Confusion about ATA-100 or ATA-133 speed/performance

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carlos Moreno
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Carlos Moreno

Hi,

I have a couple of ATA-133 Maxtor hard drives properly
connected to my ASUS A7N8X motherboard, which has on-board
UltraDMA 133/100/66/33 ports.

When I use my Pinnacle Studio (a video edition and DVD
authoring software), it has an option to verify that
the hard drive speed is enough.

That option reports a transfer speed of less than 40MB
per second (it reports read and write -- one is around
35, and the other one around 39)

Is this performance what I should be expecting? If so,
what is the meaning of that 133 or 100?

I understand that that is the maximum throughput of the
interface circuitry -- i.e., the maximum speed at which
data can travel between the hard disk unit and the
system's memory.

Are those 40MB per second the maximum speed at which
the disk (the physical media, i.e., the actual cylinders
etc.) can give information? Or is it a sign that some
settings are wrong? Is there something that I can do
to increase that speed?

Is my only solution a quad-RAID system to multiply
that speed by four? :-)

Thanks,

Carlos
--
 
Carlos said:
Hi,

I have a couple of ATA-133 Maxtor hard drives properly
connected to my ASUS A7N8X motherboard, which has on-board
UltraDMA 133/100/66/33 ports.

When I use my Pinnacle Studio (a video edition and DVD
authoring software), it has an option to verify that
the hard drive speed is enough.

That option reports a transfer speed of less than 40MB
per second (it reports read and write -- one is around
35, and the other one around 39)

Is this performance what I should be expecting? If so,
what is the meaning of that 133 or 100?

I understand that that is the maximum throughput of the
interface circuitry -- i.e., the maximum speed at which
data can travel between the hard disk unit and the
system's memory.

Are those 40MB per second the maximum speed at which
the disk (the physical media, i.e., the actual cylinders
etc.) can give information? Or is it a sign that some
settings are wrong? Is there something that I can do
to increase that speed?

Is my only solution a quad-RAID system to multiply
that speed by four? :-)

Thanks,

Carlos
--
Click to expand...

U/133 means that the IDE bus has a peak bandwidth of 133 MB/s.
But no existing HD is capable of a STR (Sustained Transfer Rate)
anywhere near 133 MB/s. Good your U/133 IDE is not
bottlenecking your HD; and, I don't think anything is wrong
other than your expectations.

A solution? To what problem? Does Pinacle Studio actually state
that their product won't work unless the filesystem is good for
4x35 MB/s?
 
Bob said:
[...]
Are those 40MB per second the maximum speed at which
the disk (the physical media, i.e., the actual cylinders
etc.) can give information? Or is it a sign that some
settings are wrong? Is there something that I can do
to increase that speed?

Is my only solution a quad-RAID system to multiply
that speed by four? :-)
Click to expand...

U/133 means that the IDE bus has a peak bandwidth of 133 MB/s.
But no existing HD is capable of a STR (Sustained Transfer Rate)
anywhere near 133 MB/s. Good your U/133 IDE is not
bottlenecking your HD; and, I don't think anything is wrong
other than your expectations.

A solution? To what problem? Does Pinacle Studio actually state
that their product won't work unless the filesystem is good for
4x35 MB/s?
Click to expand...

Thanks Bob for your reply.

No, Pinnacle Studio does work. I think it requires
a transfer above 10 or 12MB, which my system does
provide.

The "problem" I was referring to was the "slow"
transfer rate -- not slow as in "slower than it
should be", but slow as in "it takes me 12 hours
to author a DVD, and I suspect that the bottleneck
is given by the 40MB transfer rate".

I would have to do some further research to determine
that for sure, but at least now I can put my mind at
ease, knowing that this is approximately the speed
that I should expect from my hard disk.

Thanks!

Carlos
--
 
On different websites that have tested ATA/133 harddrives, they could get
transfer speeds of 60-65MBs.
Recheck all drivers and bios settings and master/slave setting.
Having CD/DVD drives on the same controller as harddrives can slowdown hard
drive transfer.
Are you mixing CD/DVD drives with harddrives on the same controller ?
 
Tod said:
On different websites that have tested ATA/133 harddrives, they could get
transfer speeds of 60-65MBs.
Click to expand...

That is on sequential read benchmarks on very late model
drives and it also only applies to the fastest zone.
 
[snip]
The "problem" I was referring to was the "slow"
transfer rate -- not slow as in "slower than it
should be", but slow as in "it takes me 12 hours
to author a DVD, and I suspect that the bottleneck
is given by the 40MB transfer rate".
Click to expand...

The bottleneck in DVD authoring is usually the CPU. 12 hours isn't
necessarily unusual if software MPEG2 encoding is part of the process.
If you are able to capture video in MPEG2 format, it can speed up the
process, but the quality probably won't be as good.
 
Tod said:
On different websites that have tested ATA/133 harddrives, they could get
transfer speeds of 60-65MBs.
Click to expand...

That depends entirely on the model.
Recheck all drivers and bios settings and master/slave setting.
Having CD/DVD drives on the same controller as harddrives can slowdown hard
drive transfer.
Click to expand...

That's FALSE.
Are you mixing CD/DVD drives with harddrives on the same controller ?
Click to expand...

That's no problem.
 
Carlos Moreno said:
Hi,

I have a couple of ATA-133 Maxtor hard drives properly
connected to my ASUS A7N8X motherboard, which has on-board
UltraDMA 133/100/66/33 ports.

When I use my Pinnacle Studio (a video edition and DVD
authoring software), it has an option to verify that
the hard drive speed is enough.

That option reports a transfer speed of less than 40MB
per second (it reports read and write -- one is around
35, and the other one around 39)
Click to expand...

What model HD exactly?
Is this performance what I should be expecting? If so,
what is the meaning of that 133 or 100?

I understand that that is the maximum throughput of the
interface circuitry -- i.e., the maximum speed at which
data can travel between the hard disk unit and the
system's memory.

Are those 40MB per second the maximum speed at which
the disk (the physical media, i.e., the actual cylinders
etc.) can give information?
Click to expand...

Likely, yes.

Or is it a sign that some
settings are wrong? Is there something that I can do
to increase that speed?

Is my only solution a quad-RAID system to multiply
that speed by four? :-)
Click to expand...

Dual drive RAID 0 should be sufficient when using two identical fast HDs.
 
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