Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] some ide qs [was:Re: Interesting article on SCSI
From: Jay Ts (jay_AT_toltec.metran.cx)
Date: Thu Nov 09 2000 - 13:29:05 EET
Frank wrote:
> So, this looks like the harddisk "adapts" its read speed to that of the
> DVD-ROM. Is this typical behaviour for IDE?
Yes. When you have two devices on the same channel, and one is slower,
the faster one slows down to the slower speed when they are both accessed
at the same time.
You should get much better performance when using two equivalent hard
drives on the same channel.
As far as I understand it, two ATA/100 drives on an ATA/100 channel
will both be able to transfer at top speed all the time (even when
both are accessed concurrently), because right now, no manufacturer
makes an ATA/100 drive that can continually transfer data at even half
the ATA/100 speed. So they may do bursts of 100 MB/sec., but then
have to give up while they refill their buffers. Meanwhile, the other
drive can be filling its buffer and waiting.
It is possible to get more speed out of SCSI, but it is a lot more
expensive, and more complicated to implement. Meanwhile, it's possible
to use onboard IDE controllers and RAID striping to get very good
performance, and extend the RAID implementation by installing an
extra ATA/100 IDE controller card (for less than $50) and more
inexpensive IDE drives.
- Jay Ts
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