Re: ACARD ARS-2000SUP versus SCSI2SD - round 1

2016-06-25 Thread Swift Griggs 
On Sat, 25 Jun 2016, pete wrote:
> > I'd love to see results under IRIX, as I was thinking of trying one or both
> > of those myself!
> Seconded, though it looks like it'll be considerably slower than a real SCSI2
> hard drive.

I'm not sure about that. I've got another ACARD unit (the faster SCA 
model) that I use in my Tezro. I also have a second disk (the Tezro can 
hold a couple) that's a spinning rust 15k Barracuda. I don't have numbers 
right now (next time I fire up my Tezro I'll get some). However, 
anecdotally, the ACARD disk (also predicated on a Samsung 850 Pro SATA 
SSD) will absolutely stomp the Barracuda's guts out in every stat and 
especially on latency. 

The main time I can "feel" it is when I run Photoshop or a browser. The 
SSD-based ACARD makes the system feel a lot faster. Pages finish loading 
faster, 'rqsall' takes about half as long, packages install much more 
quickly, and the silly delays you get when 'inst' is reading package 
metadata takes a lot less time. I curse at it only about half as much (I 
love IRIX but 'inst' and I aren't pals - I haze it often).

I know that's all anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure I tested the disk when I 
first got it and it blew the rust-based drive away. I've just got my bench 
all covered with Quadra 700 parts and various jury-rigged SCSI cables so I 
can install from CDROM on a machine that doesn't have space for a CDROM 
etc.. When I finish refurbing this thing with a MacOS + A/UX 3 dual boot 
rig, I'll grab the SGIs. I'll try out the ACARD vs SCSI2SD on my R5k/180 
Indy.

-Swift

Re: ACARD ARS-2000SUP versus SCSI2SD - round 1

2016-06-25 Thread pete 

On 25/06/2016 12:15, Ben Sinclair wrote:

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 8:52 PM, Swift Griggs  wrote:


Once I'm done I'll hook both of these up to a FreeBSD box, dd off full
backups, then start over again and try with ZFS under FreeBSD via a PCI
SCSI controller. Then again under IRIX if I still have the energy.


I'd love to see results under IRIX, as I was thinking of trying one or both
of those myself!


Seconded, though it looks like it'll be considerably slower than a real 
SCSI2 hard drive.


--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

Re: ACARD ARS-2000SUP versus SCSI2SD - round 1

2016-06-25 Thread Ben Sinclair 
On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 8:52 PM, Swift Griggs  wrote:

>
> Once I'm done I'll hook both of these up to a FreeBSD box, dd off full
> backups, then start over again and try with ZFS under FreeBSD via a PCI
> SCSI controller. Then again under IRIX if I still have the energy.
>

I'd love to see results under IRIX, as I was thinking of trying one or both
of those myself!

Ben Sinclair
b...@bensinclair.com

ACARD ARS-2000SUP versus SCSI2SD - round 1

2016-06-24 Thread Swift Griggs 

Tested using "Raw block speed" test in LIDO 7 under MacOS:

[SCSI2SD v5]
  READ: 891 KB/s 
 WRITE: 728 KB/s 

[ACARD ARS-2000SUP]

  READ: 1621 KB/s
 WRITE: 1277 KB/s

More info:

The ACARD device contains a Samsung 850 Pro 128G SSD. The SCSI2SD contains 
a Samsung Pro+ 64GB micro SD and is running firmware v4.6, IIRC. Both are 
were attached to a Quadra 700 Macintosh running System 8.1 with 68 megs of 
RAM (4 onboard + 64MB in 16MB SIMMS, the max on the Quadra 700). I had 
them hooked up at the same time so I could use one to partition the other. 
The hard disk "driver" was the one provided by LIDO, but I also tried 
LaCie SilverLining 5's driver as well, but the performace was slightly 
worse. I tested in LIDO using it's raw speed test feature. It's probably 
only a rough measure of sequential speed. I just tested three times and 
averaged the results, but it was within just a few KB/s each time.

Once I'm done I'll hook both of these up to a FreeBSD box, dd off full 
backups, then start over again and try with ZFS under FreeBSD via a PCI 
SCSI controller. Then again under IRIX if I still have the energy. I'll 
give some results from 'fio' or 'iozone' under FreeBSD. Those will be a 
lot more detailed and break down sequential versus random results and show 
the results of various other permutations.

I'd also like to test the SCSI2SD v6, but I can't get my hands on one, 
yet. The only place that talks about the v6 is the codesrc wiki and the 
American ebay retailer seems to only have the v5.0. I'll wait, I guess.

-Swift