Why is my slave drive so incredibly slow?

[lejongleur]

I recently added a new 300GB Utra ATA/100 drive (model WD3000JBRTL) to a 1-year old Dell model 400SC running W2000 Pro with 1.25Gb of RAM. The primary ATA drive is a Seagate 120GB. These two drives have 40 pin connnectors and are connected to the onboard IDE interface. I had to use a WD utility to make the full 300GB available (otherwise 137GB limit.) I planned to use this computer to do my everyday stuff and also to run Premiere digital video processing.

Everything seemed fine until I ran Software Sandra against it to measure disk performance. The primary 120GB drive shows a throughput rate 19MB/sec - not too bad. However, the same test on the 300GB drive shows throughput of only just over 2MB/sec - horrible.

I attempted to make DMA active, but looking at 'ControlPanel/system/hardware/device manager/IDE controllers/Primary IDE channel' - shows that the device 0 (120GB master drive) is working in Ultra DMA mode, but device 1 (300GB drive) is always in PIO mode, even though its option says 'DMA if available.'

Any ideas? This is way too slow for DV processing. Any information or suggestions welcomed.

Regards...LeJongleur

 

[lejongleur]

Found the answer! After making this post, I went back to research further and found out that Dell sets the BIOS default to have no slave drives on both the hard drive IDE channel and the CD IDE channel. I reset them and everything went into Ultra DMA mode. Software Sandra NOW reports a 20-fold increase in throughput on my 300GB drive, to 40-something MB/sec. here is the link I found for anyone interested:

http://www.vonglahn.com/udma_pio.htm

 

[garebo]

Also, shouldnt you be using 80 pin ide cables? You have a fairly new computer and new hard drives. Seems to me you should be using the 80 pin cables.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[lejongleur]

Well, I thought that the IDE cable from the motherboard has 80 conductors in it, 40 of which go to each of the two drives attached. Am I wrong?

 

[micker377]

Yes - wrong. The "80" wire cables use some of the wires for ground (shielding), for faster throughput. Some computers will even give you an error if you run an 80 wire capable unit on 40 wire.

 

[garebo]

Anyone running newer mobo and newer hard drives should be using the 80 pin ide cables. You can tell my looking at them which is which. The older, ide 33, 40 pin cables have 40 thick lines in them, the newer ide 66\100\133 80 pin cables are usually a bit darker grey but for sure the lines are much thinner as there are 80 of them. Also, with the older 40 pin cables you could put your primary master drive on any of the 2 connectors but with the 80 pin cables you MUST put your primary master drive on the end and the primary slave drive on the middle connector or nothing will work at all.
Actually i am surprised your system works with the 40 pin cables but some will and some wont. Its a turkey shoot.



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[lejongleur]

I took another look - the drives ARE runing on an 80 conductor cable, set up to use 'cable select.'


Sorry about my misunderstanding and thanks for your help.

 

[garebo]

no problem, somebody will read this and get something out of it anyway.
My guess is that they likely wouldnt all run well on a 40 pin cable, but again, you just never know. I have even seen a hard drive that is supposed to run on a 40 pin cable and it wont but it will run on an 80 pin cable, and vice-versa, same with optical drives, so you never know.
However, generally, with newer drives on a newer system they should be using the 80 pin cable.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[cdogg]

Nope, that's not quite right. ALL standard IDE cables have 40 pins. The spec you're talking about, garebo is called 80 conductor not "pin".

So in other words, 40-conductor and 80-conductor IDE cables have the same 40-pin connectors. The difference, of course, is that the 80-conductor cable has twice as many "wires" for shielding purposes.


lejongleur,
So just make sure the cable is 80-conductor.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[garebo]

yes, sorry, i meant to say 80 conductor, not 80 pin.
The rest of the description is good but both cables have 40 pins of course. My mistake in typing.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[cdogg]

garebo,
I think the confusion started when lejongleur said he was using 40-pin cables. You responded by assuming that he meant 40-wire cables.

There should be no confusion after his post on 8 Apr 05 12:19 that he was using the right cable all along. Just an observation, that's all!

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[garebo]

Yes, reading his post again i can see that happening and that is just what happened.
I usually read my posts before sending it and probably missed it anyway,lol.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips