Auto Reselection" is used.

If you, in the bootmenu set "Async" or "Synchron" respective "Reselection" or "No Reselection" the values for these flags set in the RDB will be ignored.

Also, say if you set 20MHz synchronous and the controller judges that your cabling/termination/harddrive combo isn't up to the task, it will revert to a lower speed, which can make it feel like the settings in the bootmenu doesn't make much difference.


/Patrik
 

Offline motorollin

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2006, 08:33:29 PM »
Quote
Mugo wrote:
This HD is the only device in the chain. The cable is attached to the CPPB by a connector in the middle of the cable, and there's an active terminator after it (on the end of the cable), then the other end goes to the HD, that have termination enabled.

Let me get this right... it's like this:

TERM====CSPPC====HDD+TERM

Is that how it's set up? If so, why don't you try it like this:

CSPPC====HDD====TERM

The SCSI interface should terminate one end of the chain, so you shouldn't need a terminator before it. And maybe the terminator in the hard drive isn't working very well, which is why your transfer speeds aren't very good. If you put your active terminator after the drive, it may work better.

--
moto
Code: [Select]
10  IT\'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
20  FOR C = 1 TO 2
30     DA-NA-NAAAA-NAAAA DA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA
40     DA-NA-NAAAA-NAAAA DA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAAA
50  NEXT C
60  NA-NA-NAAAA
70  NA-NA NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA NAAA-NAAAAAAAAAAA
80  GOTO 10
 

Offline patrik

Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2006, 08:35:54 PM »
@motorollin:

The CSPPC/CSMK3 doesn't have an onboard terminator, so his setup is as it should be.


/Patrik
 

Offline motorollin

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #8 on: May 29, 2006, 08:36:45 PM »
Oh OK, didn't know that :-)

--
moto
Code: [Select]
10  IT\'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
20  FOR C = 1 TO 2
30     DA-NA-NAAAA-NAAAA DA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA
40     DA-NA-NAAAA-NAAAA DA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAAA
50  NEXT C
60  NA-NA-NAAAA
70  NA-NA NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA NAAA-NAAAAAAAAAAA
80  GOTO 10
 

Offline zipper

Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #9 on: May 29, 2006, 09:00:50 PM »
Even my slowest UWSCSI disk does about 24 MB/s raw, fastest 30-31 MB/s. The most important is synchron mode, async stays well under 20 MB/s.
 

Offline MugoTopic starter

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #10 on: May 29, 2006, 09:07:32 PM »
Hi Guys,

Thank you all very much for your advices.

Just to add some points i've forgot:

This HD have 4 partitions. 2 of them are used to my two boot partitions with different system setups, and they are FFS, because i really don't rely on other FS that much. If something goes wrong, i need at least one partition with tools in it, that can try and repair the problem with other FS.

The other 2 partitions, have PFS3 on them. Also i've added lots of buffers to all the partitions.
 
I tried to benchmark all of them, and the results are almost the same. Nothing that could show so much difference. And this is another thing that make me think something is not the way it was supposed to be . . .

I didn't know about the UnitControl utility. I didn't know it could be called with parameters from the Startup script. I tried it from WB, but i thought that a reboot was needed to make the changes to take effect. I'll try this later.

And i thought about the RDB thing. Seems that this can be the problem.

This HD was previously used in my A1200T BPPC SCSI interface ! So the partitions was created there, and the system was installed there as well. As i don't have any other HD at hand, i just moved the HD to this new machine, and corrected some system configurations, so it could work on the A4000.

I'll try to get an IDE HD to copy all my files over, and repartition this SCSI HD. But let me first try the UnitControl trick.

By the way, what about the 40MB/S figures that I've read in somewhere, and is mentioned in the Cyberstorm Manual ? How can this be if there's only a maximum 20MB/s option on the Firmware's menu ? Is that information (in the menu that is) wrong ?

Thanks again guys. I really appreciatte your help.
 

Offline MugoTopic starter

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #11 on: May 29, 2006, 09:12:03 PM »
Quote

zipper wrote:
Even my slowest UWSCSI disk does about 24 MB/s raw, fastest 30-31 MB/s. The most important is synchron mode, async stays well under 20 MB/s.


Damn . . . forgot some info again.  :roll:

In the CPPC SCSI menu, this HD's ID is already as Synchron, and the reselection is already on.

I'm really looking forward to achieve 30MB/s !
 

Offline x56h34

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Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #12 on: May 29, 2006, 09:29:15 PM »
Perhaps your drive cannot go as fast as 30MB/sec?
I've seen SCSI-3 drives which would not go faster than ~10MB/sec with CSPPC SCSI, yet when swapped with a different brand/spec/size SCSI-3 drive under the same chain and cabling, I'd get 30 or more MB/sec.

Not all SCSI-3 drives will play nicely with CSPPC. Most will work, but your mileage and performance may vary.
 

Offline patrik

Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #13 on: May 29, 2006, 09:32:21 PM »
@Mugo:

The speed-setting for the synchronous setting in the bootmenu is in MHz. As it is a wide scsi-interface (16-bit), 20MHz * (16bits/8) = 40MB/s.

The flags in the RDB are ignored if you set it to "Synch" or "Asynch" for the synchronous flag and "No Reselection" or "Reselection" for the reselection flag. They are only read from RDB if you set them to "Asynch/Sync" respective "Auto Reselection".

As the controller will sense if your cabling/termination/harddrive can manage the speeds you have set 100% reliable, it might be something isnt up to the task. I think it reverts back to asynchronous if that is the case, but I am not sure I remember right. Anyhow, try setting it to asynchronous and just a bit over 10MHz - say 11 or 12MHz and see if that increases the speed over previous attempts.

Measure the raw transfer-rate with ScsiSpeed from the DiskSpeed package, then filesystem won't interfer with the results.


/Patrik
 

Offline zipper

Re: Cyberstorm PPC SCSI transfer rates ?
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2006, 08:12:43 AM »
Quote

I'm really looking forward to achieve 30MB/s !


You'll probably need u160, better u320 drive to that speed.