Does a CPU have an effect on PCI speed?

[Syntho]

File copying in my G4 is a breeze but it's a little different on my 9600. I'm only getting a couple MB/sec when transferring files from different partitions on my PCI SATA card with an SSD, and it's no better copying from that drive to/from my SCSI HD. The SCSI bus is supposedly 10MB/sec max but I still get 2MB/sec or so.

Maybe the CPU speed has something to do with how fast it is? I believe the system bus on a 9600 is only 50mhz too so maybe that has something to do with it.

[supernova777]

what do u expect from a 50 MHz bus 
its the connecting technologies... the data rate moving between the components.. look at this old hunk of junk
blame texas instruments.. every chip on the mb has a texas instruments logo hahah  ok i see one AMD chip
1997 what a blast from the past 17 years old..

this is probably why the blue & white g3 was such an instant success.. faster data throughput then any of the old beige beasts
i got my g3 rockin the 8.6 live 1.0 + reason 1.0 + cubase 4.1 its so fast with 8.6 i love it i might actually get some use out of it + the gina 20bit card sounds so dope

[supernova777]

hey do u have the cmd - option ability to screen grab in your 8.6??

[Syntho]

I do.

[IIO]

the RAM speed might come into account, maybe more than the CPU.

2 mb sounds pretty slow ... on my powermac 7300 i got 35 mb/s when copying between firewire disks ... which was the max speed of these HDs.  think like that: if you could only read data with 2 mb/s, this computer would hardly be enough to do audio recoding, isnt it?

[Syntho]

This is what's confusing me. It should be much faster as far as file copying. The SCSI bus is 10MB/sec so the PCI SATA drives should copy a lot faster than that.

[supernova777]

your only getting 2mb/s from the pci sata???
that aint right

how are u measuring mb/s?

[Syntho]

I'm looking at the amount of data copied when copying a large file, like an ISO.

[IIO]

i dont know offhand what PCI is in these computers, but even the slowest PCI with 33 Mhz offers up tp 133 mb/s bandwidth.

or in other words: the bottleneck will probably be the RAM, which should have around 70mb/s or so.

[Syntho]

I just ran some proper speed tests. I have a Sonnet SATA card in my 9600 and when copying a 500MB file from an older 1TB SATA drive onto my SSD, I was getting almost 6MB/sec. Then I tried copying the same 500MB file from one directory on the SSD to another and it reached 10MB/sec.

10MB/sec is the maximum limit for the SCSI drives... maybe the 9600 recognizes the SATA card as a SCSI controller and won't let it go past 10MB/sec?

[Syntho]

I was getting roughly 10MB/sec on the SSD but this test seems a bit better. However that SCSI drive seems way slow for what it is.

[supernova777]

ive never had a 9600 but that sounds like something is wrong there
10mb/s on an ssd is pretty fuckin hurting.

my sata card is also seen as a scsi card, and i get speeds of 10x that.

[MacTron]

The PCI speed is a "hardware setting" usually depend on the uninorth abilities and motherboard design.
But as any other computer process it also depends more or less on the speed of the other components involved. So in a file copy, the speed of the medium (HD, SSD...), the connection (SCSI, ATA,SATA...) the PCI bus, the memory bus, the CPU bus, the CPU, the cache memory and cache bus speed ...
Some of us use G4 MDDs not for the sound of its cooling fans, LOL, but because the best in all of those components (and more) are on the G4 MDD. That's why this is the best choice for running Mac Os 9.
I also have a beloved collection of legacy Mac Os computers, including a great 8600 ( with a G3@500 broken since those SATA test ...   ), but for real work ...

[supernova777]

a 9600 with 10mb/s file transfers would be 100% useless for me..
any pci bus should be capable of alot faster speeds then that..

i suggest u ask other 9600 owners on another board.
perhaps on macintoshgarden or 68kmla

i personally think there mus be something else wrong..
and that the pic bus of the 9600 should be capable of greater speeds then that
otherwise my sata sonnet box + paperwork would have some sort of disclaimer
claiming lower speeds on the older pci macs which it definately does not
i have the original box for the sonnet sata card in frnt of me now
it clearly says "transfers dataa at 1.5gbps per port" & "Supports booting from any attached drive"
10mb/s is a long way from 1.5gbps

1.5gbps is equal to 187MB/s according to http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/data_transfer_rate/dgigabitps.html

one thing it DOES SAY is that it requires MAC OS 9 thru 9.2
so the card is not supposed to be used with mac os 7.5.1 as you are doing
and if you are using it with 8.6 then, in the same fashion as i had to upgrade some of the extensions for firewire to mac os 9 versions to get my firewire drive working properly on mac os 8.6 on my b&W + sawtooth machines.. there may be some other extensions
or software reason as to whats limiting your performance to sucha  low number.

have u tried the same card + measured performance in the 9600 with a 9.2.2 installation?

if u can remember this is why i reccommended the ACARD ata-133 IDE raid card
http://dl.acard.com/manual/english/6880M%28E%29.pdf

because it supports 8.6 officially.. whereas the sonnet sata does not.
i TOLD u over and over.. to use this acard 6880m card.. and that it would also let u have 4 devices (2 more then the 2 supplied by the sonnet) the sonnet card is for mac os 9 machines ONLY.

[supernova777]

***update
ive just checked some printed material in the box and it lists
"Mac OS 8.6 through 9.2.x"
in the system requirements

[Syntho]

Chris, remember that thread you posted with a chart that shows how much data audio tracks occupy as far as streaming and hard drive space? I can't find that thread anywhere. I want to see that chart again.

[Syntho]

Found a better one http://www.audiomountain.com/tech/audio-file-size.html