Lab Tests: Dual PCI Ultra-Wide SCSI Controller Raid By Mike Breeden Published: February 1998
Part 2 - Dual Card/Dual Drive Raid Tests.
Intro | Cards Tested  | ATTO Benchmark | FWB Benchtest  | Time Drive | MacBench | Summary
MacBench 4.0 Results with Dual Card/Dual Drive Raid 0 Array
MacBench 4.0 Disk and Publishing disk tests could only be run with the Conley SoftRaid 2.0 disk driver, as MacBench would not recognize the PCI SCSI when the FWB driver was used. This is a known bug in MacBench and the workaround is to have all drives connected to the PCI SCSI card. Raid arrays connected to a PCI SCSI card always seem to be recognized by MacBench, unlike most standard volumes. If the MacBench scores seem low, remember this test was run with a 180mhz 604e processor and a single drive (not an array). MacBench 4.0 Results - Dual Card/Dual Drive Raid 0 (Disk cache size noted in parenthesis) Red = Best Score, Blue = Worst Score. Card Driver Disk Pub Disk Adaptec 2940 Bios 3.0 Anubis Raid 386 (512K) 527 (4MB) 551 (512K) 496 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 2.5 Anubis Raid 385 (512K) 522 (4MB) 553 (512K) 493 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 3.0 ATTO Raid 390 (512K) 518 (4MB) 559 (512K) 480 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 2.5 ATTO Raid 389 (512K) 533 (4MB) 558 (512K) 494 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 3.0 Remus Lite 381 (512K) 522 (4MB) 562 (512K) 478 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 2.5 Remus Lite 386 (512K) 519 (4MB) 557 (512K) 465 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 3.0 SoftRaid 2 424 (512K) 542 (4MB) 564 (512K) 602 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 Bios 2.5 SoftRaid 2 TBD (512K) 536 (4MB) TBD (512K) 602 (4MB) Adaptec 2940 RTK 2.06 N/A N/A ATTO Anubis Raid 390 (512k) 532 (4MB) 542 (512k) 502 (4MB) ATTO ATTO Raid 391 (512k) 536 (4MB) 542 (512k) 504 (4MB) ATTO Remus Lite 386 (512K) 517 (4MB) 562 (512K) 483 (4MB) ATTO SoftRaid 2 429 (512K) 539 (4MB) 547 (512K) 600 (4MB) ATTO RTK 2.06 N/A N/A Initio Miles Anubis Raid Errors Errors Initio Miles ATTO Raid Errors Errors Initio Miles Remus Lite 385 (512k) 521 (4MB) 555 (512k) 468 (4MB) Initio Miles SoftRaid 2 Errors Errors Initio Miles RTK 2.06 N/A N/A Jackhammer Anubis Raid 395 (512k) 541 (4MB) 556 (512k) 505 (4MB) Jackhammer ATTO Raid 392 (512k) 539 (4MB) 546 (512k) 492 (4MB) Jackhammer Remus Lite 383 (512K) 519 (4MB) 560 (512K) 474 (4MB) Jackhammer SoftRaid 2 439 (512K) 562 (4MB) 566 (512K) 622 (4MB) Jackhammer RTK 2.06 N/A N/A Stock SCSI IBM AV 7200rpm Dr. FWB 347 165 BEST PERFORMERS: Jackhammer and Conley SoftRaid 2 View  Single Card/Drive Scores for this Test Notes: N/A = the drive was not recognized by MacBench 4.0 when running Raid ToolKit 2.06. Errors = The Initio card could not run the tests as Macbench reported an immediate "Error 505" (Read/Write error). TBD = Test Not run on this configuration.
You can see that the cards delivered nearly identical MacBench performance (the Initio is an unknown with some software due to the inability to run the tests.). The stock disk did well on the standard disk mix test, but was about 3.5 times slower in the Publishing Disk test. I was surprised the stock drive Pub Disk test score was so low. Possibly the driver is optimized for large file I/O (being an AV drive) and therefore suffers on smaller file I/O speeds.
Now that you've seen the results with a dual SCSI card setup, you'll want to review Part 3 of this series, which shows test results using a single PCI SCSI card with the same Raid software and drives.
Index of Dual Card/Dual Drive SCSI Raid Comparison Intro | Cards Tested  | ATTO Benchmark | FWB Benchtest  | Time Drive | MacBench = Results Summary =  |   Single Card/Drive Scores for this Test - or - Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM
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