Win XP and SCSI = slooooow??

[Nailbunny]

Title pretty much sums it up. I have an external IBM 7200 rpm SCSI drive hooked up to an ATTO ExpressPCI-DC SCSI card. Under drive benchmark the SCSI drive is transferring around 12-16MB / sec tops. MY IDE drives are hitting around 40MB/Sec. What gives?

I ran across the M$ posts about XP and slow scsi performance, installed XP service pack 1a..and it's still slow. Installed latest drivers for the scsi card and updated it's bios. Any ideas?

Win XP Pro
ATTO ExpressPCI-DC SCSI card
IBM 7200rpm SCSI drive
Dual AMD 1.2ghz
Tyan MOBO
1GB registered DDR

 

[bozo1]

There's a large thread about it at Storagereview.com... haven't read it lately so I don't know where the issue stands.

I do know that if you convert your drive to Dynamic, your rates go up to where they should be. (at least in the benchmark programs)

 

[boshuter]

Like bozo1 said, there is an excellent thread on it and a possible solution on storagereview.com...... do a search for "xpcachefilter" in the forum. One of the members there has written the above named filter that may fix the problem for you. I have downloaded the file but haven't had a chance to try it yet. Make sure you read that thread before you try the fix. This is a problem in Windows XP, and Windows 2000 w/anything later then SP2. The problem has been fixed in Windows 2003 server.

 

[rjain]

IBM's 7200 RPM scsi drives are quite old. They were made with tech that predates your IDE drives by at least 5 years.

Edit: it's also external. that limits the transfer rate.

 

[Nailbunny]

Originally posted by: rjain
IBM's 7200 RPM scsi drives are quite old. They were made with tech that predates your IDE drives by at least 5 years.

Edit: it's also external. that limits the transfer rate.

Even though the drive is an older external SCSI, it should still be faster than 12/16MB read times shouldn't it? Write times are like 4MB / sec. I did check out the threads at storage review. Seems some people fixed it with changing the drive to a Dynamic disk (didn't work for me). Supposedly SP1a for XP fixes the issue .. but hasn't for me. Oh well...I think I'll just sell the drive. Don't really need it.

Thanks for the help/info everyone.

 

[boshuter]

The fix is not in SP1, it is supposed to be in SP2. That info was in the thread on storagereview. Rather than sell the drive, why not try using the fix the thread on that site reffered to?

 

[SpeedFreak03]

I do know that if you convert your drive to Dynamic, your rates go up to where they should be. (at least in the benchmark programs)

Would that do anything for a regular IDE drive (western digital 80GB special edition 8MB cache 7200RPM) with WinXP or Win2K?

 

[Nailbunny]

Originally posted by: boshuter
The fix is not in SP1, it is supposed to be in SP2. That info was in the thread on storagereview. Rather than sell the drive, why not try using the fix the thread on that site reffered to?

I'd rather just sell it on ebay because ...

1.) It's only an 18GB drive, and I have 230GB of IDE space..so I don't really need the space.

2.) and the main reason to sell is because I'm selling the SCSI card that goes with the drive (it's from a digidesign Pro Tools audio setup) to get the funds to buy a new laser printer. Need it more than a old scsi hdd.

3.) Not directly related to the scsi drive, but ... Windows pisses me off too much anymore. Too many viruses, dumb that an OS would limit SCSI performance, XP broke itself after I did a standard shutdown the other night (completely fried itself and would only reboot over and over and over again...even when trying to access safe mode and recovery). Pretty scary when an OS has a list of about 38 critical patches to install due to security issues. Plus it's GUI is ugly! I'm getting tired of the M$ BS. I'm getting a dual 2.0ghz G5 Mac. </rant off>

 

[Nothinman]

Would that do anything for a regular IDE drive (western digital 80GB special edition 8MB cache 7200RPM) with WinXP or Win2K?

No, it's a SCSI-only bug AFAIK.

I'm getting a dual 2.0ghz G5 Mac

Wish I had that kind of cash, well I know I'd end up putting Debian/PPC on it anyway so I guess I don't have much use for a Mac =)