USB to IDE Benchmarks

[V00D00]

edit

 

[StormRider]

Wow! Very nice review! I'm impressed!

 

[Old Hippie]

I really liked the use of color in the graphs. Nice Job. :thumbsup:

 

[Goi]

Would be good if they had NEC and Oxford chips in the mix too. Anyway I'd take Cypress over the rest of them.

 

[V00D00]

If you can find some cheap enclosures with those chipsets, I'll be glad to buy them and test them.

 

[Goi]

I actually have a few 2.5"/3.5" drive enclosures with Cypress, Alcor Micro, Genesys(not Genesis), Myson Century and new ones with Oxford that I haven't tested yet, but since I'm using different HDDs & benchmarks our numbers won't be directly comparable. Unfortunately I don't know which drive enclosures use which bridge chips, but I do know that most that use Oxford chips aren't cheap. I think there might be some cheap ones with NEC chips.

btw what are your system specs for the bench rig?

 

[V00D00]

Yes, I should have put the system specs. It's certainly a unique setup.
915GM Speedster-FA4
2.13ghz Pentium M 770 (dothan)
512mb PC2-4300 DDR2
915GM Northbridge
ICH6R Southbridge

Alright, here we go. I'll get these enclosures to add to the benchmarks:
Myson:
http://www.dealsonic.com/criosy3alfau.html
NEC:
http://www.dealsonic.com/neon5blnecch.html

According to the oxford website, they only make a USB to SATA chipset. The only IDE chipsets are for firewire.

 

[Goi]

Wow, you're really dedicated to this endeavor huh? Nice...I'll bookmark your page...

Try ATTO Benchmark too. It's a pretty cool synthetic benchmark that I use. You can specify transfer sizes etc, and even do data integrity checking by comparing I/O.

I wonder if various designs using the same bridge chip has any difference. I know for a fact that the Cypress chip can be used as an AT2LP or in backward compatibility mode. The Cypress enclosures that I've come across all use it in backward compatibility mode. Wonder if that matters. Also stuff like board design, component choice, even the USB cable provided...might make a slight difference.

Oh and you didn't mention what HDD you're using?

 

[V00D00]

Originally posted by: Goi

Oh and you didn't mention what HDD you're using?

Yes that's in there. But I need to add benchmarks for the drive on a native IDE connector.

I'm not sure how much board design can matter. It's so small at that point. I can't be sure if I used the same cable throughout all the tests. I'm sure a low quality cable can play with the signal, even if it's minimal. I definitely want to eliminate as many confounding factors as possible.

 

[Goi]

Oh OK...it's in the middle so I didn't see it. Anyway, I noticed you said you fried the AC adapter as well as 1 of your drives. Was that a 2.5" or 3.5" enclosure? From the picture it looks like a 3.5"? I've had a similar incident on my Myson chip based 2.5" enclosure. I used one of those USB to 1.3mm jack converters, and it took once of my drives out. Strangely the enclosure itself was still working though. I think it has to do with the fact that most 2.5" drive enclosures simply short the 5V inputs of both the USB connector and DC jack, so when you connect both USB and power cable, there's a slight chance that the potential difference between them may damage components and/or your drive.

 

[V00D00]

It was the usb to ide "cable style" adapter. The power unit was independant of the usb to ide device. The device still works fine, it's just the power adapter that crapped out.