To offload the main front page news I created this page to list a reader's comments on slow upstream file copy performance with an TurboMax IDE PCI Controller card.

Update: The reader that reported this issue sent an update that notes the network card, not the Turbomax alone, seems to be the culprit (I suggested he try a Farallon NIC card, or perhaps moving the 10/100 NIC card to another side of the PCI bus away from the Turbomax card). He latest comments report on tests with the Turbomax card in other systems:

"Mike,
This is an update to the Promax ATA/33 network file transfer speed issue I wrote to you about earlier.

One final test that I could not perform on the 9600 G3/333 Promax / Western Digital machine was to swap out the Asante PCI 10/100 network card with one from another vendor. (I did change out the original card with a newer revision numbered Asante PCI 10/100 which used a different driver. The original network file transfer speed ratio of 5 to 1 remained about the same.) I do not have any other Mac PCI Ethernet cards from another vendor; I've been using Asante with excellent results for a number of years now.

I installed the Promax ATA/33 card in a new G4 400 ATA/66 machine. As you know, the G4's have a built in 10/100 Ethernet port which would take the Asante PCI network card out of the network speed test scenario.

The G4 running system 9.0 and AppleShare IP 6.3. is being tested and set up as another file server.

I attached a Seagate 28GB ST328040A ATA/66 drive to the Promax card. The Segate drive was previously configured and formatted as a slave drive on the internal ATA/66 interface using Apple Drive Setup 1.7.2.

After inserting the jumper block in the Master drive position on the Segate, I connected the drive to the Promax card using an ATA/66 cable.

The G4 booted without any problems, and the Segate 'slave disk' showed up on the desktop under the internal ATA startup disk. Once AppleShare IP 6.3 was finished starting up, I was able to do some file transfer speed tests with the Promax / Segate combination.

The network speed issue with the Promax ATA/33 card disappeared!

Using a 60MB Photoshop tiff file as a benchmark, tests from a number of other machines accessing the Segate 'slave drive' showed similar speeds taking files from the Promax / Segate as sending files back to it.

The G4,s were averaging 6 to 7 seconds to take and return the benchmark file from the Segate 'slave drive'.

My G3's equipped with Asante PCI network cards were averaging 7 to 8 seconds. Our G3 upgraded 604's with the same Asante NIC cards were running at about 9 to 11 seconds to take and return the benchmark file to the Segate drive. Additional file transfer tests between the G4 test file server and another G3 server running OS 8.1 and AppleShare 6.0 were OK. Test speeds in both directions from either server to the other were similar.

The Mac that has a network file transfer speed issue with the Promax / Western Digital ATA dual drive dual card Connely Raid combo is a 9600 Xlr8 G3/333 upgraded machine running system 8.6 using the Asante PCI 10/100 Ethernet card.

I have other similarly configured 9600's running Mac OS 8.6 that have Xlr8 G3 upgrade cards and Asante network cards; they are running SCSI hard drives and do not have any network file transfer speed problems.

As a afterthought, while writing this letter to you, I decided to set up the 9600 with the Promax / ATA drives to use the internal Apple 10BT Ethernet port. Using the same benchmark file, network file transfer speeds from the server to the Promax /ATA drives and from the Promax / ATA drives to the server were within reasonable 10BT Ethernet speeds 83 seconds server to hard disks, 92 seconds hard disks to server.

It appears that the Asante network card is partially or fully responsible for the super slow Promax controlled disk to server speed differences (15 sec. from server to disk / 75 sec. from disk to server) that I sent you earlier.

Please let your readers know that the Promax / ATA drive combination seems to work great in the G4's running OS 9.0, but, there still is the potential network file transfer speed issue with other configurations of older Macs with add in Asante and possible other brands of PCI network cards.

Thanks for delivering valuable Mac info to the masses,
Sincerely,
Joe Dylik
Computer Administrator
Centermark Graphics "

His original Comments:

"Hi Mike,
I've been following articles on your web site for a while and felt it is time to contribute some of my experiences.

I also have a couple Promax ATA/33 cards that were designed for the Mac. I understand via Promax that Acard manufactured the cards for them and Promax supplies the Mac ROM for the cards and markets the cards. I installed the Promax cards into a 9600 / G3 333 XLR8 upgraded workstation with a couple of Western Digital Expert 18 GB ATA/66 7200RPM hard disks running Conley 2.2 Raid software.

The individual disks sustained reads and writes were benchmarking with FWB and ATTO tools at around 16MB sec., which is what I expected after reading other users comments on your web site.

When both disks were setup as a raid across both channel of one of the dual channel cards, the ATTO and FBW sustained read and write scores barely increased above the performance of a single disk to approx. 18MB sec. SR/SW.

When I striped the two disks across TWO Promax cards, the SR/SW rates went up to the 24MB sec. raid rates that Promax claims is the max achievable; but, the peak read and write rates blew off the chart. (I am attaching screen shoots of a few of the benchmark results.)

After doing some internal SCSI to ATA disk transfer tests and a few checksum tests, I put the Promax / Western Digital ATA drives into service, feeling that I got enough 'bang for the buck' out of the inexpensive setup.

About two-weeks ago I started preparing a new G4 as a file server, setting up next to the machine running the Promax-ATA disk combo, so I decided to use that machine to establish some basic benchmark network file transfer speeds for the new server.

Using a 60MB Photoshop tiff file as a benchmark file I established a network transfer time of approx. 15 sec. to move the benchmark file from the server disk to the to the 9600 running the Promax ATA raid;... BUT... the transfer time from the Promax raid to the server disk timed out between 63 and 83 seconds, averaging about 75 seconds for the file transfer.

After trouble shooting the network and the machines, I determined that the cause of the SLOW upstream (workstation to server) file transfer speed was the Promax ATA cards.

I contacted Promax tech support and installed a ROM upgrade patch. The patch did not resolve the problem.

After contacting Promax tech support again, they finally admitted that they were aware of the SLOW upstream network transfer speeds that their card was generating and that they were busy trying to resolve the problem,... BUT... they could do nothing for me now, could not tell me how long they were aware of this issue, and had no expected target date for when they might have this problem corrected.

As a replacement for an aging slow, low capacity, internal SCSI disk for a non-networked Mac, the Promax ATA/33 card is a great addition to the products available for the Macintosh user,….BUT… if your transferring a lot of files across a network all day long, the 5 to 1 ratio for the network file transfer speeds of the Promax equipped Mac is a killer.
Please pass this info along to your web site viewers.
Sincerely,
Joe Dylik
Computer Administrator
Centermark Graphics "

I welcome other feedback on the Turbomax card networking performance (esp. in Apple G3 or later Macs) - please list your Mac model, OS version, drives, etc.

Related Links:

• My TurboMax IDE Card Review
• ATA/66 vs ATA/33 PCI Card Performance tests
• Installing a dual drive IDE RAID setup in a B&W G3 or Apple G4.
• Thad Brown's TurboMax Performance Tests in a Umax S900
  (IBM/Maxtor IDE drives compared to S900's SCSI IBM and Barracuda drives)
• Beige G3 IDE Hard Drive Upgrade guide
• B&W G3 IDE Slave Hard Drive Upgrade guide
• Proline's low-cost/easy install Hard Drive Bracket (see my installation article.)
• Links to IDE standards and definitions (thanks to Jeff Relm)
• Proline's low-cost B&W G3 HD Bracket (adds a drive over the CDROM)
• 9600 Onboard SCSI vs PCI Card (with stock 4GB Drive)
• More Onboard SCSI vs PCI Card Tests (Narrow SCSI drives)
• 8600 4 Drive Internal RAID (works w/9600 as well)
• Raid in a 7500 (tips on installing two drives inside)
• Cheetah HD & PCI SCSI card upgrade to 8500 (illustrated guide)
• Complete List of Controller/Disk/RAID Articles including RAID tests (5 SW packages) and 4 UW SCSI card head-to-head review. Too many articles to list.