[Greyhame]

Hello!

I have always been having a feeling that my harddrives have too slow a transfer speed, so I measured it yesterday. I Found out that the transfer speed for a 30 GB package of movies and music only reached 13,8 kb/s, which is quite low, isn't it? I have 2 internal (1 IDE anf 1 S-ATA) and 1 external (1 IDE in an external rack, USB 2.0) discs. They are getting their confif from BIOS (says windows at least). I know nothing about UDMA and ULTRA DMA etc, so I now wonder how I should make the settings in BIOS to get them to work faster, OR, how I should set the config in windows, where I also kan change the mode between PIO, multi DMA and ULTRA DMA of differents sorts.

I would be really grateful for alla help, as I know very little about this stuff.

Best regards,
Kris

[cajalat]

That does seem a little low but depending on your hardware that might be within the capabilities of the machine.

1. What are your hardware specs?
- CPU/Memory
- HD specs

2. What kind of cables are you using to connect your IDE drives?
- 40 pin/80 pin

3. Are you using USB 1.1 or 2.0 and how have you verified this?

[Greyhame]

At first, let me correct myself and say that the speed is 13,8 Mb/sec and not kb/s as previously stated.

I have a rather new computer with 4x512 Mb memory and a Athlon 3800+ processor. I have 3 harddrives;
.. Internal
Drive A: Maxtor 6B200P0, 16 heads, 8200 Cache
Drive B: Samsung SP200C (S-ATA), 16 heads, 8200 Cache
.. "Internal", but placed in an external chassi with USB-connection and separate power supply;
Drive C: Maxtor 6L250R0 (don't have these specs ATM, but newer than the other discs)

Both internal discs have UDMA 6-support, but I don't think they are put in this mode, simply because I don't know how to do this, and if its safe to do it. I know they get their specs from BIOS ATM, and I don't know if I should change them to UDMA 6 in BIOS or change so they get their specs from Windows, and here-in change them to UDMA 6. Is there any drawbacks to use UDMA 6, or any risk by putting them in that mode?

I use the 80 pin IDE-cables, and frankly I don't know how to verify the 2.0 USB-transfer mode. I just trust the USB-cable and the chassi that according to the specs of the company I buyed it from should be 2.0. How can I verify this?

Thanks for you help so far!

//kris

[cajalat]

The way you put them in UDMA-6 mode is BIOS/Motherboard dependent. You might want to check to see if a) you're running the latest BIOS on your motherboard, and b) your motherboard even supports such setting.

Regarding the SATA connection I think by default SATA runs in mode 7 but you can't really see it in the BIOS.

Another thing you should try is to run a benchmark against each of the drives independently. This will at least either give you an indication of where the problem might be if it is related to any particular drive. When you're copying from drive to drive there might be other factors that impede your performance such as fragmentation, other processes that might need to write to disk etc.

What is your motherboard make/model by the way. I can dig into it a little more if you'd like.

[Greyhame]

How do I "run a benchmark" against my harddrives? Im really interested in testing my separate drives, but I don't know how to do that.

My motherboard is a Micro-Star International, model. LTD MS-7125.
My BIOS is manufactured by Phoenix Technologies LTD, and is dated 06/23/2005, version 6.00 PG.

These names and numbers doesn't tell me much, but I get the feeling you are quite skillful in getting information out of these things. :-)

Thangs again for your help!

[cajalat]

There are several benchmark programs out there. You can start here:

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_main.html

Regarding your MB. I couldn't find the exact model from what you've given me. What I found with the same model number are three different motherboards and none of them ever had a BIOS matching what you've listed. The motherboards I've found which the same model number are:

K8N Neo4 Platinum
K8N Neo4 Platinum/F
K8N Neo4/FX

None of those have a BIOS newer than 1.5. When you boot your computer the BIOS version should be displayed at the bottom of the screen. Now that I recall, Phoenix displays its own version on top upon reboot (which is probably what you saw) but the real BIOS version should be at the bottom.

Check against the MSI website to help you identify your MB and also to see if you're running the latest BIOS.

[Greyhame]

Hello again!

I have now downloaded a benchmark program, and I ran some speedtests, with very interesting and confusing results. While the program ran, I moved files from my different discs, which gave me a chance ( I think?) to see the transfer speeds. I saved images and uploaded them to imageshack (see below) if you can understand them better than me.

I got the following results (please proof-read the images):
6B200P0 (D:\)
1. Y--> X (57 Mb/s)
Y--> D ( 7 Mb/s)
D--> X (14 Mb/s)
X--> D ( 6 Mb/s)

(Click thumbnails for larger view)

...


SP2004C (X:\) S-ATA
2. "Resting-speed": 55 Mb/s
Y--> X ( 9 Mb/s)
D--> Y (48 Mb/s)
X--> D ( 2 Mb/s)


...



6L250R0 (Y:\) (external with USB 2.0-connection)
3. "Resting-speed": 27.5 Mb/s
Y--> X (10.0 Mb/s)
Y--> D (10.0 Mb/s)
X--> D (27.5) control
D--> Y ( 7.5 Mb/s)


...



I can't find my real BIOS-version though. I went into BIOS, but the BIOS only displays version 1.6... I looked at the hard drive config in BIOS, and the only disc that appeared there, were the S-ATA disc (as IDE third master).

I can't seem to sort this out myself, I real mystery! Do you understand the results from the benchmark program?

Best regards,
Kris