Improving Hard Disk Drive Performance ?

[Sagumeht]

Okay, so I built a new system revolving around a KT266a board and an Athlon XP 1600. I am using a Maxtor 40GB 7200 RPM ATA133 with an on board ATA133 controller.

Now, according to Ms Sandra's File System benchmark, I get a measly 14750. Whereas, a comparable ATA66 20GB 7200 RPM drive scores over 20000. I've installed the latest IDE drivers from Via thinking they would improve performance, but they haven't.

Any tips on getting maximum performance from your hard drive?

Thanks for your help

 

[VicLavigne]

What OS are you running?
Any other drives on this controller?

 

[Vegito]

Thats about the max you'll get out of ata drive now... wait for serial ata.. if you use w2k you can increase i/o size, etc..

you can do raid and stuff but that'll just cost money.. I think sandra scrored is over rated anyway..

 

[Rand]

Ignore Sandra and try a real benchmark. Sandra's HDD benchmark is in no way representative of real world HDD performance characteristics, nor is it at all consistent.

Benchmark with IOMeter if you want a database/fileserver benchmark.
WinBench99 is good for a desktop HDD performance benchmark.
Atto benchmark is okay, as is HDTach.. neither of those are excellent but they will give you a basic indicator of performance.

Don't put any worth in SiSoft's benchmarks.
The only SiSoft benchmark worth a damn is it's memory bandwidth test, and even that isnt very good compared to many others.

If you want to believe SiSoft though, then I've got 10K SCSI drive here that SiSoft claims is slower then their reference ATA33 5400RPM drive.

 

[Sagumeht]

Thanks for the other utility suggestions. I'm searching the web for them as we speak.

As far as OS is concerned, I'm running Win XP Pro. I read that users running Win XP should not download any new VIa drivers as they cause instability. I only installed, the IDE and Inf drivers

What's that about changing the I/O in Win2k? Is this possible in XP? I want to unleash this drive's full potential. I still feel like there is something holding it back.

Thanks again

 

[VicLavigne]

<< I only installed, the IDE and Inf drivers >>


I wouldn't have even installed that. The WinXP CD contains ALL necessary drivers, you don't need ANY of the extra VIA drivers. I tried the newer VIA busmaster myself, but didn't like the effect it had.

If you have any other drives on the same IDE controller, it may be limiting your speed.

 

[Cuular]

Check and make sure that DMA mode is enabled as well. There are countless other threads here that have that info or go to Enabling DMA mode under winXP. That may have some affect on how well the drive responds.