Ultra ATA/66

[zodwell]

Does anyone know the specs on maximum sustained throuput on the ultra-ata 66 interface?

I am curious if it will be significantly better than the 6.5-7.5 MB/Sec I am getting (ASYNC). I have a Quantum 12.7GB EX, and a 5.1GB EL, running on an Abit BX6, PII350, 256MB RAM.

I may just go SCSI (I do a lot of multitrack recording, and I need to free up my CPU for plug-in effects). Also, anyone have any comments on SCSI (ASYNC data transfer rates)?

zodwell

[BBA]

SSustained speed mostly depends on spindle speed, disk platter diameter and data density of the platter. So, to answer your question, a 5400RPM UDMA66 standard drive will not even compare to a 7200RPM GMR UDMA33 drive.

It's the big picture you have to look at, not a burst speed advertisement.

BBA

[zodwell]

I understand completely. Thanks for the reply. So would it be safe to assume the Ultra Ata-66 interface is only an IDE enhancement which changes burst data throughput and not continuous throughput?

Hummmm.

Does anyone have any benchmarks using ATA-66? I couldn't seem to find any continuous data transfer specs published at any of the manufacturers' web sites (I tried Quantum and Western Digital I believe).

Also, why is the maximum async tranfer rate of UW2 SCSI around 14 MB/sec, whereas the maximm async transfer rate on UW SCSI is sometimes reported at up to 20GB/sec?

I am just curious, because right now, UWide looks better for high bandwith asyncronous applications (like multitrack recording). Maybe I am focusing too much on the async continuous property. Maybe with the U2Wide 80MB/sec burst, it doesn't matter much.

Now I am not sure.

My Goal:
Right now I can play back around 14-18 tracks of 44.1KHz 16 bit audio through my Gina Audio Card(without plug in effects). I want to be able to do at least 24-32 tracks (theoretically this would mean 5 MB/sec continuous I think), without any serious system slowdowns. I also need to do it reliably, and with the ability to record audio at the same time.

Any thoughts (now that I have explained the purpose of my original question)?


zodwell