DiamondMax+60 very slow random access time! WHY?

[Spydc]

I just purchased a 30GB DiamondMax plus 60 7200rpm hd at staples last week. It came with a free stick of 128mb pc133 ram. Anyway, I've been running benchmarks with HDTACH and my random access times are freaking horrendous! Why is that?
My computer setup is a P3-600Mhz Coppermine, 256MB of PC133 ram, Soyo-6ba+100 motherboard with built-in highpoint370 raid controller chip (ata100). I'm running Windows 2000 service pack 2 on FAT32 partition. The drivers i'm using for the highpoint are the v1.0.3b since the v1.11.0512 cause major stuttering problems. I have the Maxtor by itself on the primary port of the highpoint controller. I also have a IBM Deskstar 34GXP 7200rpm ata66 hd connected alone to the secondary port of the highpoint controller. I have included pics of hdtach's tests on both drives. I don't understand why the Maxtor's random access speed is so high. I have the drive set to acoustic mode /fast. I even tried acoustic mode off and it doesn't really make a difference with random access speed. I don't know if it makes a difference but my Maxtor has only 3.46GBytes used while the IBM drive has 10.5Gbytes used.

IBM Deskstar: I get random access times of between 12.9 and 13.2ms with a burst rate from 55 to 58mbps.

http://hispanic82023.homestead.com/files/ibm.jpg

Maxtor: I get random access time from 16.8 to as high as 22.1ms with burst rates from 74 to over 80mbps. What gives!!?!?

http://hispanic82023.homestead.com/files/maxtor.jpg
http://hispanic82023.homestead.com/files/maxtor2.jpg

 

[LXi]

The DM+60 is suppose to get around 13ns seek time. Are you sure you got the 7200rpm and not the 5400rpm version? If you can, read the model number on the hard drive sticker, if it says 5T030H3, then you got the right one.

 

[Spydc]

Yes it is that exact model number. It says 7200rpm on the box too. So why is it that the random access time is so slow. I have run the powermax diagnostic test and it shows no problem.

 

[LXi]

Try it on your motherboard's built-in IDE controllers. Did you enable DMA?

 

[Spydc]

You can't enable dma for the highpoint ata100 controller.. but it's definitely operating at udma mode 5 since i'm getting very high burst rates. Dma is enabled for the onboard ide ports as well.

 

[bacillus]

I wonder if the acoustic management utility is set to on that drive. look here for the utility!

 

[LXi]

Acoustic management shouldnt decrease seek time by that much, I mean, my DM+40 which is slower than DM+60 with acoustic management enabled gets about 14-15ns.

 

[Spydc]

Thanks for the response. I mentioned in my first post that I have my hard drive set to acoustic on /fast mode. I tried with acoustic management off but I still get those slow access times using hdtach's benchmark. However, I did a benchmark with Sisoft Sandra 2001 and got a drive index of 24,412. A typical udma 100 30gb 7200rpm score is 24000. This is with acoustic management set to fast mode. But why is hdtach giving me a really bad random access time?

 

[zzzz]

My 7200 rpm, ATA-100 maxtor drive gives simillar results with HDtach.(if this is any consolation to you.)

 

[Killbat]

I have accoustic management set up on my Plus 60 drive, it clocks 17ms, burst rate 78MB/s. (Promise ATA100)
My Plus 40 drive measures almost the same.

 

[Shagga]

Sorry about this. Is the Soyo-6ba a VIA chipset or Intel?

[Edit]

I have just bought the same drive too. It's running on the Secondary IDE and running as a Master drive. This Secondary IDE is running at UDMA66 and my scores in HDtach are as follows.

10.4ms Random Access
58.6 mbps Read burst
Read Speed MAX 39134kps
Read Speed MIN 35049kps
Ave Speed 36648.5kps
CPU Utilisation 5.4%

So you definately have something wrong. Is the Task scheduler running in the background? If your mobo is a VIA chipset, I found that running 4.31 4 in 1's seemed to resolve my problem with speed. Try connecting the drive directly to one of your IDE connectors then run the test again. This will highlight any Highpoint controller problems.

[Edit]

It's a BX so the VIA driver problem is not an issue.

 

[ndee]

Just for a little bit smart-assing... Please show me a harddrive which has 13ns seek time

 

[Spydc]

The Soyo 6ba+100 motherboard is a intel 440bx chipset. It strange that some people get high random access times while others get low random access times.

 

[Spydc]

zzzz and killbat, you mention you get similar scores. Do you have acoustic management set to quiet mode or fast mode? I get these scores with acoustic management on fast mode and off!

 

[LXi]

<<Just for a little bit smart-assing... Please show me a harddrive which has 13ns seek time>>

Sorry, I mean ms, that was a typo.



Shagga,

You should check &quot;Advance Size Check&quot; for more accurate numbers, those numbers you listed are only the first 8GB of the drive, they dont mean much.

 

[Spydc]

This is very strange. I loosened the 3 screws that secures the hard drives to the hd bay of my mid tower case , and I ran some benchmarks. My random access time had decreased considerably to 13.1ms. It hover from 13 to 13.6ms everytime now. Strange!

 

[zzzz]

I am not sure if I have the accoustic management off or not. It is default from the factory ( i didn't change anything).
Just a random thought. spydc, are you using rounded cables? Are you using Master / slave jumpers or cable select? (just to compare with mine. I have folded cables(not rounded) and I am using cable select.)

 

[gogeeta13]

can anyone send me a registration code for HDtach? it won't work in 2k

 

[Spydc]

If it is at default factory setting and you purchased it retail, it should be set to acoustic management /fast mode. That is what I have mine set to. I'm not sure what you mean about the folded or rounded cable.. I'm using the one that came packaged with the hard drive. I also have it set to master and it is by itself on the primary port of my ata100 highpoint controller. Anyway, I just loosened the screws and it went from 17 to 22ms down to 13ms.

 

[gogeeta13]

my dual dm60 array(2 40gigers on kk266r with 64k clusters) scored 13.8ms and 44 burst. I have dma enabled, wtf is going on?

 

[gogeeta13]

Any ideas anyone? John?

 

[AmdEmAll]

I have a DiamondMax +60 40GB and my access time is 13ms but my burst speed is only 46mbps. wtf is up with that? Shouldn't I be getting like 70-80mbps? I'm running windows 2000 and I have an Iwill kk266-r.

 

[Duvie]

I have 2 ata100 maxtor drives...I haven't messed with either ones in terms of accoustic management or fast mode..should I? and how do I do it?

15gig gets 13.6ms burst 78mb/s
45gig gets 10.3ms burst 89mb/s

both according to hdtach...my sandra scores aren't up to par 20,000 and 22,500 respectively...but sandra is crap mostly anyways.

sidenote: I ran hdtach while downloading an mp3 and while loading this page just a second ago and got seek of 16.8ms...I am connected and still download mp3 but page finished and i got those scores, so could be better I guess...make sure nothing else is running definitely...it has an obvious effect.

 

[LXi]

<<15gig gets 13.6ms burst 78mb/s
45gig gets 10.3ms burst 89mb/s>>

Is that with Advance Size Check on? 10.3 ms seems too low to me.

For Acoustic management, you need to download the utility from Maxtor, unless you're not satisfied with the performance, I dont think you should bother with it.

 

[Duvie]

No...I hit that wrong on the numeric pad 12.3ms...I have tried each about 3 more times and can get fluctuations in seek time by 1 to 2 ms (mostly higher) and cpu utilization fluctuates as well...anybody see this. burst rate stays same and sustained rate stays the same as well...HMMMMMM