PCI Bus speeds? |
January, 29, 2003 11:09 PM |
rxt7819 |
Hello Again, Looking at a Firewire CD/RW (which would need a Firewire card) I got to wondering if Firewire rates are achievable or if the PCI bus would be the limiting factor. Same applies for a faster SCSI card, since I have drives capable of higher speeds than they are currently allowed on the internal SCSI bus. Since these cards are not that expensive, I'm wondering if they are worth the money and effort. Any clues? Is there a way to assess the speed of the PCI bus? Thanks, Raj |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
February, 10, 2003 1:41 PM |
marcush |
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I use the ATTO Tools benchmark utility. It's a free download and it's what's used in drive tests at xlr8yourmac.com. |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
February, 10, 2003 12:11 PM |
powderhaus |
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I was Using Xbench that comes with Hard disk Speed tools, for some reason they made a bench that worked in X... |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
February, 09, 2003 11:54 PM |
rxt7819 |
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Thanks again for the input. I think I'm going to go with a cheap Firewire card and a Firewire/USB writer from OWC (one of the Mercury Pros). Hopefully the USB side of that will allow me it to work on a PC as well. Exactly how do you guys measure the data rates you're getting on your drives? Do you use benchmarking software? |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
January, 30, 2003 9:51 PM |
powderhaus |
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wow! I have a belkin Firewire/USB 1.1 card. Does anyone know if Firewire 2 card will be able to boot? I could just get a new case or a whole new setup (I think my firewire HardDrive or powersupply is dieing) |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
January, 30, 2003 2:23 PM |
marcush |
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I use a Ratoc Firewire/USB2.0 combo card in my Power Tower Pro. I paid a premium for it but my Firewire speeds top out at 36MB/s reads and 27 MB/s writes. There is a lot of variation between cards. For instance, I had a CompUSA Firewire/USB card that topped out at 12MB/s reads and 4MB/s writes. |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
January, 30, 2003 2:11 PM |
powderhaus |
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I would wait, when buying this stuff you have to think ahaed, someday you will get a new computer and you will be kicking your self for getting firewire and not firewire 2. I have firewire (got it last year) and it transfers at about 20MBs. firewire should be 40MBs. My drive is cheap but that is not the only reason, the PCI bus can not handle the 80MBs that firewire 2 will have but when you get a new computer it will be fully compatable. Just a thought, someone with a mercury drive csn tell you how fast his can go, but my cheaper drive is 20MBs. Just something to think about |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
January, 30, 2003 2:11 PM |
powderhaus |
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By the way my SCSI is 5MBs |
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RE: PCI Bus speeds? |
January, 30, 2003 1:13 AM |
ian |
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I would tell you to get one of the OWC FireWire cards because they are not only pretty reasonable in price, but Ryan has also mentioned that they (apparently the cards based on the Agere silicon) support booting in XPF 3. As to FireWire performance, I dunno. I still get only a few MB per second disk to disk, but then again, I don't know how much of that speed loss is due to high disk swap and slow CPU speed. Maybe Ryan or someone else would have a better idea as to the nature of the PCI speed. |