The Acard ARS-2133 IDE-to-SATA Bridge with OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD

[DieHard]

The Acard ARS-2133 with OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD

The Story Begins....

So this IDE-to-SATA Bridge is a pretty unique adapter that Chris and I have touched upon in a few other posts.  It's main advantage is that when a 2.5" SSD or Notebook Hard Drive is mounted in it, it becomes the Normal size of a 3.5" Desktop PATA Hard drive, perfect for an MDD or QuickSilver...

The ARS-2133 is an IDE-to-SATA 2.5” HDD bay adapter serving as a solution for  for IT professionals, SOHO users, industrial PCs, factory equipment, hospital equipment and professional repair technicians. For old and industrial systems that do not support SATA hard drives, the ARS-2133 can “concert” a 2.5” SATA hard drive into a 3.5” IDE hard drive. This way, users will not need to upgrade their systems for using 2.5” SATA hard drives.

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So the victim...an MDD 1.33 Ghz looking pretty sad with an OWC SSD that comes with mediocre PATA to SATA adapter connector that can come off easily (especially when mounted Vertical in an MDD). Also, it takes up extra space with it's small board and wire pigtail.



This is the standard Diehard Solo Cubase Project Studio configuration with MDD 1.33 Ghz. Single, (1) OWC SSD, (2) 500 GB PATA, 1 Powercore, 1 UAD-1, and 1 M-Audio 2496

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Here is a closer look at the OWC Madness

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Now for the Acard, bought on eBay for $49 bucks definitely not a cheap device.

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The damn thing is rock solid steel and mounts the OWC SSD perfectly in less than 1 minute !

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Now mount it in the MDD Cage...and notice it takes up no more room than the factory mechanical PATA IDE hard drive; also notice that a fast 7200 RPM, 1 TB Notebook drive with a ton of cache can also be used instead of an SSD

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Here it is next to a 500 GB PATA, sharing the same cage !



There is only 1 bummer here, the Acard has the power plug reversed, so the standard MDD dual power harness (when 1 power is reversed) will not reach, so you will have to use a pigtail if you want to put an additional standard PATA in the same MDD Cage. If you can afford 2 Acard bridges, then this will not be an issue since both power molex connectors will be in the same direction. 

I decided, in the end, to use the Acard with the SSD and simply leave it by itself and then put (2) 500 GB PATA on the other controller.  So damn neat and secure... gotta love it !

[Syntho]

Those Addonics always drove me crazy. After a while they fall out the bottom of the SSD when you have it mounted vertically.

[DieHard]

Yeah, definitely better than using double stick tape. 

I will eventually buy another Acard and mount this... $99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149524&ignorebbr=1

TOSHIBA PH2100U-1SHD 1TB + 8GB NAND Flash 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State Hybrid Drive 1 TB Notebook drive w/3 Year Warranty

Now that would be a pretty serious MDD setup, an OWC 256GB SSD and a 1 TB Rocket SATA, both low power, silent, mega fast, and on the MDD ATA-100 Controller; No PCI bandwidth loss, remember, I use a PowerCore, UAD-1, and 2496, so SATA PCI card would be a no go...

[supernova777]

Jerry.. seriously..
u have never HAD A SATA PCI CARD
i find it amazing that your logical brain has illogically assumed that u will have problems
rather then actually trying it..
makes no sense.
even worse u are openly telling someone to avoid something u havent even tested yourself!!!!!!!!
i know all your experience has led u to believe that would be the case
but the fact remains
you have not ever had a sata pci..
u are unfamiliar with their performance PERIOD let alone with their performance with your current setup..

u need to actually own one and try it before u knock it + openly tell others that its a must u avoid it... because u dont know for sure.. theres a good chance it would work fantastically. YOU HAVENT TRIED IT
i was going to send u a card... and u turned it down.

fucking get one and try it.. theres performance above your wildest dreams if u would just go out and actually TRY ONE OUT..
 buy a 64bit pci sata card
like the seritek 1v4 (for sata drives)
or a acard 6885M (for IDE drives)

190MB/s dude....  u arent even getting close to that with your SSD.. u are using like 5% of the SSD's performance.. how much do u get from your SSD with it connected to the ATA100? i bet its around no more then 100MB/s

btw great post.. lol

but wheres the benchmarks???
benchmark this sucker using ATTO ExpressProTools (found on any Protools CD)

[Syntho]

I'm running some PCI cards for my HDs on Powermacs. It works great but there are two things I don't like about it: 1) it takes from the PCI bandwidth, and 9600s are SLOW all around in the first place, and 2) the 9600 always gives me a "you didn't shut down properly" message when starting up again so I have to disable that message altogether.

I wouldn't mind running a PCI card on a G4 for this since it's undoubtedly faster and won't take away too much from the system bus, however I need those 4 PCI slots. ALL of them. So I'm gonna stick with SATA-IDE adapters.

[Syntho]

Hey Chris, have there been any benchmarks done on PCI SATA cards Vs. IDE-SATA adapters on G4s? Using the same drive? I wonder what's faster.

[supernova777]

Hey Chris, have there been any benchmarks done on PCI SATA cards Vs. IDE-SATA adapters on G4s? Using the same drive? I wonder what's faster.

yessssss
i did this extensively the last 2 weeks
check my thread on "acard 6885M benchmark results"
with 4 drives connected in a stripe configuration i broke the speed record and got 214mb/s READ
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2542.0

to skip to my conclusion:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2542.msg14992#msg14992

its a huge night + day difference..
SSD's arent even worth using if u dont have them connected via a SATA pci IMHO. because any sata3 mechanical drive can be just as fast. hard drives are way better then they used to be.. AND CHEAP.

that said.. u can use a new SATA3 mechanical drive on a sata drive to IDE host adapter no problem.. and it will work fantastically if the adapter works properly.. but pci sata will always trump it BY ALOT!!
simply because of the progress that was made in hard drive technologies just after the mdd's were produced... they really fucked us over by moving to the g5 model and making everything incompatible..
imagine they had of made a g4 that used all the other advances in tech.. up to 2005.. bloody shame

[supernova777]

in my tests i also concluded that simply using some adapters (ide-> sata, sata->ide) can somehwat reduce read/write speed .. by between 5-15mb/s

if u want to benchmark your drive right now
http://archive.digidesign.com/download/utility/

hit this page and download v2.7 of the atto expressprotools utility
it says scsi but it will benchmark any drive on ide or scsi

direct link: http://download.digidesign.com/support/digi/mac/utilities/attoept27.hqx

[supernova777]

this device could also be used to connect new cheap 2.5" sata drives to an internal controller such as the Acard 6880M + Acard 6885M
(this is much easier on the QS, DA models as the 4th pci slot lines up to the mounting and easier to use a normal ATA cable..
anyways these adapters are available much cheaper + provide compatibilty + HW RAID functionality !!!
i have one 500gb 2.5" hmm but its kinda costly to hvae to buy 2 of these card units..
easier to just a right IDE/SATA adapter on the half height 6880M!

[DieHard]

My Dear Chris...

even worse u are openly telling someone to avoid something u havent even tested yourself!!!!!!!!

I was setting up at least 20 to 25 G4 DAWs a Month with North Shore Computer in NY and YES I tried BOTH SCSI and SATA cards... both of which would cause Audio tracking issues when Multiple Powercores or Multiple UADs were used... but we did use hard drive controllers in units that had only 1 add-in PCI (like an audio interface) so I don't know why you keep thinking I never tried one; but thanks for the opinion  

And Yes... I never put one in one of my MDDs for that exact reason

u need to actually own one and try it before u knock it + openly tell others that its a must u avoid it... because u dont know for sure.. theres a good chance it would work fantastically. YOU HAVENT TRIED IT

You can surely build what ever G4 you want, my opinions or recommendations are obviously without merit, so please don't take my word as God; All 3 of my MDDs can run to 64 tracks without a hickup, so I am very happy with the HD performance and I would never get rid of either my UAD-1 or PowerCore in OS9... so again, thanks, I'l leave all the testing to you "young" more experienced guys.

This is from the last time we had to debate the PCI bandwidth stuff (just is case you guys wanted some background info.

From Diehard:
I am making this last response in reference to the whole PCI bus mastering discussion so that newbies or people building a DAW can make so quick notes to avoid problems; this is not a debate, this is just real world observations.
    The term "Bus Mastering" describes a protocol where the device itself performs the basic computations necessary to perform input/output, thus freeing the CPU for other tasks. UltraDMA (ATA-33) was the first version of IDE to fully use the Bus Mastering protocol. Bus Mastering interfaces and devices are usually faster than PIO.

From Chris:
My opinion is that was much more likely a limitation of the CPU's ability to handle and process what was being done on pci bus then the actual pci bus itself.
    Diehard.. I would bet u cash doing tests with different levels of macs would reveal the cpu to be the mitigating factor..  comparing a 450mhz sawtooth to a 933 qs to a 1.42mdd and finally a 2.0ghz upgraded cpu.. when the higher models have no issue at all would u say that its because their pci bus is "better"? seriously think back to which macs were actually in use back in the day when u recall these problems... guaranteed it was back around 1998-2001 when they had a dog of a cpu.

Diehard Response:
No, the CPU has very little to do with the issues and problems we are discussing.  Firstly, these issues on older hardware is not unique to macs... remember, back in 2003, my company not only made between 5 to 15 DAWs a week, but we also made Novell Servers (we were Novell Gold certified) on rack based PCs that served both PCs and Macs.  Some of our accounts in New York City had between 100 to 150 workstations both mac and PC connecting to a single server to store files, these systems worked great as long as guidelines with the PCI bus were established.

So, now I'll get to the point, these systems (with not much CPU power) worked perfectly as long as there were ONLY 1 to 2 Bus mastering cards installed in the server... additional SCSI cards used for Tape storage and other media were all either configured as non-bus mastering, or were created from the factory as non-bus mastering cards. (Sometimes the NIC cards were bus mastering also).  The point is that the moment too many bus mastering PCI cards were used, all sorts of performance issues on the server would crop up; including slow Hard drive writes, NIC packet issues, and many other problems. Remember, to add to the confusion, some cards can be either be configured as bus mastering or not and some systems have dedicated non-bus mastering slots... so read about the actual cards and system you have.

Back to the Macs... the issue regarding too many Bus mastering PCI cards that tax the PCI bus are very real on ALL MODELS OF POWERMAC G4s from Sawtooth thru MDD EVEN with CPU upgrades; hope that makes it clear enough. On newer macs (like a Mac Pro with snow leopard), this, or course is NOT an issue.  We are specifically talking about older Mac Hardware in the G4 era.

From Knez:
The PCI bus of the MDD for example is connected to the same controller as the ATA100 controller, but they do not share bandwidth in any other way. Tons of activity on the ATA100 controller does NOT slow down the PCI stuff. Adding a controller to the PCI bus makes it use up bandwith there insted of where it's "supposed to be", and thus leaves less bandwidth to the other stuff on therse.

From Diehard:
This is 100% correct and that is why my MDD systems that all have a UAD-1, PowerCore, and Audio Interface PCI card, all have an SSD drive on on the ATA bus, NOT a SATA card.  So the bus mastering of the internal IDE is done by the CPU itself, while the cards do their own, this balances the load on a fast G4 very well with disk I/O bus mastering being done by the CPU and audio data blocks being done by the bus mastering PCI Audio interface
so to summarize...

To all reading these crazy posts that want some real-world guideline and NOT opinions and theories; as a rule of thumb (without going into specific G4 models and configurations that I have tested and built for DAWs)

1) Keep the number on Bus mastering PCI cards (Like SATA, Audio Interfaces, and SCSI) to a Max of 2, in rare cases 3, but test the system; (non bus mastering PCI cards like extra USB will have no effect and add as many as you want, research or test each card)
2) If your interface is FW, then SATA/SCSI Cards will be fine and not cause any issues
3) Always Initially test the system with just Hard Drive I/O and Audio interface, then add cards like PowerCores, UAD-1, and other PCI one at a time and test again

[MacTron]

Chris have done good bandwidth test, but my picture is pretty clear, I think:



In my opinion only the 64 bits Seritek is worthy, but I usually prefer the SATA to PATA adapters.
Why?
Because are cheap, (the good ones cost around 10 $ and the bad ones around 3$), it don't use PCI bandwidth (in some G4's). And If you are using a SSD with it, even though the bandwidth will be a bit low, you still enjoy one of the best benefits of a SSD: the fast data access time.

Of course if you plan to use a SATA DVD recorder, SATA to PATA adapters are the absolute best option.

[supernova777]

keep in mind mactrons graph is for single drive only.
the speeds in alot of my benchmarks are because of using hardware raid.. (acard 6890M, acard 6880M, acard 6885M)
to achieve even faster speeds by combining more than one drive into raid that is seen as one device to the os.

[DieHard]

Wow... it appears the ARS-2133 has gone up from $49 to $99 !

I think that is ridiculously overpriced (even though it is very high quality)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ACARD-ARS-2133-IDE-PATA-to-SATA-HDD-SSD-Bridge-Adapter-/262023348622?hash=item3d01cf018e:g:iPQAAOxy3zNSeWXA

I was hoping to get another one of these

If anyone knows of a similar IDE to SATA bridge (that has the same form factor as a IDE desktop hard drive) please post here

[Protools5LEGuy]

  People are using velcro and the 3-10 bucks adapter with 2.5 inches drives. I have a 7200 rpm 2.5 drive that cant be feed with some Usb 2.0 adapters. But all 5400 can.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Did that hybrid drive worked under 9?

[DieHard]

Did that hybrid drive worked under 9?

Never tried the hybrid drive... that was my next project

People are using velcro and the 3-10 bucks adapter with 2.5 inches drives.

Guess I'll be a Velcro user also at those new Acard prices

[DieHard]

Wow, just checked eBay and the Acard ARS-2133 IDE-to-SATA Bridge is Still holding at $99 plus shipping !

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ACARD-ARS-2133-IDE-PATA-to-SATA-HDD-SSD-Bridge-Adapter-/262023348622?hash=item3d01cf018e:g:iPQAAOxy3zNSeWXA

That price is crazy !

I need one for a client, so if anyone knows of a similar product (not just an adapter, but a tray/adapter that emulates the perfect size of an IDE desktop drive), please post

[geforceg4]

Wow, just checked eBay and the Acard ARS-2133 IDE-to-SATA Bridge is Still holding at $99 plus shipping !

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ACARD-ARS-2133-IDE-PATA-to-SATA-HDD-SSD-Bridge-Adapter-/262023348622?hash=item3d01cf018e:g:iPQAAOxy3zNSeWXA

That price is crazy !

I need one for a client, so if anyone knows of a similar product (not just an adapter, but a tray/adapter that emulates the perfect size of an IDE desktop drive), please post

yep 2san is based in USA, cali i think? i spoke with them before, they will never lower their prices they have taken over the old stock of ACARD and they want to get $PAID$ they dont care about clearing it out at lower cost they will raise the price if anything
http://www.2san.com/english/company.jsp

[MacTron]

...
In my opinion only the 64 bits Seritek is worthy, but I usually prefer the SATA to PATA adapters.
Why?
Because are cheap, (the good ones cost around 10 $ and the bad ones around 3$), it don't use PCI bandwidth (in some G4's). And If you are using a SSD with it, even though the bandwidth will be a bit low, you still enjoy one of the best benefits of a SSD: the fast data access time.

Of course if you plan to use a SATA DVD recorder, SATA to PATA adapters are the absolute best option.

[macStuff]

Wow... it appears the ARS-2133 has gone up from $49 to $99 !

I think that is ridiculously overpriced (even though it is very high quality)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ACARD-ARS-2133-IDE-PATA-to-SATA-HDD-SSD-Bridge-Adapter-/262023348622?hash=item3d01cf018e:g:iPQAAOxy3zNSeWXA

I was hoping to get another one of these

If anyone knows of a similar IDE to SATA bridge (that has the same form factor as a IDE desktop hard drive) please post here

LOL! its at 199$ now.. wtf???