Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 35742
Berkeley CSUA MOTD
 
WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ
http://csua.com/feed/
2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

2005/1/17-18 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35742 Activity:high
1/17    My DMA is in fact turned on, but I'm hardly getting the 133 rate
        in my ATA133 as claimed by my motherboard and hard-drive. What
        are some culprits in the lack of performance? ok thx.
        \_ How are you measuring the throughput?
        \_ You know nothing can sustain ATA133 throughput, right?
        \_ And you're running which OS?
        \_ Bottleneck is hard drive heads reading data off the spinning
           platter.  I think you max out around 20-30 MB / second these days
           for a 7200rpm drive for not too fragmented large files.
           Heck, notebooks have ATA133, why are their hard drives slow?  Duh.
           \_ I've tried transfering 50Gig of content (mostly movies,
              very little HD head movements) and according to the XP
              estimation it will take 160 min. So that means the
              rate is approx 5.2M/sec. That is nowhere close to 20-30MB
              rate you're saying. I'm very dissappointed...
              \_ if your source hard drive is defragged and your dest
                 hard drive is empty, you are not doing this across a 100Mbps
                 network or some crappy FireWire / USB 2.0 controller, and
                 5.2 MB/s turned out to be the user-measured result (as opposed
                 to what Windoze estimates), I'd be disappointed too.
                \_ yes. Drive 1 is Maxtor 250Gig drive, empty.
                   Drive 2 is WD 200Gig drive, no fragmentation.
                   Both are on the same ATA133 cable. Transfering
                   from 2 to 1 is about 5MB/sec. WHAT IS GOING ON?
                   Why is it so slow???
                   \_ That *is* slow.  Do you have any anti-virus apps doing
                      on-the-fly scanning?
                        \_ nope! Disabled the "real-time" scan. ARGGGGGGGGGGG
                   \_ Okay, now why didn't you give this information from the
                      start?  If they're on the same cable, you're running in
                      half-duplex.  So your theoretical best is half the max.
                      \_ no. 133ATA means 130000Mb/sec, or 16.6MB/sec.
                         So theoretical limit is 16.6, and assuming
                         half-duplex, it's 8.3MB/sec. I'm getting 5.2MB/sec.
                         I guess 5.2 out of 8.3 is not too bad, but still
                         very disappointing.            -op
                         \_ 133 means 133 MB/s
                        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths
                            Anyway, re-install Windoze and measure again.
                   \_ Is your NTFS drive compressed?
                        \_ NOPE                         -op
                   \_ Did you check your primary/secondary IDE channel settings
                      (in Manage Hardware) and verify that DMA is in fact
                      selected?
                   \_ I have run performance tests on literally dozens of
                      drives and they are all like that. 5MB is kind of slow,
                      but you are never going to see 10MB/sec.
                      \_ I just timed a dump of a 2 GB DVD image from drive
                         to /dev/null on my Thinkpad T41. Average 20 MB/s, and
                         watching a realtime monitor it was more like 24 MB/s
                         and then a pause at 0 MB/s while Linux did some
                         poorly timed swapping.  I am sure I get better speeds
                         than OP copying from drive to Ipod over USB2.
           \_ There's also seek time when the sectors you try to read are non-
              contiguous in the same track, and when the sectors are in
              different tracks.
              \_ I believe it's called "latency" when the data resides in
                 the same track.  Seek time is moving heads, as you noted.
                 Access time is the overall result.
        \_ The only time you'll see 133 is when it's reading data that's in the
           drive's memory buffer.
           \_ if the little pixies are on strike there will be some slow down
        \_ Dude where are the true SCSI-files? ATA has always make outrageous
           claims. It is a combination of the fact ATA just not "robust"
           enough to support that many drives and Windoze sucks at FS.
2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

You may also be interested in these entries...
2007/1/7-16 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:45525 Activity:nil
1/7     Looking to get an external HD for my mom (not yermom). Fry's has an
        ACOMDATA 250GB USB 2.0 for $70 after rebate, but I see only review on
        teh Intarweb (and it's suspiciously glowing). Any of you fine sodans
        have experience with this product or its ilk? TIA. --erikred
        \_ Seagate has 5 year warranty, I think. However their reliability
           has gone down the drain in the past few years. I have a WD250
	...
2005/12/22-23 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41113 Activity:moderate
12/21   What's the quietest, most reliable 300-500GB HD out there these
        days? I'm mainly concerned with reliability/sound/price per GB
        to store lots of media stuff, and I'm not too concerned about
        performance. Also a related question, when do you guys think
        1T drives will come out, 2008? 2009?
        \_ in my experience, seagate drives tend to be quieter than others
	...
2005/5/9-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37579 Activity:kinda low
5/8     Poll. If you even had to return a HD, what was your experience like?
        \_ Hitachi: Regular RMA, No advanced RMA, test suite sucks
        \_ WD: Had 2 consecutive failures (same model) in 6 months, the RMA
           website is really good, has tracking and advanced RMA. Advanced RMA
           requires you putting in credit card number so that if you don't
           return the defective drive in 30 days they'll charge you. It's not
	...
2005/5/2-4 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37454 Activity:moderate
5/2     I'm that noise intolerant guy who wanted to make my PC noiseless.
        Here is my update. In addition to changing my power supply to
        Seasonic Tornado (which is nearly inaudible at around 20db), today,
        I just received my brand new Papst 80X80mmcase fan. At $18.95 each,
        it costs 3X more and weighs 2X more than the other fans. However,
        it is only 12db and just as efficient as the other fans. It's
	...
2005/5/2-4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37459 Activity:kinda low
5/2     To silent PC builders, make sure your HD is cool! You can download
        a program that checks for the temperature, here:
     http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=198&CATID=1
        Click on "Click here to download DTemp"
        \_ Interesting. On my desktop with good airflow, my Western Digital
           is 37C, and my Maxtor is 28C. My laptop (with Hitachi HD) is 47C.
	...
2004/10/13-15 [Recreation/Computer/Games] UID:34095 Activity:kinda low
10/13   Here's a stupid question, can I copy playstation2 games using my
        DVD writer? DVD+R? -R? booktype?
        \_ I know DVD-R works but I think you need to get your PS2 modchipped.
           \_ So ps2 will not work with DVD-R or +R unless chipped?
              \_ I think there's some boot-disc hack also, but basically: yes.
        \_ You want to start at http://lik-sang.com--they at least used to sell
	...
2004/8/27-28 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33192 Activity:insanely high
8/27    I'm currently running a 1.2 Ghz Celeron with 386 megs or so of RAM.
        I'm thinking of buying a new machine, but I want to go cheap, maybe
        less than $500.  I want to end up with a nice machine and a crap
        machine at the end of this.  (Crap machine so my wife can do email and
        stuff) so don't need a CD drive or monitor, and the video card
        doesn't have to be great because I already have a nice one in my
	...
2003/6/9 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28675 Activity:very high
6/8     Are Maxtor disk drives reliable?
        \_ No.
          \_ examples? sources? tests?
                \_ http://csua.berkeley.edu/~tom/fireball.jpeg
        \_ I second that no.
        \_ My past two HDs have been Maxtor DiamondMax's (the ultra quiet
	...
2003/6/1 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28598 Activity:very high 50%like:28593
5/31    I had another hard drive failure recently, making this 2 drives over
        \_ ALL hard drives fail eventually.  back up your data.
           \_ ALL backups fail eventually.  back up your backups.
                \_ the return of the fucking motd comedian!  all
                   hail.  fuck off.
                   \_ actually, it's true.  if your data is important you'll
	...
2003/5/15 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28441 Activity:high
5/14    Any ideas as to how to fix a firewire drive that won't mount?
        It's a friend's mac, and I couldn't help him, so I'm just wondering if
        it's a common problem.
        \_ show it a few videos, and try turning the lights down.  maybe
           if the mac dresses up like a PC?
           \_ I thought this was pretty funny, but you're still a jackass. -op
	...
Cache (463 bytes)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths
In general, parallel interfa ces are quoted in byte/s, serial in bit/s. Many of these figures are theoretical, and various real-world considerati ons may keep the actual effective throughput much lower. The actual throughput achievable on Ethernet networks , especially when heavily loaded, is the subject of hot debate. Note: In telecommunications, 1 kbit/s = 1 000 bit/s, NOT 1 024 bit/s. Thu s, all values below use decimal kilobit/megabit/gigabit definitions.