Reviews Leaderboard Database Reference Search StorageReview Discussion Reliability Survey Search About StorageReview.com Contents
Cache Segmentation Settings of the Ultrastar 9ES
  June 30, 1998 Author: Eugene Ra  
See also our Summer 1998 SCSI Drive Roundup
See also: IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130.

In our original review, the Ultrastar 9ES posted unusually low Threadmark scores. After double-checking cache settings, several readers contacted us suggesting that we change the drive's cache segmentation from a value of 6 down to 3, thus optimizing it more for 64k data chunks. We did so using ibmcache.zip. The results of both runs are outlined in the tables below.

Test Bed - Hardware
Motherboard Abit LX6, v1.1, Bios vC7Q
Processor Intel Pentium II 266MHz, 512k cache
Memory 64MB 10ns SDRAM DIMM
SCSI Controller Adaptec AHA-2940U2W
Boot Drive Seagate ST34555W
Video Card Matrox Millennium II PCI, 4 MB
Test Bed - Operating System Configurations
Operating System Windows 95, OSR 2.1 Windows NT Workstation 4.0
File System FAT 32 NTFS
Patches Applied 82371xB INF Update Service Pack 3
Display Driver MGA PowerDesk v3.80
1024x768, 24-bit color, 85 Hz, Small Fonts 		MGA PowerDesk v3.31
1024x768, 24-bit color, 85 Hz, Small Fonts
Ziff Davis WinBench 98
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
when cachseg=6
Windows 95 OSR 2.1, FAT 32
Business Disk WinMark 98 1658 KB/sec
SS/Database 1416 KB/sec
WP 2010 KB/sec
Publishing 1590 KB/sec
Browsers 1952 KB/sec
Task Switching 2062 KB/sec
High-End Disk WinMark 98 4504 KB/sec
AVS/Express 3.1 3130 KB/sec
Frontpage 97 3534 KB/sec
Microstation 95 8960 KB/sec
Photoshop 4.0 2896 KB/sec
Premiere 4.2 9360 KB/sec
PV-Wave 6.1 3446 KB/sec
Visual C++ 5.0 10200 KB/sec
Disk/Read Random Access 12.8 ms
Disk/Read Transfer Rate
Beginning 12500 KB/sec
End 6588 KB/sec
Disk/Read CPU Utilization 8.56%
Transfer Rate 11762 KB/sec
Ziff Davis WinBench 98
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
When cacheseg=3
Windows 95 OSR 2.1, FAT 32
Business Disk WinMark 98 1640 KB/sec
SS/Database 1396 KB/sec
WP 1998 KB/sec
Publishing 1570 KB/sec
Browsers 1936 KB/sec
Task Switching 1994 KB/sec
High-End Disk WinMark 98 4482 KB/sec
AVS/Express 3.1 3074 KB/sec
Frontpage 97 3542 KB/sec
Microstation 95 8984 KB/sec
Photoshop 4.0 2890 KB/sec
Premiere 4.2 9350 KB/sec
PV-Wave 6.1 3410 KB/sec
Visual C++ 5.0 10300 KB/sec
Disk/Read Random Access 12.8 ms
Disk/Read Transfer Rate
Beginning 12600 KB/sec
End 8410 KB/sec
Disk/Read CPU Utilization 8.62%
Transfer Rate 11772 KB/sec
Adaptec ThreadMark 2.0
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
When cacheseg=6
Windows 95 OSR 2.1, FAT 32
Data Transfer Rate 4.30 MB/sec
Average CPU Utilization 19.82%
Adaptec ThreadMark 2.0
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
When cacheseg=3
Windows 95 OSR 2.1, FAT 32
Data Transfer Rate 5.40 MB/sec
Average CPU Utilization 21.29%

Ziff Davis WinBench 98
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
when cachseg=6
Windows NT 4.0, NTFS
Business Disk WinMark 98 1900 KB/sec
SS/Database 1500 KB/sec
WP 2202 KB/sec
Publishing 1964 KB/sec
Browsers 2724 KB/sec
Task Switching 1990 KB/sec
High-End Disk WinMark 98 4406 KB/sec
AVS/Express 3.1 3064 KB/sec
Frontpage 97 3028 KB/sec
Microstation 95 10870 KB/sec
Photoshop 4.0 2974 KB/sec
Premiere 4.2 7604 KB/sec
PV-Wave 6.1 3830 KB/sec
Visual C++ 5.0 9318 KB/sec
Disk/Read Random Access 11.5 ms
Disk/Read Transfer Rate
Beginning 13300 KB/sec
End 8380 KB/sec
Disk/Read CPU Utilization 5.08%
Transfer Rate 13275 KB/sec
Ziff Davis WinBench 98
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
When cacheseg=3
Windows NT 4.0, NTFS
Business Disk WinMark 98 1886 KB/sec
SS/Database 1528 KB/sec
WP 2178 KB/sec
Publishing 1892 KB/sec
Browsers 2728 KB/sec
Task Switching 1938 KB/sec
High-End Disk WinMark 98 4500 KB/sec
AVS/Express 3.1 3054 KB/sec
Frontpage 97 3058 KB/sec
Microstation 95 10380 KB/sec
Photoshop 4.0 3082 KB/sec
Premiere 4.2 7952 KB/sec
PV-Wave 6.1 4080 KB/sec
Visual C++ 5.0 9286 KB/sec
Disk/Read Random Access 11.4 ms
Disk/Read Transfer Rate
Beginning 13300 KB/sec
End 8410 KB/sec
Disk/Read CPU Utilization 5.11%
Transfer Rate 13314 KB/sec

Adaptec ThreadMark 2.0
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
When cacheseg=6
Windows NT 4.0, NTFS
Data Transfer Rate 6.08 MB/sec
Average CPU Utilization 10.10%
Adaptec ThreadMark 2.0
- IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS-39130
When cacheseg=3
Windows NT 4.0, NTFS
Data Transfer Rate 7.58 MB/sec
Average CPU Utilization 11.10%


* Note: All reported test results are the average of five trials.

HOME | ARTICLES | LEADERBOARD | PERFORMANCE DATABASE | REFERENCE GUIDE
COMMUNITY | RELIABILITY SURVEY | SUPPORT SR! | ABOUT SR |

Copyright © 1998-2005 StorageReview.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
Write: Webmaster