Anyone with a Adapetec aha2940 Ultra Wide SCSI please read

[INFERNO2000 0]

This is part 2 of the post about a recomendation.

 

Are there any people in here that happen to have this controller card that could tell me more about its performance in Win2k?

 

I.E. Do I need any special drivers for it(if I use the 9.1 GB hdd that comes with it as my Win2k partition), or anything else of that nature?

 

Are there any tips or "secrets" to operatins SCSI properly?

 

Basically anything you can share, I want to hear it before I buy this.

 

Main Questions:

1: Drivers for Win2k?

2: how do I set this up as my primary partition(in the Windows 2000 setup)

3: are there any disk drive limitations(i.e. can I go out and buy a 10,000 or better drive, or am I limited to 7200 PM, such as the IBM 9.1 gig Ultrastar UW drive it comes with?

4: Any recomendations on a SCSI drive? I hear that Cheetahs are the best.

5: Will I notice that great a performance increase?

6: Any personal experiences that may lend themselves helpful?

 

Thank you.

[INFERNO2000 0]

Also, another question: Can I ghost my C: partition on my EIDE ATA0-100 drive, and copy it to the C: Partition(or whatever it would be) of the SCSI drive, and have it still function properly?

[JediBaron 0]

You should have no problem Ghosting the IDE to a SCSI. The only problem that you may have is that some SCSI controllers can only boot off of a < 8gig partition. This problem is usually only on RAID controllers though.

[ByronT 0]

Yeah, I've got experience with SCSI. I used to run only SCSI devices in my workstations. (Since ATA66/100 and the accompanying super low prices, I've started using ATA/100.)

 

A couple of notes:

 

If you have IDE HDs, and you want to boot off of SCSI, you'll need to change the boot sequence in BIOS (and pray that it works... I've had computers that completely ignored BIOS settings and still wouldn't boot off of the SCSI.)

 

During boot up of Windows 2000, you will start seeing a two to three second pause on the logo screen as your SCSI devices are enumerated/id'd (the blue bar pauses about halfway across). For me - with an Adaptec 2930CU controlling a Jaz, a Zip, and 3 CDs, this is livable.

 

The 2940s are older technology and won't work with latest greatest SCSI drives (at least to give the performance of latest greatest.) Also with the older Adaptecs, the transfer speed across the SCSI chain drops to the lowest common denominator. If I were *purchasing* a NEW SCSI setup and wanted to use temporarily older drives, I would go with the 19160 or 29160 Adaptec cards - since they have the ability to work with the older drives (SCSI, SCSI2, UW SCSI, etc.) and still use the latest Ultra 160 SCSI hds.

 

The 2940 that you have mentioned maxes out at a 40MBps transfer rate, where as there's Ultra2 (80MBps), and Ultra160 (160MBps) hard drives available now.

 

If you do end up getting this card, you need to be prepared for the BSOD Inaccessible Boot Device to start with. In other words, you need to re-install Win2K if you're going to boot off the SCSI drive.

 

Your other questions specifically:

 

1 - Drivers at www.adaptec.com and on the Win2k CD (Adaptec drivers install the ASPI, and add little performance/monitoring capabilities.)

2 - Prepare for Win2k reinstall. To have Windows boot off this drive, it's going to have to recognize it as boot drive - and the only "easy" way to do this is with a clean install.

3 - See above. You have to watch what the drives are capable of, and what they'll work with. The Ultra2 and Ultra160 drives usually have a different type connector than the older UWSCSI drives. (Sort of like IDE vs. ATA66 cables.)

4 - Cheetahs are nice, but don't count out Quantums. They used to specialize in SCSI drives. Check out www.storagereview.com on the latest SCSI hd performance.

5 - Also check www.storagereview.com for ATA100 vs. Ultra160 comparisons.

6 - Personally, I hated the 2940 that I have - at least until I stuck it in the Novell server where it just hums along with the UW drives it has. Getting the dang thing to work with SCSI CDRoms caused me to lose a few hairs. (Oh yeah, I just remembered that to get even this 2930 to work with the SCSIs CDs in this system, I had to contact Adaptec support to find out that I needed to slow the transfer rate in the Adaptec BIOS....)

 

Have fun! (Hope this helps.)

 

 

------------------

J. Byron Todd

Computer Consultant

byron@toddcomp.com

Todd Computer Solutions

[INFERNO2000 0]

Thanks a lot!

 

I planned on reinstalling Win2k anyway..so that's no problem

 

 

I plan on using the IBM SCSI hdd as my "slave", and order a 10,000 RPM hd(probably abour 4 GB or larger).

 

I intend on having 2(for now) SCSI hdds, and keep my UDMA 100 Hdd...but I will boot off the 10,000 RPM if I can.

 

I also intend on keeping the IDE CD RW and DVD. No point in shelling out money when I'll see negligible performance change.

 

 

SO what my system will end up with would be:

 

Adaptec AHA2940UW SCSI card.

X.XGB 10,000 RPM SCSI Drive(master in IDE terms) boot drive

9.1GB 7200 RPM SCSI drive(slave in IDE terms) Secondary drive

15.0 GB 7200 UDMA 100 drive(master on primary IDE)

4x2x24 CDRW IDE and 6x DVD IDE

 

Would this system be all that great a performance improvement over my current system?(Add in a 30GB 7200 RPM UDMA 66 drive(slave on primary IDE)

[INFERNO2000 0]

Ok...looked around...and for the same relative price..I can go SCSI Ultra 160.

 

Therefore:

 

Adaptec AHA29160 Ultra 160 card.

and a 10k SCSI hdd(no 9.1 or 2940)

[ByronT 0]

You scared me with that post about going with the Ultra160. It's good to see that you came to your senses.

 

(Basically, the guy with the extra 2940 was/is trying to get someone to take that very expensive card off of his hands.) I know that when I purchased my 2940, it ran a good $350+...

 

I have come to depend on www.storagereview.com - even more than planethardware or sharky's extreme. And the reason why is that their reviews actually match real world performance - meaning they match what I've run into more times than I can count.

 

But to make a long story short (or is it too late for that ), unless I HAD to have the latest/greatest HDs (Ultra160s), the IBM DeskStar GXPs (ATA100) kick butt for the $$$. Just think, you can spend less that $150 for 30GB of ATA100 (quiet, too), or $500+ for 18GB Ultra160. Is that worth the extra 10% performance when copying files from one drive to another?

 

I'm thinking I would rather save the extra $$$ and get the AGP *Pro* GeForce2 Ultra 64MB when it's released the end of this month or the beginning of October.

 

Just my $0.02 (if it's even worth that)

 

[This message has been edited by ByronT (edited 20 September 2000).]

[INFERNO2000 0]

Ah dammit.

 

oh well.

 

it comes out this month, eh?

[INFERNO2000 0]

I was this close(_) to going SCSI

 

but I'll keep the money, I guess?

[ByronT 0]

But if money's no object, then HEY! Go get ya one of those Adaptec 19160, or 29160 adapters and get a Quatumn 36GB, 10K RPM, 4MB buffer (4MB!!!), 4.5ms access drive!!!!

 

LOUD as heck, but faster than a sneeze from pulling a nose hair!

[INFERNO2000 0]

It's not that money is no object. It is. It's a really big object...

 

but I'll trade performance for capacity.

 

I can afford a 10k 9.1 GB disc, and maybe if I play my cards right, even go up to the 18.

(let's see...2 for OS, 2 for Apps, 3 for Games, and an extra 2 for shits and giggles{warez})

 

Quick few questions:

1: Is there a partition limit in size? I.E. Will 2GB partitions be too small, or do I have to in fact stay above a certain limit?

2: I know this is true for IDE...but RPM is independent of the controller, right? I.E. the card would have no problem with a 7200 rpm or a 10000rpm(or if I whore myself out to the right women, 15000rpm), would it?

 

 

I have 2 PCS and 3 mobos between them

I only want my good computer..and can sell the other pc and the extra mobo.

that should pay for some nice drives...

 

And if I remember correctly, UDMA 100 isn't even up to the 66, let alone 100.

 

So a 160 should be well beyond any UDMA choice right now, no?

 

As for noise...who cares!? It's the proverbial heartbeat of my computer. Let's me know it's working

 

and the louder--while still efficient--the better

 

Do those drives run much hotter than standard UDMA drives?

 

(I.E will it give me an excuse to get 120s?)

 

And a good SCSI controller card(esp the highend Ultra 160) should last me for a long time(in computer terms--maybe 2 years?)before it's far behind the times....unless the serial or firewire drives come out and catch on....but 160 is faster than firewire(*thanks to storagereview.com*)...so I'll still be relatively safe, right?

 

I can look at it as an investment in my computing future.

 

 

More as I think about it

[ByronT 0]

All right... more brass tacks type questions...

 

No limit on partition SIZE, but there is a limit to partition NUMBER: 4! So you can try to slice it up as much as you want, but you'll be forced to stop at 4. (I don't remember where this limit came from, but it still exists.) But I wouldn't for the life of me try to keep Win2K on a 2GB partition. Well, not unless you move the swap file elsewhere, and hope that IE bloat doesn't do you in.

 

RPM is dependent on the hard drive and the hard drive alone - the motor in the hard drive runs it at the rated RPM. It never slows down - except to 0, and it never speeds up faster than the rated RPM.

 

BUT RPM plays a fairly big role in access speed - why 7200RPM drives consistently have better access speed than 5400RPM, 10K better than 7200, etc...

 

ATA66 (32MBps to 39MBps) barely beats what ATA33 is _supposed_ to be capable of. The areas where ATA66 does is with RAID striping setups - capable of 45MBps and faster. And no ATA100 drives are really any faster than ATA66 ones. But this will change soon.

 

Performance? Ultra160 adapters with the *right* drive is ALWAYS faster than anything ATA. However, there have been some performance tests done that the IBM DeskStar GXPs (ATA100s) outperformed some low end Ultra160 setups. Check out www.storagereview.com

 

Noise? Well, I can't hear my IBM drive over the sound of fans, but those Quantums sound like a teenager driving a car with a stick and clutch for the first time. LOUD and it sounds like GRINDING. I've got a friend (money no object friend) where you can hear it over any game sounds that he's playing, and the only way to drown it out is by turning the sound up almost to where it hurts.

 

Heat? If you purchase an Ultra160, go ahead and buy you some drive coolers, and possibly an extra case fan or two. They run hot, at least 5 degrees F, sometimes as much as 10 degrees F, mainly because of the higher RPMs.

 

I'm not sure. As fast as the ATA side is progressing, and possibly moving to the SerialATA, Ultra160s could be eclipsed in less than a year performance-wise. But also consider that SerialATA will be backwards compatible with ATA, and will come in pricewise at least 1/5 of what Ultra160 or whatever succeeds it. As for FireWire, BLAH. Apple has their hands squeezing it too hard. As soon as digital video can be transferred with some other interface (USB 2.0????) FireWire will be toasted.

 

Right now, my money for the performance is still on ATA100s. If I had the money to play with (read at least $1500), I would get the 160 with the Quatumn 36GB beast (almost a cool $1K) I mentioned before (OOPS, made a mistake... it has an 8MB buffer!!!), and the fans needed to keep it cool, possibly some ear muffs for the noise. (MAN, that drive is awesome.)

[INFERNO2000 0]

Grinding???

fans....I have 3 80mmm high output fans in there

 

keeps my mobo under 90 degrees...

I could stuck another 80 in front of the 2 drives..that should keep things fairly cool.

 

Also..should I throw the drive(I'll only get 1, probably) in the 5.25 drive slots for extra air movement?

If I have only 1 drive(and no IDE drives), will I really notice that great a difference?

[ByronT 0]

Yes, grinding. To tell you the truth, it makes sounds that would make me think that the drive is dying. At least, if my IBM ever makes those sounds, I'll be replacing it as a bad hard drive. But those sounds are normal for the 10K Atlas II.

 

I've got 4 80mm high output fans. My CPU temp runs 86-96F, while my motherboard runs 74-78F. But ambient/room is 68-72F. I custom retrofitted my PC Power and Cooling Mid Tower case with four fans in a configuration similar to the one at www.3dcool.com (the Tornado 1000 case.) It cost me less than $50 for the extra fans and cables, around $10 for the screws, washers, nuts and bolts to attach the fans, and I used a drill with a 3" hole cutter to cut two holes and then drilled smaller screw holes to mount the side fans. The two fans on the side blow in, while the front and back fans blow out. The side fans are generating so much air in that the 4100RPM fans outputting on the front and back are actually running 4600-4800RPM. But if you do get that hard drive, don't worry about another case fan, you'll be better off getting one of the specialized hard drive coolers. PC Power and Cooling (www.pcpowercooling.com) has a few.

 

The money no object friend who has one of these U160s and a drive (not the Quantum) has a Cantek 833 machine (I think it's a Coppermine 700 oc'd to 833) running Windows 2000. He has no chance to press "F8" on that first Windows 2000 boot up screen (it blinks), and the pause on the logo screen is less than a second. Comparitively, my 933MHz with IBM DeskStar GXP gives me a half second on the press "F8" screen, and the pause on the logo screen is around 3 seconds. When I had no SCSI in this machine, I had no pause on the logo screen, so the pause is obviously due to the 5 SCSI devices sitting on my Adaptec 2930CU.

 

It'll be fast/faster, but no by too much. Once the machine has booted up, unless you're doing video editing, or constantly moving 4MB+ size files, the actual performance difference will probably be less than 5%.

 

Just as a comparison, once my machine is booted up, t consistently "feels" and "looks" faster than my buddy's - even though he has the faster disk subsystem, and a faster AGP card (my Viper V770 Ultra vs. his GeForce2 GTS 64MB DDR). The only place that his seems faster is while playing games, and there it's no contest, and more likely it is due to his video than disk.

 

Again, I would save the $$$ and wait for the AGP Pro (your CUSL2 has an AGP Pro slot) 64MB/128MB GeForce2 Ultra adapter that'll be out before the end of the year. (I've heard beginning of October, end of September...)

 

Later.

[etexter 0]

Just some recommendations on my setup. I use a Promise IDE Raid Controller card and stripe to IBM 30GB 75GXP Desktars. Unless you can raid your scsi drives, you are going to kick ass in the peformance aspect if you stripe the ide drives. It's really cheap compared to the same single drive scsi solution and you can tons more performance. Price per performance is totally worth it. I think my Win2k install took about 7 minutes from start-finish.

 

2 IBM 30GB Deskstars + Controller = $293ish, I got them from buy.com using coupons from www.techbargains.com (great site) so each drive was about $123 and the controller was 60ish. That same price range would get you a scsi controller and a 9gb 10k drive. You get almost 7 times as much storage and tons more performance and the added benefit of a very quiet machine.

[INFERNO2000 0]

I decided to give up on my thoughts of SCSI...and instead go ahead and redo one of my systems...either my Compaq, or the k7V I;ve been wanting to sell.

 

I doubt I'll be able to afford anything like that...but I DO have a 15GB IBM hdd that's UDMA-100..where as my maxtor, though 15GB larger..is UDMA 66.

 

Think anyone would want to buy a 30 GB 7200 RPM drive for about $110?(about the same price I paid for the IBM)

 

 

And can you recomend any IDE RAID cards?

 

------------------

Code:

OBSIDIAN2 (Win2k System)								INFERNO (Win9x)---Custom Built---									---Compaq Presario 5600i---PIII Coppermine(FCPGA 370) 800eb w/133FSB (with ThermalTake Golden Orb heatsink) 			PIII 500(498 listed) (Pre CuMine)Asus CUSL2 mobo(no onboard sound) BIOS rev 1002.007 Beta					Compaq 440BX based motherboard384(393 listed)MB PC100 SDRAM (2x128 PNY& 1x128 Mistsubishi(Compaq)) 				Compaq 32(32 listed)MB PNY PC100 RAM A-Top 901 Case & 300W Athlon Approved Power Supply30GB MAXTOR Diamand Max UDMA/66 7200 RPM hdd and IBM15-7 15GB UDMA/100 7200RPM hdd			IBM DJNA 371350 UDMA/33 7200RPM Hdd3 Internal 80mm fans, & 1 52mm exhaust fan (along with Power Supply, CPU, and GeForce fans)CL SB Live! X-Gamer on Liveware 3							Diamond Sonic Impact S90CL GB Annhilator Pro GeForce DDR on Detonator 6.27						ATI Xpert XL video cardWindows 2000 Advanced Server (SP1)							Windows 98SELogitech Itouch Pro Keyboard								PC Concepts AT-to-Ps2 Keyboard Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer(Gen 1)							Logitech First/Pilot Wheel USB MouseEverglide (HL Giganta)								Everglide LAP(promo)Logitech Soundman G1 & Compaq JBL Pro Speakers						Sony Walkman SpeakersD-Link DFE-530TX+ Ethernet Adapter							Intel Onboard and ATI AT-2000 ISA Ethernet cardsCompaq V720 17" Monitor								Packard Bell 14" monitorMemorex 4x2x24 CD-RW									BTC 20x CD-ROMCompaq(Pioneer) 6x DVD								Logitech Quickcam Home(listed as WEB)										Hauppauge! WinTV GOSelling! Perfect condition--replaced with intel systemAMD Athlon 750(model 2) retail (Slot A)Asus K7V Mobo BIOS revision 1007 for $250. 3 weeks old

[INFERNO2000 0]

Unfortunately, my plite seems to be of no avail.

 

The guy has sent me the card and drive...so now I'm going to have to send him my mobo and cpu. Oh well.

 

But...now that I have this drive(that I don't especially want)...should I use it as my OS drive? or should I stick with my current configuration?

or just sell it again?

[ByronT 0]

Build a server for someone with that adapter and that card and then sell it.

 

The 2940 is reliable and with a good hd in a server config, it should work near forever. (I think I've got one server with a 2940 that's been running for 5 years (middle of 1995) without any SCSI problems and without any HD problems. Of course, it is a NetWare server too...

 

You could have refused the shipment though...