What happens when I have a UDMA5 & UDMA2 drive on the same channel?

[William Cheng]

Hi all,

I have a newer WD1200JB (UDMA5) master with a Quantum 30Gb (UDMA2) drive on
my primary channel. However when I run a benchmark (Sandra) on it, I get
roughly UDMA2 throughput on both drives - does this mean that the newer WD
drive capable of UDMA5 is only running at the lowest common denominator on
the channel?

Thanks,
William

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a newer WD1200JB (UDMA5) master with a Quantum 30Gb (UDMA2)
drive on my primary channel. However when I run a benchmark (Sandra) on it,

Sandra is a completely hopeless hard drive benchmark, try HDTach.

I get roughly UDMA2 throughput on both drives - does this
mean that the newer WD drive capable of UDMA5 is only
running at the lowest common denominator on the channel?

Its more likely to be just the fact that Sandra is useless.

That lowest common denominator effect shouldnt be happening.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi all,

I have a newer WD1200JB (UDMA5) master with a Quantum 30Gb (UDMA2) drive on
my primary channel. However when I run a benchmark (Sandra) on it, I get
roughly UDMA2 throughput on both drives - does this mean that the newer WD
drive capable of UDMA5 is only running at the lowest common denominator on
the channel?

Unlikely. The drived do not influence each other during the burst-phase
data transfer). The command phase is done at lower speed anyway.

Maybe the BIOS is set to limit xfer to UDMA2 or you only
have a 40 conductor cable?

Also try some other benchmarking software for comparison.

Arno

 

[William Cheng]

Is there a freeware utility that anyone would suggest over Sandra?

 

[Will Dormann]

Is there a freeware utility that anyone would suggest over Sandra?

What's wrong with HDTach, which Rod suggested?


-WD

 

[William Cheng]

Its not free and its designed for Win9x/ME, the NT/2000 version is an extra
fee, and I thought the VXD module for XP is slightly different than
NT/2000 - correct me if I am wrong though.

 

[Will Dormann]

Its not free and its designed for Win9x/ME, the NT/2000 version is an extra
fee, and I thought the VXD module for XP is slightly different than
NT/2000 - correct me if I am wrong though.

Have you tried it?


-WD

 

[Lim PE]

| Is there a freeware utility that anyone would suggest over Sandra?
www.bcmcom.com/utilities/utilities.htm

| > I get roughly UDMA2 throughput on both drives
What chipset / IDE controller ? Just move a big file between partitions
on each hdd, & time each transfer, & compare speed.

| > does this mean that the newer WD
| > drive capable of UDMA5 is only running at the lowest common denominator on
| > the channel?
More likely to mean bios / IDE controller / driver lacks UDMA5
capabilty. Doesn't bios report the std used for each hdd ?

 

[Lim PE]

| Sandra is a completely hopeless hard drive benchmark
Proofless slur. Sandra is great, author is helpful too.

| try HDTach.
u must be its author / salesman

 

[Barry OGrady]

Hi all,

I have a newer WD1200JB (UDMA5) master with a Quantum 30Gb (UDMA2) drive on
my primary channel. However when I run a benchmark (Sandra) on it, I get
roughly UDMA2 throughput on both drives - does this mean that the newer WD
drive capable of UDMA5 is only running at the lowest common denominator on
the channel?

I have a WD1200BB and a lite on cd burner on the same ide channel. A hardware checker
program tells me the HD is set to UDMA66 yet Sandra tells me it is running at near twice
UDMA66 speed. Sandra says 13000 is typical where mine shows as around 25700.

Thanks,
William

-Barry
========
Web page: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~barry.og
Atheist, radio scanner, LIPD information.
Voicemail/fax number +14136227640

 

[Rod Speed]

Proofless slur.

Wrong. As always. The proof is completely trivial, try both
it and HDTach in the particular situation being discussed.

Sandra is great,

Not as a low level hard drive benchmark it aint.

Which might just be why none of the review sites use it for that.

author is helpful too.

Fat lot of good that is if the basic approach is
flawed for hard drive low level benchmarking.

u must be its author / salesman

Nope, nothing to do with me at all. Not even the
same country. Other side of the world in fact.

You can wipe all that egg off your face now.
Hope you have a very large towel handy.

 

[Lim PE]

| The proof is completely trivial
incredible nonsense

My hdd`s' scores in Sandra are always very close to Sandra's
comparatives, for years.

| try both it and HDTach
u want every1 to buy your sftwre

| Other side of the world in fact.
a salesman can be anywhere

No user of an obsolete OE5.5 can be a credible critic of any sftwre ;
even OE6 is imperfect : cannot chk spammers' IP address, or accept a
URL with a "?" end ( e.g.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,183487,00.html? )
which IE6 accepts.
See, I can prove what I allege, u can't.

 

[Rod Speed]

incredible nonsense

Pathetic, really.

My hdd`s' scores in Sandra are always very
close to Sandra's comparatives, for years.

Meaningless waffle.

u want every1 to buy your sftwre

Taint 'my software', ****wit, and its FREE anyway.

a salesman can be anywhere

And stupid conspiracy theory ****wits are everywhere clearly.

No user of an obsolete OE5.5 can be a credible critic of any sftwre ;

Even you should be able to bullshit your way out of your
predicament better than that pathetic effort, ****wit.

even OE6 is imperfect : cannot chk spammers' IP
address, or accept a URL with a "?" end ( e.g.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,183487,00.html? )
which IE6 accepts.

There are plenty better ways to check an IP than IE6, ****wit.

See, I can prove what I allege,

You aint 'proved' a damned thing, fool.

u can't.

I told you how to prove that question of whether HDTach is
a better low level hard drive benchmark than Sandar, ****wit.

And even you should be able to notice that the hard drive
reviews NEVER use Sandra and quite a few use HDTach, fool.