Hard Drive benchmark problems

[CyboRob]

Running SiSoft, my GXP120 is benching 8000 should be like around 32,000 or something, the GXP60 is benching 18,000 should be around 24,000.

My old GXP75 the slowest of the bunch benched over 20k.

Any Ideas???

[diehrd]

Make sure there are no opticle drives on the cables with them.

[CyboRob]

Thanks, both hard drives are sharing the same cable and the CD and DVD are sharing their own cable.

[Monaco]

Personally I get better score when I put an HD and a CDROM on the same cable then HD by itself. Don't have 2 HDs to test with.

More importantly- Sandra is just about worthless as a HD benchmark, its numbers are totally suspect. Try HDTach (http://www.tcdlabs.com/hdtach.htm) instead, it is much more accurate. My personal fave is ATTO (http://www.attotech.com/software/) but it is much harder to interpret results with it.

[xdroorsx]

Running SiSoft, my GXP120 is benching 8000 should be like around 32,000 or something are you using up the majority of the drive space? i know that with my raid setup (dual 20gigs), my scores were absolutely horrible in sandra when i was using about 60% of the drive. once i added a storage drive and cleaned up the OS drive, my scores bumped up over 35k. just a thought :eh?:

[CyboRob]

HDTach is $50 to use? Can't do that.

xdroorsx thanks but both drives are mostly free space.

[Johan]

The non-registered version is free and works fine; just doesn't do all the benches.

[diehrd]

H/D tach wont support ntfs file systems.

Works for free on fat 32 ,Ya gotta pay if you arent fat 32.

[CyboRob]

Ah, ntfs = $50, Yeap that's my file system.

Anyways I drive imaged my OS from my GXP60 to the new GXP120 after my old GXP75 went bad.
Would doing this gimp my new drive like it is?

[diehrd]

I cant agreee with Sandra being suspect.I score 27960.With a IBM 60 GIG 7200.

Also I have the drive at the end of a 32 inch cable.SO if someone was to bench bad I suspect it would be me.

A clean instal would most likely get the scores up.I would try it as long as you have an image of the drive laying around.You can always go back to that image.

[CyboRob]

Well things are running ok so I think I'll just live with those benchmarks even though it bugs me.

Thanks all

[Jon]

Sandra is known to give buggy test scores and I've been seeing it for about 3-4 months now. Does this on XP and Win2K the most. I rarely trust it.

If you would download and install the ATTO benchmark and get back to me on the scores you get I can tell if they are what you should be getting.

There is also a thread I posted in here regarding poor RAID performance with IDE RAID. There is a download in it that you should get. Thread title is VIA + RAID +XP = Bad perormance, or something like that.

Install that patch then run the ATTO benchmark and let me know what you get. Post a screenshot if you can.

[CyboRob]

I am not running a raid set-up Jon. Still want me to run the ATTO? With or without the patch?

[Jon]

Oops, sorry, it's almost automatic considering I've seen it so much.

Sure, you can run the bench but DON'T INSTALL THE PATCH!

Just let me know what you get...screenshot would be much better if you can since you may not know how to post the scores it gives (I wouldn't either really :D).

[CyboRob]

Here goes

[Jon]

Which hard drive is that? Two separate or one with two partitions?

[CyboRob]

Both are separate.
The C drive is the 120gxp (OS on this one)
The D drive is the 60gxp

[Jon]

Well, considering they are sharing the same cable, you really aren't getting much less than what you should be getting.

Do you know which 4-in-1 drivers you have installed? Or better yet, do you have the latest VIA IDE busmaster drivers installed?

[CyboRob]

I think I have the original drivers from my Asus disk. v4.24

But device manager says Microsoft 5.1.2600.0 for the VIA IDE busmaster

[Jon]

Head over to VIA Arena (www.viaarena.com) and see if there isn't an update to them. I'm pretty sure there is. Seems like there is also a patch that may help out...it will specifically say so if there is. Just seems like I remember seeing one.

I run RAID on most all my systems so I'm not completely sure when it comes to single drive setups.

[CyboRob]

I was reading the fourms there last night, problems with the new drivers and XP, the new drivers want to install raid drivers.

I actually did the 4.37 drivers two days ago, and ended up rolling them back last night. They didn't change my SiSoft numbers at all. I had to disable the scsi drivers it setup so XP would shut up.

Well thanks for your time and efforts.

[CyboRob]

Ok solved for the most part I think.
Problem was trusting Windows XP defragger. I was taking windows word when I clicked on the analyse button, it kept saying you do not need to defrag.

My SiSoft number on my C drive is now 22k

And here are my Atto marks.



;)

[FireMogle]

Ive never had luck with drive benchmarking. last time I tested it said my drive was half the speed of a 5400 PIO, but its a SCSI UW 10K.