#Who's HD controller?
9 messages in this thread
I have a friend who is looking at getting a hard drive controller for his
A2000. He does some video work, such as titling with his machine. We were
just looking at some of the latest offerings in the july issue of
Amigaworld, and one thing I can conclude, is they did their usual bad job
on the hardware review. The review didn't even list which controllers use
DMA, and can't seem to get who uses RDB straight (they listed Xetec's
Fastcard Plus as supporting RDB, but reading the text shows this to be
false).
Does DMA play a big part in speed in the controllers any more? I still
think DMA RULES, but some of the results in the AmigaWorld review would
state otherwise. I am pretty sure the AdSCSI 2000 is non-DMA, yet rates
right up there. What about the HardFrame and Trump Pro? These are
probably the controllers I would consider if I didn't have my old 2090A.
Any good comments?
73, Kelly
I can swear by the 2091-40 Hardcard/SCSI controller. It's the model that
came with my A2000HD. The software is very good. It even comes with a 2
Meg expansion on the board (put in your own chips). It has DMA! You can
autoboot from it! What more can I say?
Mike McC
Mike, I am aware of the 2091, but the controllers I mentioned seem to be
half again as fast as the 2091 when it comes to reading data from the HD.
Of course, it comes down to how much faith a person can put into any
hardware comparisons done in AmigaWorld.
Thanks for the reply, though.
73, Kelly
Kelly,
The Trumpcard PRO is a really good card. IVS tech support is real
friendly and they know what they are talking. I just installed one in my
father's A2000 and I (with a series I GVP card) was really jealous.
Bruce H.
-Via Whap!
Kelly;
CBM's 2091 is good. GVP's Series II is a good choice also. I have both.
The GVP formatted/setup drives will work on the 2091 and vice versa. GVP's
FaastPrep is a very nice utility, much easier to use than HDToolBox.
An Amiga message processed by Whap!,
bill
Kelly,
I still have my controller for sale:-). It was on a 500 but fits in a
2000. It's a half-card. Check out this months Info mag for a review on it.
It's the TrumpCard 500.
>>>>>Skip( SKP Graphics )<<<<<
AdSCSI 2000 is, indeed, non-DMA. We played with some DMA designs but could
not get enough performance improvement (and -none- with an '030) to justify
the increased cost. And existing DMA designs, as shown by test results,
add nothing. Basically a clean interface design and well-written software
make much more of a difference than anything else. I only wish that the
charts in the magazine had included the smaller block DiskSpeed results.
But such is life.
Craig
Craig,
Thanks for the reply. Yep, it sounds like we need new DMA designs when
non-DMA designs can get better results. I looked at designing a board with
DMA capabilities (nothing to do with HDs), and using something like the
68440, doesn't seem to be too hard on the ZorroII bus. Maybe the current
DMA designs are being too "nice" to the system, instead of filling up a
good size buffer, then using burst mode to dump the buffer (I don't mean
the little 16 byte fifo the 2090(a) uses), they are probably using limited
rate or some form of limited cycle steal mode.
After reading through Dave Haynie's introduction to the ZorroIII bus
article in AmigaWorld's Tech, I'll never even consider trying to design a
DMA controller for this bus!
73, Kelly
Thanks to the others for the replies – keep them coming!
Kelly,
I have used three different controllers over the past few years,
the Kronos 2000, the Supra WordSync, and the new Nexus. None of these are
DMA controllers. The Nexus is by far the fastest controller, but it also
includes hardware for memory as well as the SCSI controller. If you need
the facility for more memory it's an excellent card and has the added
benefit of including support for tape drives. It costs a bit more than
other controllers because of the memory hardware. Memory is added using 1 x
8 SIMMs and the board can handle both the 1 meg and 2 meg SIMMs. The
WordSync is also an excellent controller and is a half-card form. It isn't
quite as fast as the Nexus but otherwise has all the features except
support for tape drives. It's also considerably cheaper.