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"BARE
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"BARE
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On Macintosh Speed FEATS"
Which
is the hot Ultra ATA PCI controller setup: The
Sonnet Tempo ATA100 or the Acard 6280 ATA-133?
And
how do both compare to the Acard 6880M ATA-133 True
Hardware RAID card? Original
Posting Date: 11/9/01 If
you want to add more than two drives
inside of a G3 or G4 tower, you'll need a PCI
controller card. If
you have a G3 Beige DT/MT, G3 Blue'n'White
"Yosemite" or G4 Graphite "Yikes", you might
want a faster interface than the built-in
ATA/33 for running the new ATA/100 and ATA/133
drives. In previous tests, moving the drive from
the internal bus of a Beige DT to a PCI ATA/66
card more than doubled the sustained data
transfer rates. If
you want to create a striped or mirrored RAID
array (or combination of the two), these
cards combined with low cost Ultra ATA drives
can do so at a fraction of the cost of an
Ultra160 SCSI RAID. And the resulting array
would be just as fast as the Ultra160 striped
pair. HOW
FAST DO THE ATA/100 AND HW RAID ATA/133 GO WITH
TWO DRIVES IN A STRIPED RAID ARRAY? And which is
better, Hardware RAID or Software
RAID? PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS The
Sonnet Tempo ATA100 was much faster than the
Acard 6280M ATA-133 when used to create a
striped RAID array. Both rely on software for
RAID function. And
as for Hardware RAID, Acard 6880M ATA-133 showed
a significant advantage over the Tempo ATA100
(Software RAID) in only 3 of the RAID speed
tests. In other words, you can't assume that
hardware RAID is always superior to software
RAID. NOTE:
In case you are wondering, the Miglia Alchemy
ATA-133 PCI cards are just relabeled Acards
for Europeon distribution. So what is true about
Acard ATA-133 is also true of the Alchemy.
The
Acard AEC-6860M ATA-66 did very well,
considering it is last year's
technology. WHAT
ABOUT USING THE CARDS WITH SINGLE DRIVES INSTEAD
OF ARRAYS? DO ATA/100 and ATA/133 CARDS
MAKE SINGLE DRIVES GO ANY FASTER THAN WITH
ATA/66 OR FIREWIRE? The
fastest drives available top out at 41MB/sec.
ATA/66 is rated at 66MB/sec. So switching to an
ATA/100 or ATA/133 card won't make the drive go
faster. As
for FireWire, all current FireWire drives use a
bridge board to convert the Ultra ATA drive's
interface to FireWire. The overhead for such a
conversion causes the drive to run slower than
if it were on a pure Ultra ATA controller. And,
of course, the 41MB/sec drive itself is slower
than the theoretical 50MB/sec speed of
FireWire. In
the two graphs below, I tested the same single
Seagate Barracuda ATA 4 7200rpm drive using 4
different interfaces: As
you can see, getting an Ultra "anything" card
won't speed up a single drive. And sticking it
in the fastest "Oxford 911" based FireWire case
makes it go slower, not faster. FEATURE
COMPARISON CHART Boot
OS 9 from solo drive Boot
OS 9 from RAID Boot
OS X from solo drives Boot
OS X from RAID RAID
preserved between OS 9 and X RAID
0 (striping) RAID
1 (mirroring) RAID
0,1 (striped and mirrored) AV
optimizer for older Macs Deep
Sleep Support? Full
ATAPI support LEGEND CAN
YOU BOOT FROM THEM? The
AEC-6880M ATA-133 can boot from a single drive
and from a two drive hardware RAID array
configuration in both OS 9 and OS X. The
Tempo ATA100 and AEC-6280M ATA-133 will boot
from a single drive in both OS 9 and OS X, but
NOT from a software based RAID. DO
THEY SUPPORT BOTH RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1
(mirroring)? In
"hardware RAID" mode (flip the micro switch on
the card), the AEC-6880M ATA-133 only supports
striping. If
you use software RAID on either card to create a
RAID array, you can do striped and
mirrored. WHICH
RAID SOFTWARE IS BEST? I
don't know. I'm in the process of comparing
them. Stay tuned. For
this test, I used SoftRAID
with the Tempo ATA100 and AEC-6280M
ATA-133. ARE
THEY OS X COMPATIBLE? When
running single drives on either of these PCI
controllers, they are recognized under OS X as
well as OS 9. The
hardware RAID created by the AEC-6880M ATA-133
remains intact when you switch back and forth
between OS 9 and OS X. The
Tempo ATA100 and AEC-6280M ATA-133 both require
software to set up the RAID. But the array set
up under OS 9 using third party RAID software
will not be recognized under OS X. You can
create a RAID array under OS X using Apple's
Disk Utility but if you switch back to OS 9, the
array won't be recognized. I'm sure this problem
will be solved by third party RAID software
makers... eventually. DO
THEY DROP VIDEO FRAMES OR LOSE AUDIO
SYNC? Frame
dropping and loss of audio sync was a problem
with some earlier ATA/33 and ATA/66 PCI
controllers, especially when used on older Power
Macs (7500, 8500, etc.) The
Tempo ATA100 comes with a Tempo AV Firmware
Flasher (technologies provided by FirmTek, LLC)
that includes options to tweak the firmware
settings to optimize it for Video or Audio
applications. Reports are already coming in from
consumers that purchased the Tempo ATA100
testifying that, with the help of the tweaks,
their frame dropping and audio sync problems
went away. The
Acard folks have their own "tweaker" to deal
with "stutter" which they call "AV Optimizer."
It works with the 6260M, 6280M, 6860M, and
6880M. DO
THEY SUPPORT DEEP SLEEP? Assuming
your Mac system is the model with the firmware
that supports deep sleep, all three new cards
support deep sleep under OS 9 but NOT under OS
X. CAN
I HOOK UP A CD-ROM or other ATAPI device to
these cards? The
Tempo ATA100 supports a wide range of ATAPI
devices under both OS 9 and OS X with direct
support for Apple's native ATA capabilities
under OS X. The
AEC-6880M and AEC-6280M emulate SCSI under both
OS 9 and OS 10 which precludes ATAPI
support. WHICH
CARD DO YOU RECOMMEND? It
depends on your needs and how you plan to use
them. Read carefully on all Q&A on this page
and look at the feature chart. If
you are just going to add more single drives to
your tower, I recommend the Tempo
ATA100. If
you are planning to create a striped ARRAY of
two drives and are going to want to jump back
and forth between OS 9 and OS X plus boot from
both OS 9 and OS X, the AEC-6880M ATA-133 is the
best option. If
you want to mirror AND/OR stripe more than two
drives, I suggest the Tempo ATA100 (along with
some good RAID software). In a future report, I
hope to create a four drive array using two
Tempo ATA100 cards. WHAT
DO THEY COST AND WHERE DO I BUY
THEM? If
you are not creating RAID arrays, then the Tempo
ATA100 is a bargain. But if you plan to create a
RAID array with two or more drives, you'll need
to factor in the cost of RAID software when
comparing the price with the Acard AEC-6880M
hardware RAID card. The
Sonnet Technologies Tempo ATA100 has an MSRP of
$99.95 and is available from SmallDog.com
and
OtherWorldComputing.
(RAID software NOT included.) The
Acard
AEC-6880M is selling at Other
World Computing
for $157. And the 6280M is going for
$97. An
alert reader found a SIIG
ATA-133 RAID
card at Fry's Electronics. It's an Acard 6880M ATA-133 RAID card in disguise. You can order it online at OutPost.com for
$150. And in case you are wondering, the
Miglia Alchemy ATA-133 PCI cards are just
relabeled Acards for Europeon distribution. So
what is true about Acard ATA-133 cards are also
true of the Alchemy. None
of the cards comes with RAID SOFTWARE but the
software is available for purchase direct from
the publishers: FWB
Software
sells HD Toolkit 4.5 (with RAID support
including FireWire) for $129.95 (minus 10%
for first time site visitors). Intech
Software
sells HD Speed Tools 3.4 (with RAID support
including FireWire, RAID limited to two
drives) for $49.95. SoftRAID,
LLC
sells SoftRAID for $149. (No FireWire
support.) Which
is fastest? Charismac RAID and softRAID produced
the fastest speeds in a recent test using the
Sonnet Tempo ATA100 and two Maxtor D740X 80GB
drives. FWB's HDT is the most versatile as it
can create RAID arrays using more than two
drives on any Ultra ATA or FireWire interfaces.
I'll be publishing a special report on these
RAID software packages real soon now. TEST
NOTES The
test "mule" was an Apple
Power Mac G4/800MP with disk cache set to 512K
(to diminish effect of system caching),
AppleTalk OFF, Virtual Memory OFF, and
Extensions set to minimal (BASE). TESTED
DRIVES: TESTED
PCI Ultra/ATA controller CARDS: However,
the Sonnet Tempo Hardware RAID66 card is
identical to the Acard 6860M "AHARD" hardware
RAID ATA-66. Acard
True Hardware RAID ATA-133
(AEC-6880M) Acard
AEC-6280M ATA-133 (ROM version 2.01) Acard
AHARD RAID 66 (AEC-6860M) (ROM version
1.39) An
alert reader found a SIIG
ATA-133 RAID
card
at Fry's Electronics. It's an Acard 6880M
ATA-133 RAID card in disguise. You can order it
online at OutPost.com
for
$149.99. The test
results
I got for Acard apply to this card. And in case
you are wondering, the Miglia Alchemy
ATA-133 PCI cards are just relabeled Acards
for Europeon distribution. So what is true about
Acard ATA-133 is also true of the Alchemy.
Has Bare Feats helped
you? Say "thanks"... with a donation. © 2001
Rob
Art Morgan.
by rob
ART morgan,
Bare Feats Mad ScientistWHY
DO YOU NEED AN ULTRA ATA PCI CARD?
(NOTE:
To emphasize the fact that I'm comparing
"apples" to "oranges," I've color coded the
Ultra ATA cards using software RAID in
RED
and the cards using Hardware RAID in
ORANGE.)
AEC-6280M
ATA-133
AEC-6880M
True Hardware RAID
ATA-133
(1) = Currently, software based RAID only works
in either OS 9 or OS X but not both. RAID array
must be reformatted when switching to different
system.
(2) = Requires RAID software ranging in price
from $50 to $150. (See Where to Buy)
(3) = Card maker provides a firmware tweaker to
slow the card down.
(4) = Only striping (RAID 0) is supported in
hardware. For mirroring (RAID 1), you must
disable hardware RAID and use software
RAID.Charismac
Engineering
sells Charismac RAID (with support for
FireWire) for $99.95.
Two Seagate
Barracuda ATA
IV
(ST380021A) 80GB 7200rpm ATA/100
Sonnet
Technologies Tempo ATA100NOTE:
The Tempo ATA100 is not in any way similar to
the Tempo ATA-66, so whatever you know or
have experienced with the ATA-66 card does
NOT apply to the ATA100 model. Different
hardware. Different firmware.
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Email rob-art@barefeats.com
