On the disk I/O it blows chunks because it's an all IDE system.

I should have said, "..blows chunks with the standard IBM IDE driver." I re-ran some of the disk tests with Dani's IDE driver and got much better results. I'll summarize below.


IBM's IDE driver:


Disk I/O disk 0-1: 9782 MB - WDC AC310200R
Avg. data access time : 16.400 milliseconds
Cache/Bus xfer rate : 3.827 Megabytes/second
Track 0 xfer rate fwd : 3.911 Megabytes/second
Middle trk rate fwds. : 3.908 Megabytes/second
Last track rate bwds. : 3.886 Megabytes/second
Average Transfer rate : 3.902 Megabytes/second
Disk use CPU load : 98.960 percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total : 23.955 Disk I/O-marks


Disk I/O disk 0-2: 76340 MB - MAXTOR 6L080J4
Avg. data access time : 13.000 milliseconds
Cache/Bus xfer rate : 3.890 Megabytes/second
Track 0 xfer rate fwd : 3.935 Megabytes/second
Middle trk rate fwds. : 3.878 Megabytes/second
Last track rate bwds. : 3.913 Megabytes/second
Average Transfer rate : 3.909 Megabytes/second
Disk use CPU load : 99.700 percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total : 24.796 Disk I/O-marks


CD-ROM I/O disk 1-1: 606 MB - IDE CDROM Drive
Avg. data access time : 89.600 milliseconds
Inner sectors rate : 2389.000 Kilobytes/second (~15.9X)
Outer sectors rate : 2578.143 Kilobytes/second (~17.2X)
CD-ROM use CPU load : 97.130 percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total : 122.625 CD I/O-marks




Now with Dani's IDE driver:


Disk I/O disk 0-1: 9782 MB - WDC AC310200R
Avg. data access time : 16.000 milliseconds
Cache/Bus xfer rate : 51.446 Megabytes/second
Track 0 xfer rate fwd : 13.044 Megabytes/second
Middle trk rate fwds. : 11.947 Megabytes/second
Last track rate bwds. : 8.315 Megabytes/second
Average Transfer rate : 11.102 Megabytes/second
Disk use CPU load : 1.510 percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total : 75.565 Disk I/O-marks


Disk I/O disk 0-2: 76340 MB - MAXTOR 6L080J4
Avg. data access time : 12.700 milliseconds
Cache/Bus xfer rate : 94.971 Megabytes/second
Track 0 xfer rate fwd : 40.206 Megabytes/second
Middle trk rate fwds. : 35.660 Megabytes/second
Last track rate bwds. : 21.411 Megabytes/second
Average Transfer rate : 32.426 Megabytes/second
Disk use CPU load : 3.910 percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total : 193.307 Disk I/O-marks


CD-ROM I/O disk 1-1: 695 MB - IDE CDROM Drive
Avg. data access time : 90.100 milliseconds
Inner sectors rate : 2886.000 Kilobytes/second (~19.2X)
Outer sectors rate : 6274.866 Kilobytes/second (~41.8X)
CD-ROM use CPU load : 4.180 percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total : 154.891 CD I/O-marks




I checked the SysBench site and those final scores under Dani's driver meet or beat the best scores posted so far.

Pretty slick.....

I'm especially impressed by the low CPU load numbers. Those are the type of numbers I'm used to seeing with SCSI systems.

And I haven't even gotten around to installing the Tekram driver for the DC-390U2W that's in this system. It's currently driving the Plextor CD-RW. My hope is to add a SCSI CD-ROM drive somewhere along the way so I can really off-load burning to the SCSI chain and not worry about making coasters.

One of these days I might get around to installing a complete SCSI system, but not anytime soon.

Anyway, got lots of things to re-install over the next few days...