Speed gain with an Ultra100 card on BH6?

me · Jul 11, 2003

Hi,

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

My MoBo is an BH6 1.01 (Tualatin 1200@1344) and I have an IBM/Hitachi 180 GXP Ultra ATA/100 disk connected to the on-board IDE ("DMA/33"). Is it likely that I will notice any change in "HD speed"? Increase in percent??

Any input most welcome!

/ MW

Spajky · Jul 11, 2003

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:19:41 +0200, "me" wrote:

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

IMHO not!

My MoBo is an BH6 1.01 (Tualatin 1200@1344) and I have an IBM/Hitachi 180 GXP Ultra ATA/100 disk connected to the on-board IDE ("DMA/33"). Is it likely that I will notice any change in "HD speed"? Increase in percent??

actually things could go worse (slower boot, problems with IRQs, could not enable DMA, reinstall of OS ...)

that ata stuff is mostly marketing trick, see my site..

-- Regards, SPAJKY
- http://freeweb.siol.net/jerman55/HP/Spajky.htm
Celly-III OC-ed,"Tualatin on BX-Slot1-MoBo!"
E-mail AntiSpam: remove ##

Jerry Barrett · Jul 11, 2003

MW Hi
I'd tend to agree with Sanjky!!!

Putting a PCI card in for a disk controller is going to leave you in the same boat, 33/66Mz bus speed and contention with any other cards, have you got a bus master slot free and is this card a bus master card. i.e. will do DMA transfers between CPU cycles? if not it will just use CPU moving data in and out of your drive.

IMHO, stick to your original controller tinkering at the edges can sometimes make things worse.

Good Luck
Jerry
"me" wrote:

Hi,

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

My MoBo is an BH6 1.01 (Tualatin 1200@1344) and I have an IBM/Hitachi 180

GXP

Ultra ATA/100 disk connected to the on-board IDE ("DMA/33"). Is it likely that I will notice any change in "HD speed"? Increase in

percent??

Any input most welcome!

/ MW

PRIVATE1964 · Jul 11, 2003

It was well worth it when I installed one on my BH6.

- HAL9000 · Jul 12, 2003

What kind of sisoft "file system" benchmarks are you getting with the current setup?

Forrest

Motherboard Help By HAL web site:
http://home.attbi.com/~hal-9000/

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:19:41 +0200, "me" wrote:

Hi,

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

My MoBo is an BH6 1.01 (Tualatin 1200@1344) and I have an IBM/Hitachi 180 GXP Ultra ATA/100 disk connected to the on-board IDE ("DMA/33"). Is it likely that I will notice any change in "HD speed"? Increase in percent??

Any input most welcome!

/ MW

Len · Jul 13, 2003

You don't know what you are missing by not running the card, P3 550 here and I see no way I could go back to not using my Promise card. I can't give you any numbers but I can say it does boot much faster than before and once booted programs load much faster.

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:19:41 +0200, "me" wrote:

Hi,

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

My MoBo is an BH6 1.01 (Tualatin 1200@1344) and I have an IBM/Hitachi 180 GXP Ultra ATA/100 disk connected to the on-board IDE ("DMA/33"). Is it likely that I will notice any change in "HD speed"? Increase in percent??

Any input most welcome!

/ MW

REMOVE the NOCRAP in my address to reply.

BigVoice · Jul 13, 2003

Nowadays it would be difficult to buy an ATA 33 HD and HDs on the market are almost ATA 100 and some of them are even at ATA 133 speed. I am using Maxtor ATA 133 HD with an ATA 133 card on my BX6 board running Celly 1.4G. The programs are opened up much much faster on using ATA 133 HD when compare with the old ATA 33 HD. You will certainly find the difference and an additional card is highly recommended.

On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 08:44:34 -0400, Len
wrote:

You don't know what you are missing by not running the card, P3 550 here and I see no way I could go back to not using my Promise card. I can't give you any numbers but I can say it does boot much faster than before and once booted programs load much faster.

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:19:41 +0200, "me" wrote:

Hi,

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear
any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

...

Len · Jul 13, 2003

Ok I know this is not a binary group but here is what the Promise Ultra 100 TX2 does on my BH6 P3 550Mhz 768 meg ram system does. The Seagate is out of a dead Mpeg recording machine so I am only guessing at the specs on it.

Seagate ST340825 U Series 5AV Drive, ATA100 5400RPM NO-DMA ATA33 Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 20ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 7.8mbps

Seagate ST340825 U Series 5AV Drive, ATA100 5400RPM WITH-DMA ATA33 Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 20ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 25.6mbps

WDC WD200BB-00AUA1 20 gig ATA100 7200RPM Promise ATA100 Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 13.9ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 69mbps

Maxtor 6L060J3 60 gig ATA133 7200RPM Promise ATA100
Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 12.5ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 78.4mbps

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:19:41 +0200, "me" wrote:

Hi,

Before I go ahead and buy a Promise Ultra100 IDE card, it would be nice to hear any opinions whether it's worth it or not...

My MoBo is an BH6 1.01 (Tualatin 1200@1344) and I have an IBM/Hitachi 180 GXP Ultra ATA/100 disk connected to the on-board IDE ("DMA/33"). Is it likely that I will notice any change in "HD speed"? Increase in percent??

Any input most welcome!

/ MW

REMOVE the NOCRAP in my address to reply.

TomG · Jul 13, 2003

Len,

Please no attachments on this text only group.

me · Jul 14, 2003

wrote:

Nowadays it would be difficult to buy an ATA 33 HD and HDs on the market are almost ATA 100 and some of them are even at ATA 133 speed. I am using Maxtor ATA 133 HD with an ATA 133 card on my BX6 board running Celly 1.4G. The programs are opened up much much faster on using ATA 133 HD when compare with the old ATA 33 HD. You will certainly find the difference and an additional card is highly recommended.

Hi "intervoice",

Well, as I originally wrote, I already have an ATA100 drive, so any increase in performance would totally depend on the Promise Ultra100 TX2...

With my current setup (BH6's onboard IDE) , I get a "Read Speed" (in HDTach) of 29660 kps.

/ MW

me · Jul 14, 2003

wrote:

Ok I know this is not a binary group but here is what the Promise Ultra 100 TX2 does on my BH6 P3 550Mhz 768 meg ram system does. The Seagate is out of a dead Mpeg recording machine so I am only guessing at the specs on it.

Seagate ST340825 U Series 5AV Drive, ATA100 5400RPM NO-DMA ATA33 Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 20ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 7.8mbps

Seagate ST340825 U Series 5AV Drive, ATA100 5400RPM WITH-DMA ATA33 Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 20ms ...

Hi Len,

I might be missing something, but it seems to me that you haven't compared an ATA100 drive with and without the Promise Ultra100 TX2 card. The "Read Burst Speeds" you are getting are well above two times of what I am getting with an ATA 100 drive on the BH6's onboard IDE, but the "Read Speed" are about the same. I guess the motherboard is the limiting factor for "Read Speed"...?

Anyway, it would be very interesting comparing benchmarks for an ATA 100 drive hooked-up to the BH6 onboard IDE with the same drive on a Promise card.

/ MW

me · Jul 14, 2003

wrote:

What kind of sisoft "file system" benchmarks are you getting with the current setup?

Forrest

Hi "gumpy",

I don't have Sisoft Sandra... HDTach gives the following results: Random Access Time: 13 ms Read Burst Speed: 30,4 MBps
Read Speed: 29660 kps (average)
CPU Utilization: 0,0 %

Would any of those be significantly increased by using a Promise Ultra100 TX2 card?

/ MW

Spajky · Jul 14, 2003

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:18:56 +0200, "me" wrote:

wrote:
What kind of sisoft "file system" benchmarks are you getting with the
current setup?

I don't have Sisoft Sandra... HDTach gives the following results:
Random Access Time: 13 ms
Read Burst Speed: 30,4 MBps
Read Speed: 29660 kps (average)
CPU Utilization: 0,0 %

Would any of those be significantly increased by using a Promise Ultra100 TX2 card?

HDTach (free ver.) gives you a max data speed between HDs electronics & the memory of puter, which rarelly occurs in real life, so double that speed seems like a 5% more practically... (same does Sandra MemBench for sys Ram!)

But Sisoft Sandra HD Bench does give you a real life performance regarding performance practically because is writing/reading a set of tests files based on average use programs for 5min or so & here is quite REAL even if sometimes tels otherway lies! Install it & check! (borough that add card & make with it some compare!)

90% IMHO of practical HD performance relies on its meccanics & firmware !!! and also DMA enabled in chipset! (& not on electronics data burst speed - that Ata66-ata133 stuff or SATA)

-- Regards, SPAJKY
- http://freeweb.siol.net/jerman55/HP/Spajky.htm
Celly-III OC-ed,"Tualatin on BX-Slot1-MoBo!"
E-mail AntiSpam: remove ##

me · Jul 15, 2003

Correction!
My current drive is ATA66, the one I'll get next week is ATA100...

Sisoft Sandra benchmarks my drive running off the BH6's onboard IDE giving it a "drive index" of 19381 (kB/s).

Hasn't anyone benchmarked an ATA100 drive with onboard IDE (@ 33 Mhz) and with an ATA100 controller running on the same motherboard? Seems there are lots of contradicting opinions about the difference an ATA100/133 card makes...

/ MW

I, > wrote:

wrote:
Nowadays it would be difficult to buy an ATA 33 HD and HDs on the
market are almost ATA 100 and some of them are even at ATA 133 speed.
I am using Maxtor ATA 133 HD with an ATA 133 card on my BX6 board
running Celly 1.4G. The programs are opened up much much faster on
using ATA 133 HD when compare with the old ATA 33 HD.
You will certainly find the difference and an additional card is
highly recommended.

Hi "intervoice",

Well, as I originally wrote, I already have an ATA100 drive, so any ...

Len · Jul 15, 2003

Well I took that Maxtor 6L060J3 off the Promise card and put it on the BH6 ata33 controller,

Maxtor 6L060J3 60 gig ATA133 7200RPM ata33 no dma
Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 12.4ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 8mbps

Maxtor 6L060J3 60 gig ATA133 7200RPM ata33 with dma
Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 12.4ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 28.5mbps

If you want the screen grabs you will have to send me an email so I can send them to you.

I also timed the boot up

desktop background no hourglass
no-dma 1m 35s 2m 30s
dma 1m 46s 2m 35s
Promise 1m 30s 2m 10s

Computer also shut down over twice as fast when boot drive is on the Promise card.

I was planning to load a program and time it but forgot, all I can say is if you plan to use the faster drives in the BH6 and are in the USA the cards are much cheaper than here in Canada I would buy one if I was you, hell if I could find another BH6 board for the right price I would still buy another Promise card, would look for a used one but would buy a new one if I had too.

Hi Len,

I might be missing something, but it seems to me that you haven't compared an ATA100 drive with and without the Promise Ultra100 TX2 card. The "Read Burst Speeds" you are getting are well above two times of what I am getting with an ATA 100 drive on the BH6's onboard IDE, but the "Read Speed" are about the same. I guess the motherboard is the limiting factor for "Read Speed"...?

Anyway, it would be very interesting comparing benchmarks for an ATA 100 drive hooked-up to the BH6 onboard IDE with the same drive on a Promise card.

...

REMOVE the NOCRAP in my address to reply.

- HAL9000 · Jul 15, 2003

I have a abit kx7 motherboard and a IBM 180 GXP drive (60 gig). Depending on which partition I test, my benchmarks range from 25,100 to 35,400. So depending on how much data was on your disk when you tested it, I would estimate that you should see anywhere from a 0 to 20% improvement.

Forrest

Motherboard Help By HAL web site:
http://home.attbi.com/~hal-9000/

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 13:55:56 +0200, "me" wrote:

Correction!
My current drive is ATA66, the one I'll get next week is ATA100...

Sisoft Sandra benchmarks my drive running off the BH6's onboard IDE giving it a "drive index" of 19381 (kB/s).

Hasn't anyone benchmarked an ATA100 drive with onboard IDE (@ 33 Mhz) and with an ATA100 controller running on the same motherboard? Seems there are lots of contradicting opinions about the difference an ATA100/133 card makes...

/ MW
...

Salvatore · Jul 15, 2003

BH6 $20 plus shipping from NYC

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 10:26:00 -0400, Len wrote:

Well I took that Maxtor 6L060J3 off the Promise card and put it on the BH6 ata33 controller,

Maxtor 6L060J3 60 gig ATA133 7200RPM ata33 no dma
Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 12.4ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 8mbps

Maxtor 6L060J3 60 gig ATA133 7200RPM ata33 with dma
Random Access Time(milliseconds, lower is better) 12.4ms Read Burst Speed(megabytes per second, higher is better) 28.5mbps

If you want the screen grabs you will have to send me an email so I can ...

Jeff Lindstrom · Jul 16, 2003

Len wrote:

I also timed the boot up

desktop background no hourglass
no-dma 1m 35s 2m 30s
dma 1m 46s 2m 35s
Promise 1m 30s 2m 10s

According to your table, setting DMA slowed your system down, but adding the Promise card sped it up only slightly.

Did you run the hard disk with or without DMA when you used the Promise card?

Computer also shut down over twice as fast when boot drive is on the Promise card.

I'd rather prefer it started up twice as fast.

Len · Jul 16, 2003

Ya I messed up there desktop should 1m46s for both
and no hourglass the no dma and dma should be swapped.

Benchmarks you cannot always go by, all I can say is that the whole system seems much faster than it was without the promise card.

When using the drives on the promise card there is no option for turning dma on or off on any drives on the card.

I am certainly happy with my card, so many of the tests you see on the net or from people that have tried any of the cards are basing it on the ata66 card, the ata100 is much faster with the correct drives, wish I had the ata133 now, lol.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 07:39:10 GMT, Jeff Lindstrom
wrote:

Len wrote:

I also timed the boot up

desktop background no hourglass
no-dma 1m 35s 2m 30s
dma 1m 46s 2m 35s
Promise 1m 30s 2m 10s

According to your table, setting DMA slowed your system down, but adding the Promise card sped it up only slightly.

...

REMOVE the NOCRAP in my address to reply.

Jeff Lindstrom · Jul 16, 2003

Len wrote:

Benchmarks you cannot always go by, all I can say is that the whole system seems much faster than it was without the promise card.

Have you disabled on-board IDA and now boot off your Promise card?

I am certainly happy with my card, so many of the tests you see on the net or from people that have tried any of the cards are basing it on the ata66 card, the ata100 is much faster with the correct drives, wish I had the ata133 now, lol.

What is your FSB speed? I use a BH6 with 100 MHz, so I am thinking an ATA133 might be a waste of capacity.