Slow SCSI

[strat1]

I have a 9 gig 10K Compaq SCSI drive hooked up to a LSI 160 SCSI Controller.
When I ran a benchmark on the drive the results are pitiful. Much slower than my 7200 IDE. I am running the drive on a MSI KT3 ULTRA 2 with an XP 2100 and 2700 -256 of Crucial with XP PRO. I have loaded all the mobo drivers, tried to update the drivers for the controller, but the drive still seems much slower than expected. When I ran Sandra the results were sad.

Also, since getting this new LSI card the drive seems to make a TON of noise that sounds like info being cashed in RAM, but it is coming from the drive- this did not happen before. I do have the Page file located on a sep IDE drive too. When I was able to get the drive to work on the MegaRAID Enterprise 1200, the drive was quiet as my IDE drives, and MUCH faster! see here for that story! (http://sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=149703)

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[BipolarBill]

It's an old drive. What can you expect?

I have a newer IBM 36GB SCSI drive and it isn't quite as fast as the WD 80GB JB drive. Not all SCSI drives are fast, but they are usually faster than a drive of the same vintage. There are other advantages to SCSI than sheer speed - like slicker multitasking and better performance in multi-drive environments.

As far as noise goes, you're loading Windows on it now. It's a lot busier than before. Older SCSI drives made quite a racket and got very hot in operation.

[strat1]

Here are the results


Thanks for the quick reply!

Makes sense-- oh well, I might just go back to using this drive for the page file and other temp files!

Thanks!

[Peter M]

13 MB/s looks A LOT like the drive is running asynchronous SCSI. (Because that's exactly the upper ceiling of what async wide SCSI can do.) My Linux box here runs on a 7200 rpm 9GB drive, and it's at about 20 MB/s.

Enter the LSI SCSI BIOS, proceed to the (only) adapter's properties, and on to Device Selections. There, make sure that both the host adapter's own entry and the drive's are set to maximum speed.
Then, make sure that in the drive's Properties sheet in Windows, "Synchronous Transfer" and "Disconnect" features are enabled (older Windows flavors) or not disabled (newer ones).

[strat1]

Well now I am lost

Here are my options in the Controller Bios


SCSI Parity --------- Y/N
Host SCSI ID --------- 0/15
SCSI Bus Scan Order --------- High to low or Low to high

Removable Media Support --------- SCSI
CHs mapping --------- SCSI plug and Play
Spin up Delay --------- 1 sec
Secondary Cluster service --------- NO
Termination Control --------- Auto



Thanks for the help!!!!!!

[Peter M]

Right above that, it says "Device Selection", which is another submenu. In there, one can select which devices to scan at boot ... and this is also where one can put a speed limiter on the entire channel or a certain drive. This is not normally done unless you got overly long cables or drives with buggy firmware - but you never know what settings your host adapter is at until you've looked.

[strat1]

Thanks Peter, I was able to find the speed setting and it was set to 160/MB. I still have no idea why I am stuck in 13 MB/s mode?

[Peter M]

Check with the SCSI BIOS boot report whether the drive has been enabled to do 160 MB/s initially. Browse the system event log for whether the SCSI channel has failed the so called "Domain validation" cabling quality test that is routinely done on bootup. Also check with the drive's properties in Device Manager that Sync Transfers and Disconnect protocol are enabled.

[strat1]

This is what LSI reported back to me!


To make a long story short, in WinXP, Microsoft corrected a bug in Win2k that caused write-thru flags to be ignored. This bug could have caused possible data loss (if the data hadn't been written to the drive and the power went out for example).

Unfortunately the correction of this bug also affects Windows Explorer. In many circumstances, when using SCSI drives, file copies aren't cached, and performance is extremely slow when compared to pre SP3 Win2k. Win2k SP3 and SP4 also have the XP "problem".

There is a possible solution (given that MS is not very forthcoming with one themselves). That is a program called casfilter, created by cas, a member of the SR forums. Use it at your own risk.

Please note that Win 2003 Server has a fix for this SCSI performance problem, under Device Manager->Select the drive->Right click->Properties->Policies tab: There is a setting to "enable write caching on the disk", and a further option to "Enable advanced performance". A machine with SCSI drives using the advanced performance checkbox is noticeably "snappier" than one using winXP.

Apparently MS will add this option to winXP SP2, however for now 2003 Server or win2k SP2 is the best option for SCSI drive users

LSI-02
LSI Logic - Field Support Technician
lsiraidsupport@lsil.com
< <http://megaraid.lsilogic.com/support/index.html>>
Technical Support

[Peter M]

strat1, this is sound advice from LSI there - yet it's nothing to do with your interface rate being all off. Fix that first.

[strat1]

Thanks-- I have tried what you have suggested with no luck.

[sm8000]

I went to SR to read up on casfilter. Apparently the advice from LSI is a copy-and-paste from the SR FAQ - and out of date, at that. Some interesting stuff:

http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?act=Search&CODE=show&searchid=2f3f0c4dbbafb5e7c4b8bb930d2f7851&search_in=posts&result_type=topics&highlite=casfilter

http://www.storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=XpScsiProblems

For Win2k users like myself, the best bet is to use SP2, or SP4 (patch included) and a utility called dskcache.

[strat1]

Great sites-- thanks I will take a look!

[strat1]

A great site- much to learn.

I still am lost :((

[BipolarBill]

You're lost because you're trying to patch old components together with no real instructions. Most veterans wouldn't bother with that. I'd compare it to trying to make an old Pentium AT machine work properly. To me, it's not worth the aggravation.

You also have no earthly idea of the condition of this used drive, but you're blaming yourself for it's poor performance. Think about that.

[Peter M]

He's lost because he's STILL barking up the wrong tree.

As long as you can't convince the LSI SCSI BIOS and driver to actually do U160 not async transfers, all that above stuff is entirely irrelevant.

[strat1]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
You're lost because you're trying to patch old components together with no real instructions. Most veterans wouldn't bother with that. I'd compare it to trying to make an old Pentium AT machine work properly. To me, it's not worth the aggravation.
You also have no earthly idea of the condition of this used drive, but you're blaming yourself for it's poor performance. Think about that.

This is all too true!! http://www.fancysplace.com/smileys/valoranim02.gif


Originally posted by Peter M
As long as you can't convince the LSI SCSI BIOS and driver to actually do U160 not async transfers, all that above stuff is entirely irrelevant.
I know, but I have messed around in the Controller bios for way to long- but all the settings are set correctly. I do get the message after each boot “transfer rate of 160 is possible once drivers are loaded” – did I screw something else up.

Thank you all for your help and patience! I will keep you posted on what LSI says?

[Peter M]

And does the drive have the (*) marker in its line to indicate that THIS drive will be eligible for 160 MB/s? The message underneath the device table always appears, even with nothing at all connected!

How 'bout resetting the LSI BIOS settings to their defaults?

[strat1]

I set the adapter to defaults. Now after the controller’s bios loads, it lists two cards, both capable of 160 mb/s and the drive is only capable of 40 mb/s.

Thanks again for the help and advice!

[Peter M]

So I bet the drive is jumpered to "Force Single Ended". Second best guess is that your cable and/or terminator unit aren't LVD capable, again forcing the SCSI channel back to single-ended operation - hence the maximum speed of 40 MB/s.

[strat1]

Thanks for that tip, but I have not been able to find the manual on how to jumper this drive. I have been looking since the get go with no luck.

[strat1]

Originally posted by strat1
Thanks for that tip, but I have not been able to find the manual on how to jumper this drive. I have been looking since the get go with no luck.

Ok, I took off the jumper for the "Force Single Ended"
. The bios now sees the drive at 80mb/s—and it is twice as slow in windows.

I will continue to mess around with it tonight and report back.

[strat1]

Originally posted by strat1
Ok, I took off the jumper for the "Force Single Ended"
. The bios now sees the drive at 80mb/s—and it is twice as slow in windows.

I will continue to mess around with it tonight and report back.

It does seems much slower, but ends up at 13.2mb/ s

[Peter M]

OK, so maybe it actually IS that slow. Boot to DOS, and use the "h2bench" program from ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2bench.zip

h2bench -english -e -c 0 0

should give you the interface and media transfer rates. The last number in that line is the HDD number, so make that a 1 if the SCSI drive is the 2nd in the system (and so on).

Interface rate should be around 65 to 70 MB/s, media transfer rate will show the drive's true face.