IDE Express - speeds?

[Fizzy]

Hi,

I bought an EB "IDE Express!" 4 way adapter and express module, which I have recently installed in my a1200.

I have a 1230/50 accelerator card installed.  

Basically I'm getting nowhere near the 5.0MB/s quoted on the ads etc.

I'm using a compact flash card and adapter.  The CF card is rated at over 20MB/s when tested on a pc.  However, when used on the amiga prior to the ide express it was getting a measly 1.3MB/s according to sysinfo, which I guess is to be expected on the original controller.

I installed the ide express adapter and it went up to 1.7MB/s.   I had some problems initially installing idefix that came with it (system would just hang on starting) but thats been sorted now - and sysinfo is reporting a bit healthier 2.0MB/s..

..is there anything I need to do to get faster speeds or is that the best my system can do?

Thanks.

[Damion]

You should be getting better than that. I would triple check the seating and cable connection of the express adapter (I had to re-seat mine a few times), and add some buffers to your partitions (maybe a few hundred), if you haven't already.

I installed the ide express adapter and it went up to 1.7MB/s. I had some problems initially installing idefix that came with it (system would just hang on starting) but thats been sorted now - and sysinfo is reporting a bit healthier 2.0MB/s..

Not to hijack, but was there anything special you had to do to stop idefix from hanging? I was never able to get it to work with CF cards.

[Fizzy]

Well, it pops up with a message "you have both channels in slow mode - why did you buy an express?" when I have both jumpers on slow mode (funnily enough) so I think its working ok.  Certainly not reporting any cable problems.

I originally had a 128MB generic card as boot and a nice new 8GB for data.  I don't think the 128MB was that fast or compatible.  The Kingston 133x 8GB on its own works fine.

I tried all the various options in the idefix prefs but in the end I just put everything to auto.  At least the IDE cd rom is being detected and is working ok off the secondary channel on the 4 way adapter now.

[NovaCoder]

-D- wrote:
You should be getting better than that. I would triple check the seating and cable connection of the express adapter (I had to re-seat mine a few times), and add some buffers to your partitions (maybe a few hundred), if you haven't already.

I installed the ide express adapter and it went up to 1.7MB/s. I had some problems initially installing idefix that came with it (system would just hang on starting) but thats been sorted now - and sysinfo is reporting a bit healthier 2.0MB/s..

Not to hijack, but was there anything special you had to do to stop idefix from hanging? I was never able to get it to work with CF cards.

Me too, how did you get this to work???  I've had an open support request with AmigaKit for ages about for this one.  It's a real shame but it appears that the IDEExpress driver is incompatible with most/(all?) CF cards  :-(

The only 'fix' I've heard of is to not use (eg do not execute the IDEFIX driver from within your startup)  :lol:

How are you testing your speed BTW, SysInfo?

I've got a 1230/50mhz and a 8GB Sandisk Ultra CF, running OS 3.9 BB2.

Sysinfo speeds:
1) Standard = 1.9 mb/s
2) IDEEXpress adapter only (no software!) = 3.3 mb/s
3) Blizkick's 'fastSCSI' module = 4.0 mb/s

[NovaCoder]

Fizzy wrote:

I tried all the various options in the idefix prefs but in the end I just put everything to auto.  At least the IDE cd rom is being detected and is working ok off the secondary channel on the 4 way adapter now.

Yep I tried all the idefix prefs as well, didn't help  :-(

I hate to say it by if you're only getting 2 mb/s you prob haven't got the replacement driver running.

[Fizzy]

Hmm..

Well, I just reseated the module and its still the same.

I have IDEFix running on startup.

How does the express mode engage then?  Is it purely in hardware for the most part?  Can't understand why it isn't working for me....

Might try a hard disk rather than a CF card and see if that makes any difference.

[NovaCoder]

Fizzy wrote:
Hmm..

Well, I just reseated the module and its still the same.

I have IDEFix running on startup.

How does the express mode engage then?  Is it purely in hardware for the most part?  Can't understand why it isn't working for me....

Might try a hard disk rather than a CF card and see if that makes any difference.

As far as I know the Express adapter is just a 'dongle'.
I assume you get a speed-boost from running the new 4 way adapter + the IDEFix driver (which prob contains an updated scsi.device).

You're doing better than me, my whole system just hangs if I run the IDEFix driver in my startup   :pissed:

Yep, stick an real HD on instead and let us know if you get the expect speed-boost (should be about 5.5 mb/s for you system).

[Damion]

It could be the CF card, because it should just "work". I'm getting about 5 MB/sec with an (overclocked) Apollo 1260, and some SanDisk cards. My understanding is that '030 cards should get at least that, if not a bit better.

[NovaCoder]

-D- wrote:
It could be the CF card, because it should just "work". I'm getting about 5 MB/sec with an (overclocked) Apollo 1260, and some SanDisk cards. My understanding is that '030 cards should get at least that, if not a bit better.

5mb is very good for a 1260, a 1230 should be quicker.

Which file system are you using?

[Damion]

NovaCoder wrote:

-D- wrote:
It could be the CF card, because it should just "work". I'm getting about 5 MB/sec with an (overclocked) Apollo 1260, and some SanDisk cards. My understanding is that '030 cards should get at least that, if not a bit better.

5mb is very good for a 1260, a 1230 should be quicker.

Yeah, the Apollo is quite a bit faster with the Express adapter than my old Blizz was, a few MB/s at least. Also, Piru's "speedyide" module from the BlizKick archive made roughly a 1 MB/s improvement.

Which file system are you using?

PFS3. It's a real fast combo with the CF cards, still surprises me every time 3.9 boots in mere seconds.
 

[Fizzy]

NovaCoder wrote:

Fizzy wrote:
Hmm..

Well, I just reseated the module and its still the same.

I have IDEFix running on startup.

How does the express mode engage then?  Is it purely in hardware for the most part?  Can't understand why it isn't working for me....

Might try a hard disk rather than a CF card and see if that makes any difference.

As far as I know the Express adapter is just a 'dongle'.
I assume you get a speed-boost from running the new 4 way adapter + the IDEFix driver (which prob contains an updated scsi.device).

You're doing better than me, my whole system just hangs if I run the IDEFix driver in my startup   :pissed:

Yep, stick an real HD on instead and let us know if you get the expect speed-boost (should be about 5.5 mb/s for you system).

Well, I tried my old and rather noisy (and slow) 500MB 2.5" ide and it was giving 2.6MB/s.

Then I tried a newer 60GB IDE - and first time I did a speed test in sysinfo I got 2.6MB/s - but I clicked the button again and I got 6.6MB/s.   :-o   :-D

So looks like its working as intended - just something odd with the CF card.  I got two - so I tried a fresh install (reading disk setup, setting partitions etc) from the wb 3.1 install disk.  Ran sysinfo speed test after formatting - got 2.2MB/s (no idefix software running).

Put my original CF card back in with my current install, did a speed test....and got 1.9MB/s?

What I did notice was on the fresh install, the speed check would return with a figure straight away.... whereas it takes a few seconds on the current biuld (with Idefix running etc).   :-?

The new CF cards are rated at "133x" and tested at just over 20MB/s on a pc - but the 128MB one I was using before testing 500KB/s or so .... slooooooow card!  Thing is I think that also showed 2.0MB/s when testing on the amiga - odd....

Some more messing to do I think to see if I can figure out whats going on....

[NovaCoder]

With the 60GB HD did you speed-test a partition that was less that 2GB?  I noticed that SysInfo seems to give incorrect readings if the partition is too large.

[Fizzy]

NovaCoder wrote:
With the 60GB HD did you speed-test a partition that was less that 2GB?  I noticed that SysInfo seems to give incorrect readings if the partition is too large.

Hmm.... no, it was a 4GB one.  As I set up the drive in hdtoolbox off the 3.1 install disk, it was it as an 8GB drive and created 2 drives.  Might try 2GB partitions just to check.

I also think I know why IDEFix is hanging with some cards by the way.

I have 3 different cards available to me.  A 128MB "no name" brand, a 512MB Lexar "12x" card thats from my old camera, and the new Kingston "Elite Pro 8GB 133x".

When trying to use HD Toolbox on the first two cards, reading the drive configuration results in hd toolbox saying "This is not a hard drive!".  It reads the size etc ok, but in order to use it I had to populate the drive name, type and version number myself.  No problems with the kingston there.

Interestingly, when I did a speed test if the 512MB card I got a speed of 2.7MB/s which is probably about right for a "x12" card.  

With both smaller cards idefix hangs on the "find device" stage of the install (when trying to find a CD drive).  This also means it hangs the machine when running on startup.

When I had the 8GB as master, and the 512MB as slave the amiga saw both if I started with no startup script.  As soon as I ran IDEFix, the 512MB drive dissappeared.  Obviously not good if the amiga is trying to boot off the drive that has just vanished....

So IDEFix "looses" anything that doesn't look like a valid hard disk when run.  Not sure if there's anyway command line options to get around the problem.     :-?

[Fizzy]

Fizzy wrote:

NovaCoder wrote:
With the 60GB HD did you speed-test a partition that was less that 2GB?  I noticed that SysInfo seems to give incorrect readings if the partition is too large.

Hmm.... no, it was a 4GB one.  As I set up the drive in hdtoolbox off the 3.1 install disk, it was it as an 8GB drive and created 2 drives.  Might try 2GB partitions just to check.

Well, just tried again with a couple of partitions under 2GB on the HDD.  I was getting a constant 4.65-4.7MB/s, which seems about right.  Thats using standard FFS etc.  The 8GB flash drive is split into 4 <2GB partitions anyway, so that shouldn't be an issue.

I guess its down to whatever mode/drive emulation the CF card runs under is the reason why the transfer rates are variable between card makes.   :-?

[NovaCoder]

Fizzy wrote:

NovaCoder wrote:
With the 60GB HD did you speed-test a partition that was less that 2GB?  I noticed that SysInfo seems to give incorrect readings if the partition is too large.

Hmm.... no, it was a 4GB one.  As I set up the drive in hdtoolbox off the 3.1 install disk, it was it as an 8GB drive and created 2 drives.  Might try 2GB partitions just to check.


Well, just tried again with a couple of partitions under 2GB on the HDD.  I was getting a constant 4.65-4.7MB/s, which seems about right.  Thats using standard FFS etc.  The 8GB flash drive is split into 4 <2GB partitions anyway, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Yep 4.65-4.7 seems like a more reasonable figure with FFS.  I assume if you swapped to SFS/PFS and used the SpeedyIDE module you'd get even more  :-D