From: brinton@icd.teradyne.com (Chris Brinton)
Subject: Re: Recommendations for a Local BUS (Cache
Reply-To: brinton@icd.teradyne.com
Organization: Teradyne, Inc. Boston MA
Lines: 38

In article 6819@sol.ctr.columbia.edu, penev@rockefeller.edu (Penio Penev) writes:
>On 15 Apr 1993 20:14:20 GMT Divya Sundaram (sundaram@egr.msu.edu) wrote:
>
>| I would like to hear the net.wisdom and net.opinions on IDE Controllers.
>| I would liek to get a IDE controller card for my VLB DX2 66 Motherboard.
>| What are good options for this (preferably under $200). It MUST also work
>| under OS/2 and be compatible with Stacker (and other Disk Compression S/W).
>
>I have a Maxtor 212MB on an ISA IDE controller, although my machine is
>DX2/66 VLB. I has the save transfer rate of 0.647 MB/s regardless of
>the variations of the ISA bus speed. I tested it with speed between
>5.5MHz and 8.33MHz. Not _any_ difference. The problem is not the
>interface between the controller and the memory.
>
>My advice: Buy 4Megs of RAM, save $70 and enjoy performance.
>
>--
>Penio Penev  x7423 (212)327-7423 (w) Internet: penev@venezia.rockefeller.edu
>
>Disclaimer: All oppinions are mine.


I also have a DX2/66 and a Maxtor 212. I have a local bus IDE controller (generic) and I get
985 KB/s. I tried swapping my local bus IDE controller for an ISA IDE controller and my
transfer rate went to 830 KB/s. The specs for this drive show a maximum platter to controller
transfer rate of 2.83 MB/s. I dont know how to get there from here. The local bus interface
got me a little, but certainly not as much as I had hoped. I am also looking for a way to 
improve my disk performance, but Im not convinced that the controller is the bottleneck
(although Im willing to entertain the possibility that it is). I am already running a big
main memory disk cache, so Im not really interested in this solution either.

---
Chris Brinton
Teradyne, Inc.
brinton@icd.teradyne.com

"My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them."

