(beware OLD thread!) 5 months until OS4 *must* support 4K harddisk

Quote:
Hi Deniil,

WOAH!

That is PAINFULLY slow (in both block sizes)!

What are read times?

I don't get it. Is this because of AOS4 not being 64 bit yet? Is a SSD much faster than that?


My 4 core i7 (2600), 3.4 GHz with 32 Gigs of RAM, windos7 64 bit OS does, on an SSD rated at 450 MB a second reads at,
Starts at 170 MB a second (seen flashes as high as 400MB, ONLY on *first time* file transfer from when I boot up computer, at start of transfer)....
which within 4 seconds drops to 120 MBs a second, then proceeds to slow down to 80 MBs/Sec in about 15 to 20 seconds, then the speed just keeps dropping over time. In about 3-5 minutes it goes down to 60-55 MBs/sec. and just keeps getting slower. I've had it down to 45-40 MBs/sec. .... and it never goes back up, after that. This is when I transfer 1+ GBs at a time. Say, I transfer ~4 GB of files. Then any time after that, other large amounts, it continues from the "new low" and proceeds to set "NEW low" records.

win-dos is BROKEN!


I haven't experimented, but it SEEMS that if I use ms-dos command prompt to copy files, that it doesn't slow down. (I wrote a batch file that moves a program I want to use into a RAM: drive.) However, it's too painful to use that primitive, compared to AOS, "shell".


I think that the driver software for the hard drive controller is lacking in AOS4's case here, causing the slowdown.

@Atheist
Did you miss it where Deniil said this?:
Quote:

And no, it's nothing to do with 32/64-bit. Yes SSD can be MUCH faster than normal HDs (never mind energy-saving ones). The max I got on my Sam440 with a normal HD was 100MB/sec (although that test was a long time ago - maybe improved with more recent OS4 optimisations?). I can't recall what my X1000 achieves, but I guess it was at least a little higher.

Quote:
Hi ChrisH,

WHEW!!!

Well then, AOS TRUMPS win-dos, as per usual.... And that's using a 533 MHz CPU?? L.O.L.!!!!


Seriously, I only use win-dos because of the amount of games on it, otherwise, I find it to be insanity inducing garbage.


I intend to get a X5000, as soon as I can find a way to do it.


Thanks for informing me of that, ChrisH.

@Atheist

Yeah, I agree, that's pretty slow. However, I usually see speeds faster than that when copying only big files. 50-60MB/s *copy* speed is not uncommon, especially on my main disk which clearly is faster.

It's unclear where the bottleneck is. If it were anywhere in the OS we would see high CPU load, but CPU remains low, so maybe unfavorable DMA read/writes? Polling delays?

@logicalheart
I'm not sure if you missed my last reply to you (hidden at the very bottom of the first page), so here it is again:

@logicalheart Quote:
While it'd be great if you are correct that it's a 0.5K drive, I have not been able to find any evidence that you are correct:

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library ... Sheet/ENG/2879-771434.pdf
(all listed drives are Advanced Format aka 4K... but fails to list this drive)

The drive is not directly listed on WD's site anymore, so I had to dig-up the last version of their site (from Feb 2014) which did list it:
https://web.archive.org/web/2014021507 ... ucts/products.aspx?id=760

The above page has links to specs which are blocked from archival, but luckily they still appear to exist on WD's current site:
http://www.wdc.com/global/products/specs/?driveID=792&language=1
http://www.wdc.com/global/products/specs/?driveID=899&language=1 (2GB variant)
http://www.wdc.com/global/products/specs/?driveID=1212&language=1 (3GB variant)
http://www.wdc.com/global/products/specs/?driveID=1208&language=1 (4GB variant)

Sadly those specs fail to mention the sector/format size either.

I also conclude that these allegded 0.5K drives are no-longer being manufactured since the middle of 2014, and so any available on Amazon are "old stock". So if they ARE 0.5K drives, then I better buy one ASAP!