How to "turn up" my Maxtor HDD transfer rate

I will try that Eric. I am away for a while but will get back.
Regards,
ern.

"AlmostBob" wrote in message
...
set second drive as master on the secondary connector
should not be on the same cable "a similar drive on the same
cable/controller, set as master" for fastest throughput

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"ernie" wrote in message
...
Thank you Eric,
yes, DMA is checked for the drive in Device Manager. The PC has 128MB of
RAM
and the swap file in-use figure is currently 8MB according to System
Monitor.

I am using the utility HDTach to test the "Read Burst" speed which is
returning a figure 15.3MB/sec while a similar drive on the same
cable/controller, set as master, returns 30.3MB/sec which is what I
expected
from both of them.

I have a utility from Western Digital (Dlgudma) which does what I want
but,
obviously, this drive is a Maxtor and I find The Maxtor website so buggy
that I thought I would check here to see if anyone knew if they offered
a
similar thing.
Thanks for you help,
ern.

"Eric" wrote in message
...
In the Device Manager, click on the drive under Disk Drives and make
sure
that the DMA setting, if available, is enabled.

How much RAM does the PC have?

It could be that the hard drive isn't slow, but appears slow because
the
system has to use the virtual-memory swap file intensely because of a
shortage of available RAM memory or an inadequate setting for virtual
memory
under the Performance tab of System Properties (System in the Control
Panel).

Eric,
PC Buyer Beware!
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

"ernie" wrote:

Not strictly a Windows 98 issue but here it is:
I have a Quantum Fireball 541 which transfers data at a very slow
rate
according to HdTach.
Is there a utility for turning the rate up to the expected rate that
I
can
download, I have powermax but it does not include this function and
neither
does Maxblast according to the blurb.
Regards,
ern.

If I may I will paste in some parts of your previous and deal with the
points all in one, I have to go away for a while so any configuration
changes will be delayed but:

No, the 30MB/sec was expected for both.

I only get the first 8GB on the graphical display though the test continues
over the whole drive to give the average and the processor usage figures.

I included the facts about the SMART utility as I know these can alter the
settings on drives. This one crashed so it may have caused this change
without me being aware.

It is an ATA 100 5400rpm 2MB buffer drive. I wanted to include a link to the
spec in my first post but they have changed things at Maxtor and I cannot
get anything sensible but the model no. is 2B020H1. The chipset is 440BX and
rated at UDMA33 so 15.3MB/sec seems abysmal. I do want to try the machine
with the controller card but wanted to solve this anomally first.

You are a glutton :^)

The cable is an 80 core jobbie as recommended by Maxtor even for UDMA33.

When I return I shall try putting the drive as secondary master and
reinstalling the SMART utility to see if it can throw any light on the
issue.
Thank you for your time and any further factors you may think of.
Regards,
ern.

Rick wrote:
If 15 & 30 MB/s are what you expected, and that may be about right for your
spec's if you have an older setup.
Mine is a new setup with all the latest hardware and I get quite a bit
better and I don't expect many people to match this unless they use the
same technology and setup - then yes they absolutely can; anyway here's a
screenshot of mine I just now took again and even though it's a 250 GB hard
drive it only shows the 8 GB C:\ partition of which as default whatever
partition the program is installed on is what it checks and so that's why
it's showing only 8 GB spread.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6607/mine5sg.gif ..I can see mine
is almost twice as fast even as what they show on their own test
screenshots shown in the second link above, but again that's mine and you
cannot expect your old setup to be like that at all.

I should say that I was trying to get this drive to do some reporting of
it's SMART status but had no luck but a worry is that the utility for
that changed something in the drive to cause this performance decrease.

These v2 versions do not check SMART status or have anything to do
with it really.
I suspect your 'drive itself' is just as fast itself as it always was,
either that or your OS installation itself now has issues with it and the
problem lies therein, but before you can give any kind of accurate
comparison of a before and after - you would of had to do a before test to
get the numbers of what they were when you thought it was faster. There
are many many things you can do to 'soup up' and make your system faster,
everything from updating your MB, System RAM, Processor, along with a new
ATA133 7200 rpm 16MB cache hard drive - and most importantly to run that HD
from is to use a modern pci Controller Card to run it, like the ATA133 one
that Promise makes - and then all coupled together you can achieve a very
fast setup that would rock your world.

...and so back to your original question ernie:

How to "turn up" my Maxtor HDD transfer rate

The truth is when it comes to your Quantum Fireball drive (what are the
listed specs of it anyway?) ...but if it's a new ATA 133 or even ATA 100
drive you cannot expect to do much with it unless you make the changes I've
outlined above, and certainly you cannot expect to come close to what the
Hard Drive can do unless you give it a full clear range to be able to let
it achieve near it's rated abilities; but realize ATA 133 is a marketing
spec and not really achievable in a real environment - I don't know of
anyone that can reach 133 ...but we came come close can't we vbg

I just was reading the newspaper and Staples today is having a sale for an
Ultra ATA133, 16 MB cache, 7200 rpm internal drive by Maxtor DiamondMax9
Plus, with an average seek time of about 9 ms This drive is excellent !!!
I have the same one only that it's a 250GB size; anyway this drive was $300
not even a year ago, but today's sale has it at only $99 !!! ..if I didn't
already have a pair of 250's I would surly get these too ...I just may
still

Rick

"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
..and ps I also meant to say, if you are running ATA100 and also using
it's
40 wire ribbon cable, and on top of it running the other HD off it as
Secondary - that is a disadvantages way to do that. (you can't have two
master in the stock environment anyway) The proper way is ATA133 with its
80 wire cable greatly enhancing data transfer, as well as running each HD
as Master specifically off of the two master ports that the Promise ATA
133
PCI Controller Card gives you and that's the beauty of that - and in that
way you have a fighting chance... Also, imho&e, Let Windows Manage
Virtual
Memory and make no changes there!

ernie wrote:
If I may I will paste in some parts of your previous and deal with the
points all in one, I have to go away for a while so any configuration
changes will be delayed but:

No, the 30MB/sec was expected for both.

I only get the first 8GB on the graphical display though the test
continues over the whole drive to give the average and the processor
usage figures.

I included the facts about the SMART utility as I know these can alter
the settings on drives. This one crashed so it may have caused this
change without me being aware.

It is an ATA 100 5400rpm 2MB buffer drive. I wanted to include a link to

That's a decent drive for its time a few years ago but is not a 133 @ 7200
rpm 16MB buffer where even with your old chipset would still be able to
enhance data transfer 'a little' ..and moreso using a new pci controller
card would even double that still; however, it is all still limited by the
fact that you have the older MB specs using just 128MB of RAM.
I think that your main HD doing 30MB/sec that you said 'may be' normal, and
I don't give much credence with your second drive hooked up like that.
What are you using it for anyway - just storage. imho, I don't care to run
two ata drives at once 'live' like that. If you need a large drive for
storage then buy the one on sale as mentioned, along with a new pci
controller card - but again the new spec'd drive would be in many ways
still limited by your older setups ability to use it fully, however you may
be able to squeak out 40 - 65 MB/s read with it using it as your main HD.

You have to realize you can only do so much with your current setup; yes
you can soup it up to some degree but still will be limited by your
Processor, RAM & limited MB specs ability to flow bandwidth.

the spec in my first post but they have changed things at Maxtor and I
cannot get anything sensible but the model no. is 2B020H1. The chipset
is 440BX and rated at UDMA33 so 15.3MB/sec seems abysmal. I do want to
try the machine with the controller card but wanted to solve this
anomally first.

The cable is an 80 core jobbie as recommended by Maxtor even for UDMA33.

Yes but, it's not really going to do much in that situation. The 80 wire
cable is used to eliminate 'crosstalk' interference between the wires which
in effect slows data transfer rates, and now the 80 with its extra 40 wires
used alongside paired with a ground each helping greatly to eliminate the
crosstalk, where the old way with just 40 total wires only used 7 of those
wires for grounding; anyway the new way greatly reduces the crosstalk
therefore allowing greater bandwidth flowing at once - where yes even for
your older setup it can be beneficial but only to a small degree 'in
perspective' to what you have to push it = and so just guessing here, but
in your case only translates to a few % at best - no it's not very much in
'your' situation, but technically it's still a forward motion.
After babbling all that I have to say though that 80 wire cable in your
situation is the Least of any given benefits comparatively to what else you
can do that would be so much better.. but that 'what else' cost $ ..and is
that $ cost effective for what you will get?

Rick




When I return I shall try putting the drive as secondary master and
reinstalling the SMART utility to see if it can throw any light on the
issue.
Thank you for your time and any further factors you may think of.
Regards,
ern.

Rick wrote:
If 15 & 30 MB/s are what you expected, and that may be about right for
your spec's if you have an older setup.
Mine is a new setup with all the latest hardware and I get quite a bit
better and I don't expect many people to match this unless they use the
same technology and setup - then yes they absolutely can; anyway here's a
screenshot of mine I just now took again and even though it's a 250 GB
hard drive it only shows the 8 GB C:\ partition of which as default
whatever partition the program is installed on is what it checks and so
that's why it's showing only 8 GB spread.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6607/mine5sg.gif ..I can see
mine is almost twice as fast even as what they show on their own test
screenshots shown in the second link above, but again that's mine and you
cannot expect your old setup to be like that at all.

I should say that I was trying to get this drive to do some reporting of
it's SMART status but had no luck but a worry is that the utility for
that changed something in the drive to cause this performance decrease.

These v2 versions do not check SMART status or have anything to do
with it really.
I suspect your 'drive itself' is just as fast itself as it always was,
either that or your OS installation itself now has issues with it and the
problem lies therein, but before you can give any kind of accurate
comparison of a before and after - you would of had to do a before test
to get the numbers of what they were when you thought it was faster.
There are many many things you can do to 'soup up' and make your system
faster, everything from updating your MB, System RAM, Processor, along
with a new ATA133 7200 rpm 16MB cache hard drive - and most importantly
to run that HD from is to use a modern pci Controller Card to run it,
like the ATA133 one that Promise makes - and then all coupled together
you can achieve a very fast setup that would rock your world.

..and so back to your original question ernie:

How to "turn up" my Maxtor HDD transfer rate

The truth is when it comes to your Quantum Fireball drive (what are the
listed specs of it anyway?) ...but if it's a new ATA 133 or even ATA 100
drive you cannot expect to do much with it unless you make the changes
I've outlined above, and certainly you cannot expect to come close to
what the Hard Drive can do unless you give it a full clear range to be
able to let it achieve near it's rated abilities; but realize ATA 133 is
a marketing spec and not really achievable in a real environment - I
don't know of anyone that can reach 133 ...but we came come close can't
we vbg

I just was reading the newspaper and Staples today is having a sale for
an Ultra ATA133, 16 MB cache, 7200 rpm internal drive by Maxtor
DiamondMax9 Plus, with an average seek time of about 9 ms This drive is
excellent !!! I have the same one only that it's a 250GB size; anyway
this drive was $300 not even a year ago, but today's sale has it at only
$99 !!! ..if I didn't already have a pair of 250's I would surly get
these too ...I just may still

Rick

"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
..and ps I also meant to say, if you are running ATA100 and also using
it's 40 wire ribbon cable, and on top of it running the other HD off it
as Secondary - that is a disadvantages way to do that. (you can't have
two master in the stock environment anyway) The proper way is ATA133
with its 80 wire cable greatly enhancing data transfer, as well as
running each HD as Master specifically off of the two master ports that
the Promise ATA 133 PCI Controller Card gives you and that's the beauty
of that - and in that way you have a fighting chance... Also, imho&e,
Let Windows Manage Virtual Memory and make no changes there!

Rick,
I have tried the SMART utility but it gives no way to tweak this drive up,
though it is reporting the UDMA as Mode 0, which is consistent with the
HDTach result. Placing the drive as master on the secondary controller makes
no difference. I was not sure what you meant by:

I think that your main HD doing 30MB/sec that you said 'may be' normal,
and
I don't give much credence with your second drive hooked up like that.
What are you using it for anyway - just storage. imho, I don't care to
run
two ata drives at once 'live' like that.

but if you are talking about putting each drive on it's own controller, see
above, if other would you explain in more detail.
Maxtor's website search reveals that no utility exists to turn the drive
down, LOL:
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...adp.php?p_sid=
jw7oZh4i&p_lva=&p_li=&p_search_text=transfer%20rat e%20low&p_sp=dHJhbnNmZXIgc
mF0ZSBsb3cmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD10cmFuc2ZlciByYXRlIGx vdw**&p_cluster=0000|10083
|20024&p_faqid=1100&p_created=1025649750&p_topview =1
which URL may wrap.

I am using the drive for storage but the first partition (2GB) is the paging
drive so I would like to get it as fast as possible. In absence of a utility
from the drive manufacturer itself I shall try the Western Digital one and
report back.
Regards,
ern.

"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
ernie wrote:
If I may I will paste in some parts of your previous and deal with the
points all in one, I have to go away for a while so any configuration
changes will be delayed but:

No, the 30MB/sec was expected for both.

I only get the first 8GB on the graphical display though the test
continues over the whole drive to give the average and the processor
usage figures.

I included the facts about the SMART utility as I know these can alter
the settings on drives. This one crashed so it may have caused this
change without me being aware.

It is an ATA 100 5400rpm 2MB buffer drive. I wanted to include a link to

That's a decent drive for its time a few years ago but is not a 133 @ 7200
rpm 16MB buffer where even with your old chipset would still be able to
enhance data transfer 'a little' ..and moreso using a new pci controller
card would even double that still; however, it is all still limited by the
fact that you have the older MB specs using just 128MB of RAM.
I think that your main HD doing 30MB/sec that you said 'may be' normal,
and
I don't give much credence with your second drive hooked up like that.
What are you using it for anyway - just storage. imho, I don't care to
run
two ata drives at once 'live' like that. If you need a large drive for
storage then buy the one on sale as mentioned, along with a new pci
controller card - but again the new spec'd drive would be in many ways
still limited by your older setups ability to use it fully, however you
may
be able to squeak out 40 - 65 MB/s read with it using it as your main HD.

You have to realize you can only do so much with your current setup; yes
you can soup it up to some degree but still will be limited by your
Processor, RAM & limited MB specs ability to flow bandwidth.

the spec in my first post but they have changed things at Maxtor and I
cannot get anything sensible but the model no. is 2B020H1. The chipset
is 440BX and rated at UDMA33 so 15.3MB/sec seems abysmal. I do want to
try the machine with the controller card but wanted to solve this
anomally first.

The cable is an 80 core jobbie as recommended by Maxtor even for UDMA33.

Yes but, it's not really going to do much in that situation. The 80 wire
cable is used to eliminate 'crosstalk' interference between the wires
which
in effect slows data transfer rates, and now the 80 with its extra 40
wires
used alongside paired with a ground each helping greatly to eliminate the
crosstalk, where the old way with just 40 total wires only used 7 of those
wires for grounding; anyway the new way greatly reduces the crosstalk
therefore allowing greater bandwidth flowing at once - where yes even for
your older setup it can be beneficial but only to a small degree 'in
perspective' to what you have to push it = and so just guessing here, but
in your case only translates to a few % at best - no it's not very much in
'your' situation, but technically it's still a forward motion.
After babbling all that I have to say though that 80 wire cable in your
situation is the Least of any given benefits comparatively to what else
you
can do that would be so much better.. but that 'what else' cost $ ..and is
that $ cost effective for what you will get?

Rick




When I return I shall try putting the drive as secondary master and
reinstalling the SMART utility to see if it can throw any light on the
issue.
Thank you for your time and any further factors you may think of.
Regards,
ern.

Rick wrote:
If 15 & 30 MB/s are what you expected, and that may be about right for
your spec's if you have an older setup.
Mine is a new setup with all the latest hardware and I get quite a bit
better and I don't expect many people to match this unless they use the
same technology and setup - then yes they absolutely can; anyway here's
a
screenshot of mine I just now took again and even though it's a 250 GB
hard drive it only shows the 8 GB C:\ partition of which as default
whatever partition the program is installed on is what it checks and so
that's why it's showing only 8 GB spread.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6607/mine5sg.gif ..I can see
mine is almost twice as fast even as what they show on their own test
screenshots shown in the second link above, but again that's mine and
you
cannot expect your old setup to be like that at all.

I should say that I was trying to get this drive to do some reporting
of
it's SMART status but had no luck but a worry is that the utility for
that changed something in the drive to cause this performance decrease.

These v2 versions do not check SMART status or have anything to do
with it really.
I suspect your 'drive itself' is just as fast itself as it always was,
either that or your OS installation itself now has issues with it and
the
problem lies therein, but before you can give any kind of accurate
comparison of a before and after - you would of had to do a before test
to get the numbers of what they were when you thought it was faster.
There are many many things you can do to 'soup up' and make your system
faster, everything from updating your MB, System RAM, Processor, along
with a new ATA133 7200 rpm 16MB cache hard drive - and most importantly
to run that HD from is to use a modern pci Controller Card to run it,
like the ATA133 one that Promise makes - and then all coupled together
you can achieve a very fast setup that would rock your world.

..and so back to your original question ernie:

How to "turn up" my Maxtor HDD transfer rate

The truth is when it comes to your Quantum Fireball drive (what are the
listed specs of it anyway?) ...but if it's a new ATA 133 or even ATA
100
drive you cannot expect to do much with it unless you make the changes
I've outlined above, and certainly you cannot expect to come close to
what the Hard Drive can do unless you give it a full clear range to be
able to let it achieve near it's rated abilities; but realize ATA 133 is
a marketing spec and not really achievable in a real environment - I
don't know of anyone that can reach 133 ...but we came come close can't
we vbg

I just was reading the newspaper and Staples today is having a sale for
an Ultra ATA133, 16 MB cache, 7200 rpm internal drive by Maxtor
DiamondMax9 Plus, with an average seek time of about 9 ms This drive is
excellent !!! I have the same one only that it's a 250GB size; anyway
this drive was $300 not even a year ago, but today's sale has it at only
$99 !!! ..if I didn't already have a pair of 250's I would surly get
these too ...I just may still

Rick

"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
..and ps I also meant to say, if you are running ATA100 and also using
it's 40 wire ribbon cable, and on top of it running the other HD off it
as Secondary - that is a disadvantages way to do that. (you can't have
two master in the stock environment anyway) The proper way is ATA133
with its 80 wire cable greatly enhancing data transfer, as well as
running each HD as Master specifically off of the two master ports that
the Promise ATA 133 PCI Controller Card gives you and that's the beauty
of that - and in that way you have a fighting chance... Also, imho&e,
Let Windows Manage Virtual Memory and make no changes there!

ernie wrote:
Rick,
I have tried the SMART utility but it gives no way to tweak this drive

Of course it doesn't and I never personally said or suggested you use any
SMART program at all, on the contrary.

Most SMART monitors imo cause unneeded panic since they try to predict when
SMART in the future will predict a failure. SMART conditions are in
themselves predictions, and there's no need to monitor the predict of
predictions - However, that said - if you even get any SMART prompts that
the HD is in danger of failure, get the data off the drive, and buy a new
one (or use SpinRite on it to see if you can recover any marked out bad
sectors) ..but all this has nothing to do with making your HD faster in
any direct way. You need New hardware.

up, though it is reporting the UDMA as Mode 0, which is consistent with
the HDTach result. Placing the drive as master on the secondary
controller makes no difference. I was not sure what you meant by:

I think that your main HD doing 30MB/sec that you said 'may be' normal,
and I don't give much credence with your second drive hooked up like
that. What are you using it for anyway - just storage. imho, I don't
care to run two ata drives at once 'live' like that.

My only suggestion previously or going forward to you is if you want better
data transfer rates is to get new hardware, and in this order to get the
ATA 133 Promise pci controller card I thought I had mentioned to you, as
well a brand New ATA133 7200 rpm drive I also mentioned (as well if you can
upgrade your RAM to at least 512) ..but as a result of the first two then
you will be on your way near UDMA6 depending, and your HDTach will read at
least triple than what you get now..

Rick

On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:20:36 +0100, "ernie" wrote:

Not strictly a Windows 98 issue but here it is:
I have a Quantum Fireball 541 which transfers data at a very slow rate
according to HdTach.
Is there a utility for turning the rate up to the expected rate that I can
download, I have powermax but it does not include this function and neither
does Maxblast according to the blurb.

Ernie,

I have just read this thread so far and one thing that hasn't been
mentioned is that the BIOS may be setting the drive to its max UDMA and
this is faster than the chipset can support. I had problems on a PC
with a 430TX chipset because the Award BIOS set the drive to UDMA 5 and
the controller was max UDMA 2.

For W98 I got UDMA to work by disabling it in the BIOS setup and then
enabling it in W98. I could get close to 30MB/s reading large
defragmented files.

I eventually patched the BIOS (Award 4.51) to limit it to UDMA 2 but
this is a bit geeky and risky without a PROM burner and removeable BIOS
chip.

I think Quantum used to have a utility where you could reduce the max
UDMA the drive would report. I have some Maxtor utilities here for
limiting the UDMA on fireball drives (e.g. cr, cx, lct) but I'm not sure
which one is appropriate for your drive. Can you check the Maxtor site
and see if they are still available ?

--
Steven

"Steven Saunderson" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:20:36 +0100, "ernie" wrote:

Not strictly a Windows 98 issue but here it is:
I have a Quantum Fireball 541 which transfers data at a very slow rate
according to HdTach.
Is there a utility for turning the rate up to the expected rate that I
can
download, I have powermax but it does not include this function and
neither
does Maxblast according to the blurb.

Ernie,

I have just read this thread so far and one thing that hasn't been
mentioned is that the BIOS may be setting the drive to its max UDMA and
this is faster than the chipset can support. I had problems on a PC
with a 430TX chipset because the Award BIOS set the drive to UDMA 5 and
the controller was max UDMA 2.

For W98 I got UDMA to work by disabling it in the BIOS setup and then
enabling it in W98. I could get close to 30MB/s reading large
defragmented files.

I eventually patched the BIOS (Award 4.51) to limit it to UDMA 2 but
this is a bit geeky and risky without a PROM burner and removeable BIOS
chip.

I think Quantum used to have a utility where you could reduce the max
UDMA the drive would report. I have some Maxtor utilities here for
limiting the UDMA on fireball drives (e.g. cr, cx, lct) but I'm not sure
which one is appropriate for your drive. Can you check the Maxtor site
and see if they are still available ?

--
Steven

Hi, Steven.
The drive is a Maxtor Fireball 541dx which may be one of those specifically
excluded in the Maxtor article at:
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...adp.php?p_sid=
jw7oZh4i&p_lva=&p_li=&p_search_text=transfer%20rat e%20low&p_sp=dHJhbnNmZXIgc
mF0ZSBsb3cmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD10cmFuc2ZlciByYXRlIGx vdw**&p_cluster=0000|10083
|20024&p_faqid=1100&p_created=1025649750&p_topview =1

I found the list of UltraDMA 33/66/100 Change Utilities, I won't give the
horrible URL, it is the link at the bottom of the above page called
"Archived Software and Utilities for Quantum Hard Drives", but my drive is
not there, probably because it's a Maxtor.

I am going to look at Maxblast one more time but if you think/know that one
of those utilities would work please let me know.
Regards,
ern.

I hooked the drives up to my CMD controller card and got a gratifying
increase in read burst speed on the master, a Quantum Fireball lct10, up to
57.9MB/sec. That is fab. Sadly the Maxtor did not budge from 15.3MB/sec.
Thank you for your advises, I guess the drive may be fubared except that it
passes all other tests and I paid good money for it, I am unwilling to chuck
it out.
Regards,
ern.

"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
ernie wrote:
Rick,
I have tried the SMART utility but it gives no way to tweak this drive

Of course it doesn't and I never personally said or suggested you use any
SMART program at all, on the contrary.

Most SMART monitors imo cause unneeded panic since they try to predict
when
SMART in the future will predict a failure. SMART conditions are in
themselves predictions, and there's no need to monitor the predict of
predictions - However, that said - if you even get any SMART prompts that
the HD is in danger of failure, get the data off the drive, and buy a new
one (or use SpinRite on it to see if you can recover any marked out bad
sectors) ..but all this has nothing to do with making your HD faster in
any direct way. You need New hardware.

up, though it is reporting the UDMA as Mode 0, which is consistent with
the HDTach result. Placing the drive as master on the secondary
controller makes no difference. I was not sure what you meant by:

I think that your main HD doing 30MB/sec that you said 'may be' normal,
and I don't give much credence with your second drive hooked up like
that. What are you using it for anyway - just storage. imho, I don't
care to run two ata drives at once 'live' like that.

My only suggestion previously or going forward to you is if you want
better
data transfer rates is to get new hardware, and in this order to get the
ATA 133 Promise pci controller card I thought I had mentioned to you, as
well a brand New ATA133 7200 rpm drive I also mentioned (as well if you
can
upgrade your RAM to at least 512) ..but as a result of the first two then
you will be on your way near UDMA6 depending, and your HDTach will read at
least triple than what you get now..

Rick

ernie wrote:
I hooked the drives up to my CMD controller card and got a gratifying
increase in read burst speed on the master, a Quantum Fireball lct10, up
to 57.9MB/sec. That is fab. Sadly the Maxtor did not budge from
15.3MB/sec.
Thank you for your advises, I guess the drive may be fubared except that
it passes all other tests and I paid good money for it, I am unwilling
to chuck it out.
Regards,
ern.


Great then, and nice work ernie.
Actually I didn't mean to focus just on promise, although they are the
best, but any decent pci controller card will offer inherent benefits in
this area.

Also I wanted to mention of the three things I suggested to do yesterday
that I unintentionally left out one other very Important thing - and that
of course is the main Processor engine (MB specs too, etc) which are as
important as # 1 & 2 - and is the driving force behind faster data transfer
rates; and you can see those combinations offer great possibilities as my
previous screenshot earlier showing my own 112 MB/s @ 8 ms readings.

I'm not sure what you did with or what else happened to your Maxtor 2B020H1
drive to cause it to perform at 15 which does seem verrry slow.
I imagine today you also tried hooking it up "singly" all by itself onto
the pci controller card - and it still gives you that reading?

Here's the link to your 2B020H1 that you wanted, not that it will help:
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...reball%20541DX

Your current lct10 seems even less capable than your older 541DX so you
would expect the 2B020H1 to be even better, but here's your older drive.
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...reball%20lct10

But as I mentioned before you can get a 300GB DiamondMaxPlus Ultra ATA133,
UltraMB cache, 7200 rpm internal drive by Maxtor this week
on sale for only $99 and so... ...but the only thing would be is if your
CMD controller is new enough to support it like the Promise card is.

Rick



"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
ernie wrote:
Rick,
I have tried the SMART utility but it gives no way to tweak this drive

Of course it doesn't and I never personally said or suggested you use
any SMART program at all, on the contrary.

Most SMART monitors imo cause unneeded panic since they try to predict
when SMART in the future will predict a failure. SMART conditions are in
themselves predictions, and there's no need to monitor the predict of
predictions - However, that said - if you even get any SMART prompts
that the HD is in danger of failure, get the data off the drive, and
buy a new one (or use SpinRite on it to see if you can recover any
marked out bad sectors) ..but all this has nothing to do with making
your HD faster in any direct way. You need New hardware.

up, though it is reporting the UDMA as Mode 0, which is consistent
with the HDTach result. Placing the drive as master on the secondary
controller makes no difference. I was not sure what you meant by:

I think that your main HD doing 30MB/sec that you said 'may be'
normal, and I don't give much credence with your second drive hooked
up like that. What are you using it for anyway - just storage.
imho, I don't care to run two ata drives at once 'live' like that.

My only suggestion previously or going forward to you is if you want
better data transfer rates is to get new hardware, and in this order to
get the ATA 133 Promise pci controller card I thought I had mentioned
to you, as well a brand New ATA133 7200 rpm drive I also mentioned (as
well if you can upgrade your RAM to at least 512) ..but as a result of
the first two then you will be on your way near UDMA6 depending, and
your HDTach will read at least triple than what you get now..

Rick

Found a floppy with a utility called Udmaupdt.exe which I must have used to
turn down the drive, a re-run to de-restrict the drive has solved the
problem.
ern.

"AlmostBob" wrote in message
...
set second drive as master on the secondary connector
should not be on the same cable "a similar drive on the same
cable/controller, set as master" for fastest throughput

"ernie" wrote in message
...
Thank you Eric,
yes, DMA is checked for the drive in Device Manager. The PC has 128MB of
RAM
and the swap file in-use figure is currently 8MB according to System
Monitor.

I am using the utility HDTach to test the "Read Burst" speed which is
returning a figure 15.3MB/sec while a similar drive on the same
cable/controller, set as master, returns 30.3MB/sec which is what I
expected
from both of them.

I have a utility from Western Digital (Dlgudma) which does what I want
but,
obviously, this drive is a Maxtor and I find The Maxtor website so buggy
that I thought I would check here to see if anyone knew if they offered
a
similar thing.
Thanks for you help,
ern.

"Eric" wrote in message
...
In the Device Manager, click on the drive under Disk Drives and make
sure
that the DMA setting, if available, is enabled.

How much RAM does the PC have?

It could be that the hard drive isn't slow, but appears slow because
the
system has to use the virtual-memory swap file intensely because of a
shortage of available RAM memory or an inadequate setting for virtual
memory
under the Performance tab of System Properties (System in the Control
Panel).

Eric,
PC Buyer Beware!
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

"ernie" wrote:

Not strictly a Windows 98 issue but here it is:
I have a Quantum Fireball 541 which transfers data at a very slow
rate
according to HdTach.
Is there a utility for turning the rate up to the expected rate that
I
can
download, I have powermax but it does not include this function and
neither
does Maxblast according to the blurb.
Regards,
ern.