Boost your Maxtor Performance, FREE!

[conehead433]

OK I installed this and it works similarly to a memory refresher and not necessarily any better.
I had it running simultaneously with my memory refresher and it inactivated itself when my refresher kicked in. Just download and install AnalogX MaxMem, it works with any drives and system, and it's
free. Sorry, but this program, considering it's 11 MB size does little more than a small refresher program.

AnalogX MaxMem download page

 

[noxxic]

Interesting... It looks like it's a bigger disk cache that you use on top of the one built into Windows. Kinda scary to use it on my primary right now, but I'll try it on my other computer...

 

[SimMike2]

This program might give false readings with your hard drive test program, fooling you into thinking performance increased, but that doesn't mean your computer is faster. It is kind of like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This about it. Supposedly "The MaxBoost driver intelligently caches data in the host system RAM before it is written to and read from the Maxtor disk drive, enhancing the effective storage speed of your system under a variety of system conditions and applications." So basically what this program is doing is taking away some memory from your operating system and giving it to a cache program. So what do you want handling your cache, your operating system, or some tiny free program? Taking away memory is going to leave less memory for your programs, which means your operating system is going to write stuff to your hard drive a little more often.

All that being said, I'm not saying this program is bad. It might even work. But chances are it doesn't do much. You will have more sucess with the miriad of Windows tweaks which do improve hard drive performance by tweaking the cache built into Windows.

 

[CQuinn]

This has been discussed in General Hardware before.

It is not a "Smartdrive" like cache.

It does have a minimum CPU requirement, but its not CPU intensive...
I'm running on a 1.1Ghz T-bird and noticed an increase in speed.

What Maxboost is designed to do is more than just a simple file cache like that already
built into windows - it is (my suspicion that it is) designed to take advantage of known
performance characteristics in drive design and firmware of the supported drives.

The reason it is not supported on other drives is probably because Maxtor does not
have access to the firmware designs on their competitors products, so they quite
logically cannot build that support into the driver.


SimMike2, I have to disagree with you on several points. My computer is noticably snappier
in disk response with MaxBoost enabled than without it. This is more than "rearranging deck chairs";
if my suspicions are correct, it uses a quite different caching algorithm than normal, actually enhancing
the performance of the existing Windows cache.

"Taking away memory is going to leave less memory for your programs"... not neccesarily.
There appears to be a new feature in this revision of the beta, that will automatically disable
Maxboost to free up memory if it appears other programs are in need. And it seems to be
overly sensitive to that need.

"But chances are it doesn't do much." Don't knock it until you've had a chance to further evaluate it.
As I said, I've noticed an improvement in system performance using it, and that is on top of many
other tweaks designed to improve the performance of my system.

 

[HocusFocus]

Doesn't seem to wanna work with my abit nf7-s rev2 w/latest nvidia drivers. And I do have a 120gig diamondmax that it just can't seem to find.
HF

 

[souja]

My tests show it doesn't do much at all. Grab HD Tach and test for yourself :

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

Here is a summary results from several read tests with HD Tach:

Sequential Speed: generally WORSE (especially on the outer portion of the platter, ex. at 53GB position, drive dropped from 34MB/s to 30 MB/s)
Random Access Time: SAME (~12.9ms)
Read Burst Speed: 8MB/s WORSE (dropped from 122MB/s to 114MB/s)
Avg Read Speed: 1.2MB/s BETTER (up from 35.6MB/s to 34.4MB/s)

CPU utilization wasn't noticably different.

 

[Gerardjg]

I picked up 1038 points in Sis soft file system benchmark, I do not notice anythimg different

 

[Armethius]

To all of you who are running that AnalogXmem program. Take it from a graduate level computer engineering student...those programs actually hurt performance.

The whole point in having RAM is that you are hoping that it will always be full, and therefore you can have a high probability of having data in it that you need. If you keep ram empty, then the cpu has to go to the hard drive all the time for data, therefore slowing the computer down.

If ram is ever needed, the OS spills some data back to the hard drive to make room

 

[Dantzig]

I've been running this for a little while now and I'm about to uninstall it. My system stability has gone downhill. I've had the Maxboost program disable itself a few times and shortly after, my system spontaneously reboots. Also, if the program disables itself and then you attempt to re-enable it, your system will reboot. The program is too buggy to justify a few points gained in some benchmarks.

 

[conehead433]

"To all of you who are running that AnalogXmem program. Take it from a graduate level computer engineering student...those programs actually hurt performance.

The whole point in having RAM is that you are hoping that it will always be full, and therefore you can have a high probability of having data in it that you need. If you keep ram empty, then the cpu has to go to the hard drive all the time for data, therefore slowing the computer down.

If ram is ever needed, the OS spills some data back to the hard drive to make room."

The point of using a memory refresher program is not to keep your RAM empty, it's to remove data already used making RAM available for new data. Windows XP does at fair job of memory management in comparison to 98SE, but having a refresher program helps when running a number of A/V processes. And if you have the program adjusted properly it doesn't interfere with tasks like CD burning, etc. Of course I could buy another 512K stick of RAM. So yes if you are trying to completely free your RAM continuously you could hurt performance, but otherwise a number of those programs work quite well thank you. In particular the AnalogX program is one of the best, and I've tried a few. Your opinion has been duly noted,
so if you are in fact a graduate level computer engineering student you can back your claim up with some empirical evidence. Obviously the results will vary depending on the levels that any program of this type is set at, including the level at which the memory refresher works and the amount of RAM the program attempts to recover, etc.

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

Originally posted by: conehead433
...Of course I could buy another 512K stick of RAM....

hmm

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: GtPrOjEcTX

Originally posted by: conehead433
...Of course I could buy another 512K stick of RAM....

hmm

 

[tedinde]

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxboost/download.cfm

It's junk everytime ive tested it for the last 8 months.

 

[kitkit201]

looks interesting , must try it out.. :shrug:!

 

[neonerd]

"Only Supports single CPU Systems, Setup will now close."

 

[Jarhead]

Armethius

Well, so much for graduate level....


When a program has memory leaks, especially under Win98, it doesn't get recovered.

Also, some programs do not release all the memory when you exit them.

This leads to less and less memory left, and it starts impacting your system.

Once you get down to no resources left, your computer starts crawling, and is prone to crashing.

These memory utilities can be a godsend for speed and stability.

Although, the MaxBoost is a pile of ....

/me kicks the grad student around the block...

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: Jarhead
Armethius

Well, so much for graduate level....


When a program has memory leaks, especially under Win98, it doesn't get recovered.

Also, some programs do not release all the memory when you exit them.

This leads to less and less memory left, and it starts impacting your system.

Once you get down to no resources left, your computer starts crawling, and is prone to crashing.

These memory utilities can be a godsend for speed and stability.

Although, the MaxBoost is a pile of ....

/me kicks the grad student around the block...

Give the man a break. He's probably a grad student here.

Valsalva

 

[fubarkid]

oh my, riverside just got dissed

 

[Cheval]

Originally posted by: fubarkid
oh my, riverside just got dissed

nm..I get it now.

 

[Cheval]

Originally posted by: Breezie
blah it also says you have to disable hyperthreading...

I guess that takes care of me trying it then...

 

[jna]

You'll find that most of the commercial software you actually use doesn't leak memory under XP. Try it yourself:

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q177/4/15.asp&NoWebContent=1

And any "memory leaks" which are not accessed will quickly migrate to the paging file. Think about it. If it doesn't *need* to be in memory, it will be swapped out for something more important (when a page fault is generated), where it will trouble you no longer, unless you truly have no clue and have page file fragments all over your disk. In which case you're certainly not competent enough to make fun of somebody who knows what they're talking about.

Originally posted by: Jarhead
Armethius

Well, so much for graduate level....


When a program has memory leaks, especially under Win98, it doesn't get recovered.

Also, some programs do not release all the memory when you exit them.

This leads to less and less memory left, and it starts impacting your system.

Once you get down to no resources left, your computer starts crawling, and is prone to crashing.

These memory utilities can be a godsend for speed and stability.

Although, the MaxBoost is a pile of ....

/me kicks the grad student around the block...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: psychochip

Originally posted by: PCPETE
What about for other brand drives?!

NOTE: The MaxBoost driver is not intended for use with non-Maxtor/Quantum drives or system configurations other than specified above. Attempting to run the MaxBoost driver on unsupported system configurations can lead to decreased system performance or inconsistent system or disk drive behavior. Also, in the event of a sudden system shutdown, data stored in your system cache and not on the drive may be lost and recovery of that data may not be possible.

Honestly, based on my prior experiences with the Promise Ultra66/Ultra100 cards, and their original 1.60 series Ultra Family Drivers (and their respective EVIAN.SYS/PTICACHE.VXD drivers for NT/Win9x), I _WOULD NOT_ install these.

Somehow, I think that these might be the Return of the Evil Promise Caching Drivers, or something. Maybe they're not, maybe Maxtor wrote them themselves, but non-MS storage-stack drivers make me very nervous.

Some of the effects that I saw, were:

1) *Reduced* system performance, under certain load conditions. Especially in low-memory situations. It seems that (at least under W2K SP2 with the Ultra66 and driver version 1.60 build 36's cache driver), that the system was much less responsive under VM thrashing conditions. I hypothesize that MS's own internal system-cache code doesn't have as much internal lock-contention (those that read LKML would understand this) as Promise's cache drivers, which would have to route several different I/O codepaths all to their single driver, probably with a single mutex or lock somewhere in their code, almost like the infamous "Win16 Mutex" in Win9x.

2) Incompatibility with "Hibernate" functionality (under W2K SP2 at least). As it turns out, because the Promise cache driver allocates system memory for storing disk-cache information, and is not considered by the OS to be a "system" disk-cache buffer instead, the contents of the Promise cache are preserved across Hibernate sessions. This is _BAD_. If you multi-boot a system, and then modify the filesystem, the "stale" filesystem cache information is STILL PRESENT in the Promise cache driver's memory blocks when resuming from Hibernate. This can lead to SEVERE filesystem corruption if you them write to the physical disk, and write out any of that stale disk-cache data. (I originally thought that this was a defect in W2K itself, and then I realized the interaction with the Promise cache drivers.)

Now, all of the above may or may not have anything to do with the new Maxtor disk-cache drivers. Hopefully not. However, I know that Maxtor uses OEM Promise controllers, and the newest available Promise Ultra Family driver, is ONLY publically available on Maxtor's site. It's not even on Promise's site. So perhaps, Maxtor and Promise might be sharing some software R&D expenses somewhere. It wouldn't surprise me to see that. Promise's own software R&D and support absolutely sucks.

If anyone has actually tried this, can you test (on a non-critical/test system), the whole hibernate/multi-boot scenario for me? I'm really curious if the Maxtor disk-cache drivers have the same defect.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: JEDI
did people complain when Smartdrv did this?

i think the main problem was that people would just hit save, then turn off their computer with the off button. since the data was cached and there was a delay in writing to the drive, the data was lost when that user shut off the power.

This is actually still a severe problem with modern systems with large onboard IDE drive caches, and fast systems, and ATX auto-power-off systems. I tend to set up most of the systems I build, with ACPI and APM disabled in the BIOS, for just this reason. I've been bitten too many times in the past by it.

I've tentatively set up my friend's new ACPI-compliant system with XP SP1 with ACPI and auto-power-off enabled. MS supposedly fixed this "issue", I guess I'll find out in a few months if the system corrupts its registry or not.

Another workaround that I use, is to enable "clear virtual-memory pagefile at shutdown", under the local machine security policies (Start->Run...->"SECPOL.MSC"). From what I can tell, Windows writes the registry back to disk, before clearing the pagefile during shutdown, so this usually gives a decent delay for the HD to write-back the registry data before powerdown. (Assuming that HD firmware's don't do aggressive sector re-ordering in the firmware, and defer writing the initial request until after the entire pagefile sector-set is written to, but this is highly unlikely. The best solution would be to add some of the SCSI command features to IDE, to enable the application of "write barriers" to I/O requests.) This acts in much the same way as the "Win98/98se shutdown fix", that simply delayed shutting down for so many milliseconds, according to a registry setting. Since MS never released a fix for NT/W2K/XP to do that, I figured mine is the next best thing. DON'T try it on 75GXP drives though, because they have a firmware issue, that if power is cut to the drive, they may not disable the "write gate" on the heads, and essentially "wipe" a magnetic path across the media while the heads retract. Not a good thing. (IBM's own datasheets for the 75GXP basically (paraphrased), say "bad things will happen, if the drive loses power during a write".)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: conehead433
"To all of you who are running that AnalogXmem program. Take it from a graduate level computer engineering student...those programs actually hurt performance.

The whole point in having RAM is that you are hoping that it will always be full, and therefore you can have a high probability of having data in it that you need. If you keep ram empty, then the cpu has to go to the hard drive all the time for data, therefore slowing the computer down.

If ram is ever needed, the OS spills some data back to the hard drive to make room."

The point of using a memory refresher program is not to keep your RAM empty, it's to remove data already used making RAM available for new data. Windows XP does at fair job of memory management in comparison to 98SE, but having a refresher program helps when running a number of A/V processes. And if you have the program adjusted properly it doesn't interfere with tasks like CD burning, etc. Of course I could buy another 512K stick of RAM. So yes if you are trying to completely free your RAM continuously you could hurt performance, but otherwise a number of those programs work quite well thank you. In particular the AnalogX program is one of the best, and I've tried a few. Your opinion has been duly noted,
so if you are in fact a graduate level computer engineering student you can back your claim up with some empirical evidence. Obviously the results will vary depending on the levels that any program of this type is set at, including the level at which the memory refresher works and the amount of RAM the program attempts to recover, etc.

My personal experience with those memory-refresher programs is that they, on the whole, do tend to hurt performance much more than help. Especially in those situations in which you would conceptually need them the most - under low-memory conditions. I found that if they kicked in, while I was burning a CD, it would cause burn-proof to activate. Not good. And when switching between a lot of apps, you would have to wait for the memory refresher to force-page the current memory out to the pagefile, and then you would have to wait for the newly-activated app to page back in from the pagefile. Statistically, those programs will cause the pagefile to be accessed much MORE, not less, which means that they also statistically slow down performance. Sure, you may get a (brief) boost in speed, if whatever program you are using needs to allocate a large bunch of free ram, and you have already pre-paged-out the existing contents of RAM to the pagefile to free up that space in RAM, before it allocates it, but on the whole, it simply thrashes the working-sets of running applications, which for best performance, statistically, should be as stable as possible in a virtual-memory OS.

(One of the reasons why Mozilla's decision to free large chunks of memory when it is minimized, and then re-allocate them when restored, is the exactly-wrong design choice, IMO, based on knowledge of VM-based OSes. Mozilla's design is broken anyways, in so many ways it's not funny, but that's another topic for another time.)

 

[InlineFive]

I have done benchmarks, this utility is useless and all it does is take up memory I think. Partially that because I can't use it with my nVidia SW IDE driver. And when paired with the Windows drivers it does just as well as the nVidia driver.

-Por