[rik1]

I have a Dual 1GHZ Mac with an Adaptec 39160 SCSI card running an Fujitsui Ultra 160 LVD 20gb Harddrive and whilst doing some speed tests using "TimeDrive 3.0.3" the internal ATA Drive (supplied as standard reported speeds of 35-36mb read and write while the Ultra SCSI drive only reported speed of 20mb read and write.
Is this running slow? I always thought ultra 160 was much faster than ATA.

Is this the only drive on the card and bus? If you have slower drives like ultra2 or even slower, then you will NOT be able to use the LVD. Also, the LVD requires an active terminator on the cable.

Assuming you have only one drive properly terminated, it should be faster.

[rik1]

Yes, thats the only device on the chain and the cable does have an active terminator. Any ideas what speed I should be achieving and what could be causing the slow down?

What is the particular model of drive you are using? Then check out www.storagereview.com and see it's database to see what it is capable of.

[rik1]

Thanks for the above link. The drive is a Fujitsu MAH3182MP drive and the Storage Review.com site states:

[I][We measure the Fujitsu's access time at 11.6 milliseconds. Subtracting 4.2 ms to account for the drive's 7200 RPM rotational latency yields a measured seek time of 7.4 milliseconds, a bit higher than Fujitsu's spec. This places it substantially higher than the category-leading Atlas V, whose access time comes in at just 10.4 ms. We should note, however, that a score of 11.6 ms does place the Fujitsu 0.4 ms below that of the Seagate, a drive that boasts the lowest specified seek time at just 5.9 ms… but measures in with an access time of 12.0 ms.

The MAH's transfer rate, on the other hand, easily sets a new record for a 7200 RPM SCSI drive with scores of 34.5 MB/sec in outer zones. This easily tops Quantum's drive (the previous record-holder) by over 5 MB/sec. The Fujitsu's inner-track rates are just as impressive, trumping the competition at 21.1 MB/sec.

Due to the lack of available 7200 RPM drives benchmarked in our new testbed, we've decided to break our tradition of keeping SCSI and ATA comparisons separate within the context of individual articles. Thus we've included the Deskstar 75GXP, Quantum Fireball Plus LM, and Western Digital Caviar 400BB in the above graphs. Its interesting to note how the Fujitsu fails to beat the Quantum in seek times and the IBM in sequential transfer rates. The best of today's ATA drives give 7200 RPM SCSI quite a run for its money. /I]


So maybe the speeds I'm getting are correct. This just goes to show how good ATA drives are getting. I don't think I'll use this drive as my Photoshop Scratch disk anymore!!!