Why Asymmetrical Read/Write Speeds?

"jpsga" wrote in message
news:EMGdc.102924$gA5.1368860@attbi_s03...
If you have not already done so, I would
get some Visine
unplug the DVD writer
remove the HDD jumper
and retest.

BTW. I have gotten some odd results using test software the does not set
the
HDD controller correctly. Modern HDD internal controllers associated with
large buffers appear to be very fussy.

Two testers that are free that have been re-worked in the last few months
are HD Tach and AIDA32.
JPS


I tried these two programs tonight. AIDA32 provides a wealth of general
information about the system.
HD Tach only does read tests unless you register, but here's what I found...
read speed for the WD drive was 37.3MB/s, which roughly agrees with nBench.
AIDA32 gave similar scores on the average.

I did a full backup of the system drive and proceeded to install Gigabyte's
VIA chipset drivers just for laughs. After installing the chipset and filter
drivers, rebooting and running the tests, read speeds took a nosedive to
27MB/s on the WD drive.

Next experiment was to install SP4 on Windows 2000. No effect on the WD
single drive performance, but radical effect on the RAID array! Writes at
62MB/s, reads at 3.4MB/s!

After a frustrating series of tests, I restored the system configuration (in
less than 3 minutes, thanks to Norton Ghost) and rebooted. Interestingly,
under SP2, my RAID array does 62 write and 60 read (MB/s).

Still haven't solved either problem yet.

Oddly, AIDA32 gives my very old 20GB Maxtor drive the same read score as
this new WD drive. nBench showed vast differences between the drives.

Haven't tried pulling the CD/DVD off the cable yet and jumpering for master
only.


--
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Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

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