First post, by feipoa
- Rank
- l33t++
I decided to benchmark the SCSI disk performance of my 386 system using an SD card, a CF card, and a hard disk drive. The test system is a 486SXL-40 on an AMI Mark V Baby Screamer motherboard. The SCSI host controller is an Adaptec 1540CP with a 10 MB/s limit. The SD card is a 16 GB SanDisk Extreme 90 MB/s class 10; the CF Card is 16 GB Voigon (brand) rated for 200x; the hard disk drive is a 2 GB Seagate ST32171N. The SD card is connected to a SCSI2SD v6 device; the CF card is connected to an IDE-to-CF interface, which is connected to an ACARD 7720U IDE-to-SCSI bridge adapter. Each drive is setup to 2 GB using FAT16 and is running MS-DOS 6 / Win 3.11. The benchmark program is Ziff-Davis Winbench 96.
According to the Disk WinMark score, the SD card performs 25% better than the Seagate hard disk drive, while the CF card performs 16% better than the Seagate HDD. The most glaring speed differnece from the chart is with how much faster the SD and CF cards are at random reads, both small (200 bytes) and large (4096 bytes) block sizes. When it came to random writes, the SD card stepped out ahead of the CF card, particularly for large (4 KB) block sizes. Apparently, a class 10 SD card is needed for these faster writes. For sequential reads and write, the HDD, CF, and SD cards were all very similar in performance, with the HDD taking a minute lead.
Performing the benchmark on a faster system might increase speed differences. Also, using different speed SD and CF cards may have some impact. According to Sandisk, the SanDisk Extreme SD card is rated for 90 MB/s, while the 200x CF card is rated for 30 MB/s. The SCSI host controller is limited to 10 MB/s, as is the SCSI2SD adapter. The ACARD 7720U is limited to 20 MB/s.
It would be nice to also have results for version 5.x of SCSI2SD to compare, as well as using faster/slower SD/CF cards, and a faster computer with faster SCSI host adapter. However, my only system left with a working 50-pin SCSI drive was my 386, so this is the system I decided to test. I bought the SCSI2SD device after experiencing occasional stalls on the old 2 GB Seagate hard drive.
I didn't time the boot-up, but it feels faster with the SCSI2SD device. It is certainly a lot quieter. If you are going to buy one of these units from inertialcomputing, do not buy it with the SD card bundled. This seller claims he ships the unit with class 10 SD cards, but in fact shipped mine with a class 4 SD card. Inertialcomputing said they would send the correct class 10 SD card, but it never arrived and he ceased replying to emails.
A photo of the SCSI2SD v6 can be found here, https://store.inertialcomputing.com/SCSI2SD-v … 2sd-v6-revf.htm
A photo of the ACARD 7720U can be found here, http://pinharddrive.com/2018/11/21/acard-aec- … dddvdcd-50-pin/
Anyone with a SCSI2SD v5.x and v6 feel like benchmarking them against each other?
The raw data is shown below.
SD card
Disk WinMark 96 = 711
Disk/Read, Random, 200 bytes = 61.8 thousands of bytes/sec
Disk/Read, Random, 512 bytes = 161
Disk/Read, Random, 2048 bytes = 591
Disk/Read, Random, 4096 bytes = 1060
Disk/Read, Sequential, 200 bytes = 389
Disk/Read, Sequential, 512 bytes = 787
Disk/Read, Sequential, 2048 bytes = 1210
Disk/Read, Sequential, 4096 bytes = 1130
Disk/Write, Random, 200 bytes = 32.7
Disk/Write, Random, 512 bytes = 185
Disk/Write, Random, 2048 bytes = 790
Disk/Write, Random, 4096 bytes = 1350
Disk/Write, Sequential, 200 bytes = 273
Disk/Write, Sequential, 512 bytes = 757
Disk/Write, Sequential, 2048 bytes = 1630
Disk/Write, Sequential, 4096 bytes = 2010
CF card
Disk WinMark 96 = 662
Disk/Read, Random, 200 bytes = 54.9 thousands of bytes/sec
Disk/Read, Random, 512 bytes = 143
Disk/Read, Random, 2048 bytes = 530
Disk/Read, Random, 4096 bytes = 971
Disk/Read, Sequential, 200 bytes = 388
Disk/Read, Sequential, 512 bytes = 764
Disk/Read, Sequential, 2048 bytes = 1040
Disk/Read, Sequential, 4096 bytes = 979
Disk/Write, Random, 200 bytes = 13.7
Disk/Write, Random, 512 bytes = 97.8
Disk/Write, Random, 2048 bytes = 403
Disk/Write, Random, 4096 bytes = 712
Disk/Write, Sequential, 200 bytes = 292
Disk/Write, Sequential, 512 bytes = 758
Disk/Write, Sequential, 2048 bytes = 1640
Disk/Write, Sequential, 4096 bytes = 2000
SCSI HDD - ST32171N
Disk WinMark 96 = 571
Disk/Read, Random, 200 bytes = 21.6 thousands of bytes/sec
Disk/Read, Random, 512 bytes = 57.5
Disk/Read, Random, 2048 bytes = 217
Disk/Read, Random, 4096 bytes = 360
Disk/Read, Sequential, 200 bytes = 385
Disk/Read, Sequential, 512 bytes = 778
Disk/Read, Sequential, 2048 bytes = 1290
Disk/Read, Sequential, 4096 bytes = 1190
Disk/Write, Random, 200 bytes = 12.4
Disk/Write, Random, 512 bytes = 77.9
Disk/Write, Random, 2048 bytes = 362
Disk/Write, Random, 4096 bytes = 755
Disk/Write, Sequential, 200 bytes = 284
Disk/Write, Sequential, 512 bytes = 754
Disk/Write, Sequential, 2048 bytes = 1640
Disk/Write, Sequential, 4096 bytes = 2020
Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.