Lab Tests: PCI Ultra-Wide SCSI Controllers By Mike Breeden Published: February 1998
Part 1 of a continuing series on SCSI controllers, disk drivers and Raid software.
Intro | Cards Tested  | ATTO Benchmark | FWB Benchtest  | Time Drive | MacBench | Summary
Results with the FWB BenchTest benchmark - with Conley and FWB drivers
The FWB BenchTest is one of the most popular disk benchmarks and a standard part of Hard Disk ToolKit (and Raid ToolKit as well). I recorded the sustained read/write scores and the read/write transactions per second (a unique feature of this benchmark). Read and write transactions per second is a primary indication of the SCSI command latency (delay so to speak) of the controller/driver/disk combination. Higher transactions per second rates indicate a more efficient driver. Note how the Initio and Jackhammer write transactions increased dramatically with the Conley driver. Unlike the previous test in which each card had at least one top score - the Jackhammer consistently delivered the best performance in this test. Note: Unless otherwise noted, all rates are in KiloBytes/Second. Drivers: Conley denotes SoftRaid 2.0, FWB denotes Hard Disk ToolKit 2.06 (optimized). PR = Peak Read, SR = Sustained Read, PW = Peak Write, SW = Sustained Write. RT = Read Transactions/Second. WT = Write Transactions/Second. FWB BenchTest Results Red = Best Score, Blue = Worst Score. Card Driver SR SW RT/sec WT/sec Adaptec 2940v3 Conley 7162 9653 2681 1516 Adaptec 2940v3 FWB 6954 9726 2008 1276 ATTO Conley 7184 9691 2720 1800 ATTO FWB 6965 9763 2108 1489 Initio Miles Conley 7239 9655 2768 3291 Initio Miles FWB 6941 9753 2113 1432 Jackhammer Conley 7246 9690 2937 4913 Jackhammer FWB 7006 9784 2093 1461 Stock SCSI IBM AV 7200rpm Dr. FWB 6309 6987 1021 870 The stock drive does well on the sustained read tests (it's an AV rated 7200 rpm drive), but is about 50% slower on the write test, and delivers far fewer transactions per second.
TOP PERFORMERS: JackHammer Card and Conley Driver. View Raid Scores for this Test
There is another test which is often used for disk benchmarking, Time Drive v1.3 - a no-frills benchmark that also reports "typical" through the file system rates, which are generally very low as shown on the next page.
Index of SCSI Controller Comparison Report Intro | Cards Tested  | ATTO Benchmark | FWB Benchtest  | Time Drive | MacBench = Results Summary = - or - Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM
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