Mac OS 9 Lives

Mac OS 9 Discussion => Hardware => Storage => Topic started by: MacTron on March 19, 2014, 04:02:17 PM

Title: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: MacTron on March 19, 2014, 04:02:17 PM
64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
I put two SSD (Samsumg SSD 840 120 GB) in RAID 0 (stripe)  mode connected to a Seritek 1eVE2+2

(http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/SeriTek1VE2plus2.jpg)(http://e3io.com/Content/Images/components/ssd_2x_samsung_840.jpg)
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/pr/launch/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1EVE22/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1EVE22/Compatibility

And it achieve a 190 MB/s of transfer rate!

This is clear over the 133 MB/s of peak transfer rate on the  32 bit bus. So the card and the PCI bus was working at 64 bits!

I know this is far from the max peak transfer rate on the 64 bits (266 MB/s) but the working 64 bits PCI on the G4 are at last confirmed!
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 19, 2014, 04:35:51 PM
very cool.. taking g4s into the next level  -afro-

i will see about testing a highpoint pci-x raid controller
wait -- how did u implement the raid0?
it says its supported by third party software??

are u booting from the raid0 too?

my sawtooth g4 is much much faster over pci 32bit sata with a normal seagate sata2 drive

i will have to test the acard 32bit 6890m hardware raid card very soon... maybe i will buy a few new ssd just for test then return LOL
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 19, 2014, 06:07:22 PM
The average PowerMac user in 2014 spend 10 Euros on a chinese generic SIL 3112 33Mhz pci for 2 sata port for use it at 40/70 Mb/s. It is required to flash it on a PC. I am afraid to ask how much did you spend in this SATA interface.
 
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1690231 (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1690231)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350942606508?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

From the years I studied Video Edition, DV codec video "waste" 25Mb/s for every layer. 190Mb/s means 7-8 DV video layers...   8) -afro- 8)

In Audio is a Quantum Leap. For sure it let you use in Logic 8-16 tracks in 192kHz audio.

I was afraid after hearing DieHard and others that ANY pci-to-ide or pci-to-sata interface "eats"  too many bandwith that could lead to audio drops.

I have the feeling that a PowerMac with all the pci ports ocupied is less stable than one with a AGP card and a sound card. Maybe is my PSU. Maybe less component lead to less possible failures.

Show us your G4 setup (I guess is a MDD dual at 1.48-1.8), yours pci cards used at the same time. Maybe is just a question of get rid of garbage pci cards.

I readed somewhere that in Magma chassis setup you should not install a pci to scsi-ata-sata in the chassis. It should be installed inside the PM.

In the past I filled every pci socket on my GHz dual. Now I feel a barebone G4 Digital Audio is enought to 24 tracks@[email protected] with the stock ATA-66 for audio and the boot disk under the CD. (In this way you can access later the IDE-0 disk booting in Transfer Disk Mode)

On the other hand given the price of the seritek and the price of 2 SSD@120gb perhaps for a RAID setup is cheaper 2 (or 3) 33Mhz sil 3112 pci cards.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 19, 2014, 06:42:13 PM
In the past I filled every pci socket on my GHz dual. Now I feel a barebone G4 Digital Audio is enought to 24 tracks@[email protected] with the stock ATA-66 for audio and the boot disk under the CD. (In this way you can access later the IDE-0 disk booting in Transfer Disk Mode)

On the other hand given the price of the seritek and the price of 2 SSD@120gb perhaps for a RAID setup is cheaper 2 (or 3) 33Mhz sil 3112 pci cards.

pretty sure sata1 vs ATA-66 there is no comparison.. in my opinion any g3 or g4 will run better +faster using pci-sata card
for boot disk rather then using the ancient ATA-66 IDE connection.
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/9908/990823ata66vs33a.html

^ according to this article 66 means simply top speed of 66mb/s, 33= 33mb/s, same for 100, 133 etc

 my sawtooth g4 AGP 450mhz runs so much nicer now that
i cloned the drive to the sata2 hard drive connected via PCI-SAta interface.
ata-66 ancient technology man... we are talking what.. 1997? and its the biggest weakness of the machine imo.. the weakest link.. stopping performance..
im sure new young techno-kids would say the weakeest link is the cpu .. for hte years 2000-2005 the slowest part of a computer
has always been the disk performance... now that we have sata2 + sata3 capable hard drives... why would u run ata-66?
they outperform ATA-66 by so much

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/9908/990823ata66vs33b.html
lol Quantum fireball. i havent heard thse words in forever;) lol

according to these articles
ata-33= 1997
ata-66= 1999
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 19, 2014, 08:16:09 PM

 now that we have sata2 + sata3 capable hard drives... why would u run ata-66?
they outperform ATA-66 by so much


I keep my Sata drives on intels. Ata and SCSI on PMs
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 19, 2014, 08:39:13 PM
I think ONBOARD ata-66 with a "classic" ata 3.5" 7200 rpm with 8 mb cache can give sustained 24 tracks and keep a free pci...

I could be wrong.  ;D

I don´t force PT in OS9 to work more than 8/17 tracks (Audio Click).
Be there demo from protools LE runs even on a 5400 rpm drive.

I did not test enought my Audiophile 24/96 on OS9, but 4 audio streams at 24bits @96kHz is just same as 8 audio streams 24bits@48kHz.

I guess with this Seritek 1eVE2+2 you can make a HUGE sampler and take the machine to a higher ground. Congratz Mactron!
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 19, 2014, 08:46:20 PM
I think ONBOARD ata-66 with a "classic" ata 3.5" 7200 rpm with 8 mb cache can give sustained 24 tracks and keep a free pci...

I could be wrong.  ;D

I don´t force PT in OS9 to work more than 8/17 tracks (Audio Click).
Be there demo from protools LE runs even on a 5400 rpm drive.

which machien are you talking about with this no pci card theory?
honestly i think your thinking is REALLY backwards on this... !
WHICH machine are u talking about having audio problems at 8 tracks?

this could be related to RAM (see my post recently about having ram sticks that are from different manufacturers)
could be related to using a disk that has poor performance

i would say its a combination of both of those things...
but usually MOST OF MY problems with computers have alwayst been related to poor disks
hard drives in general i dotn trust ..thats why its important for me to have SATA
so i can buy a new drive and replace if i need t
in my area a brand new 80gb drive can be bought at the store for 15$ now
brand new SATA2 (maybe even sata3?)

try a brand new SATA2/3 hard drive + clean matched ram
on any machine i  think this would fix problems such as that.. dont try to leave the pci bus empty.. that makes no sense??
by the same logic u might aswell leave hte machine powered off and dont use the Power supply  ;D lol

I did not test enought my Audiophile 24/96 on OS9, but 4 audio streams at 24bits @96kHz is just same as 8 audio streams 24bits@48kHz.

I guess with this Seritek 1eVE2+2 you can make a HUGE sampler and take the machine to a higher ground. Congratz Mactron!

u wait untill i post tests of SSD Raid 0 on my ACARD 6890M card.. which is only 32bit PCI and we will see if it is
indeed limited to 133mb/s as mactron has theorized.. i have a hunch this is incorrect and that this card will outperform this limitation.. but.. he may be right.. or he may not be;) we will see shortly when i try this with 2 ssd..
perhaps i will even buy the same brand + model of SSD that he did to make it a proper fair test.

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/SeriTek1VE2plus2.jpg
vs
http://www.macway.com/images/products_new/CAR/ACA/CARACA0001/CARACA0001_zoom_MW_0.jpg

these 32bit pci sata cards promise 1.5Gbit/s *PER PORT*
so that means using both ports in raid0 = 300MB/s
but that is top potential theoretical i think
but let me pause to review some facts:

Quote
SATA revision 1.0 - 1.5 Gbit/s - 150 MB/s
SATA revision 2.0 - 3.0 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s
SATA revision 3.0 - 6.0 Gbit/s - 600 MB/s
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
Conventional PCI buses operate with the following bandwidths:

    PCI 32-bit, 33 MHz: 1067 Mbit/s or 133.33 MB/s
    PCI 32-bit, 66 MHz: 266 MB/s
    PCI 64-bit, 33 MHz: 266 MB/s
    PCI 64-bit, 66 MHz: 533 MB/s

this page talks about a pci-x v2.0 spec that actually added support for PCI-X
Quote
In 2003, the PCI SIG ratified PCI-X 2.0. It adds 266-MHz and 533-MHz variants, yielding roughly 2,132 MB/s and 4,266 MB/s throughput, respectively. ---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI-X
but it appears that the world skipped this pci-x v2.0 and went straight to pci-express, so it seems they basically took this technology + shrunk it down to have a smaller connector + called it pci-e express

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths#Computer_buses

    SATA (SATA-150): 150 MB/s
    SATA (SATA-300): 300 MB/s
    Fast Ethernet (100base-X): 11.6 MB/s
    Gig-E (1000base-X): 125 MB/s

and remember this image:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/PCI_Keying.png/400px-PCI_Keying.png)

as u can see we are really talking about
32 bit card (my acard 6890m)
vs
64 bit card (mactrons firmtek)

but mactron is thinking that my 32bit card is limited to 33mhz which isnt the case
as u can see:
PCI 32-bit, 66 MHz: 266 MB/s
the top speed for 32 bit card is actually 266mb/s in 66mhz mode
(thats why they promise 1.5gb/s per port but in reality this would be closer 133mb/s per port if both ports being used at the same time nad thats why u will never see a sata2 3g/s 32bit pci card because its impossible unless the card only has one port and even then it would be *under* the spec of sata2 by about 40mb/s)
which is the same as the 64bit card if the 64bit is being used at 33Mhz..
(which it probably isnt)
so this means that this 190mb/s mactron achieved is NOWHERE NEAR THE POTENTIAL OF THIS CARD
PCI 64-bit, 66 MHz: 533 MB/s
as top speed for 64bit card at 66mhz would be: 533 MB/s
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 19, 2014, 09:40:16 PM


which machien are you talking about with this no pci card theory?
honestly i think your thinking is REALLY backwards on this... !
WHICH machine are u talking about having audio problems at 8 tracks?


I dare you to install a Guillemot Maxi Sound Isis on a Amd or a Via chipset.  ;D ;D ;D ;D

I have no problem with my PowerMacs. I dont force them too...When they dont bong I reset PRAM 3 times and they live again like if they where frozen in 2002!

I open protools with digi001, create 8 aux and route analog to ADAT with a PMG3@350MHz. I use my G3 as "analog-adat converter" and dont need more bandwidth there.

My GHz dual is my "DSP factory" with an AudiomediaIII and a Audiophile24/96 Logic/Protools Os9/OsX. Before the 001 was there. This machine sometimes is my "BigBen" with the infamous clock from the AMIII on my Focusrite Liquid Saphire 56 via SPDIF. When I use inside protools 5 virtual instruments at direct connect 128 the computer gets to its knees. I prefer use PT as multitrack in PT9 AND use Virtual Instruments from Mac OS9 via Logic with 2 computers. One Multitracker with SATA-2 native, Quad processor for RTAS, UAD-1 with latency compensated. And the DSP and character of all MacOS9 goodness in logic 6 spice and protools rtas I can run. I have 3 DAWs all rooted. If I booted them all in OSX I would not need any midi interface because I have them all networked. I am happy to have enough AudioInterfaces for all my machines.   8)
I will put all Mactron 32 gigs and the rest on it.  All my powermacs have no monitor. I access them thru VNC. This will make my G4 the best sampler ever saw on a DigitalAudio box.   ;D ;D ;D
Sorry been off-topic.

Next winter I will try a RAID-0 setup with 4 IDE 7200 drives on a MDD the ATA66 and ATA100 having boot on the CD-ROM caddy just to see MB/s can give a softraid.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 19, 2014, 09:53:08 PM

Next winter I will try a RAID-0 setup with 4 IDE 7200 drives on a MDD the ATA66 and ATA100 having boot on the CD-ROM caddy just to see MB/s can give a softraid.


A 5 IDE Raid-0 is also possible using the full cd caddy, but should be the bottleneck. So my test will be 4 ide Raid-0
A n-array raid setup is n-times as fast as the slowest drive. A 4 drive ata66/100 setup should be 4x the speed of a ata66 port, so should peak with SSD-ATA drives at 66+66=132. I will make with 7200rpm drives
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 19, 2014, 10:30:03 PM

Next winter I will try a RAID-0 setup with 4 IDE 7200 drives on a MDD the ATA66 and ATA100 having boot on the CD-ROM caddy just to see MB/s can give a softraid.


A 5 IDE Raid-0 is also possible using the full cd caddy, but should be the bottleneck. So my test will be 4 ide Raid-0
A n-array raid setup is n-times as fast as the slowest drive. A 4 drive ata66/100 setup should be 4x the speed of a ata66 port, so should peak with SSD-ATA drives at 66+66=132. I will make with 7200rpm drives

i have a 4x 7200 RPM RAID5 on xp that i just built the otehr day.. but i am getting one more harddrive to make all 4 drives the exact same WD2500JB model for consistancy..
i can do some speed tests but i woudlnt expect that it would be mindblowing!! i think they are connected to a ata-66 or ata-100 port definately not a ATA133..

i have read articles just in the last week stating (and showing benchmarks proving) that ATA devices are so slow that there is virtually NO BENEFIT AT ALL to running IDE devices in RAID other then to join the disks capacity.. speed wise.. they operate at the same speed if not slower then a single drive ... and these were articles that were made in around 2001-2002.... because all hard drives around that time were just.. not that great at all.. the reason why people even in 2000/2001/2002 still had use for SCSI drives that were actually still faster then ATA drives..
because ata drives SUCKED untill when?? probably around 2003 they started to get better?
id like to look that up.. ie: approximately what time did ATA drives surpass SCSI drive for performance?

Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Knezzen on March 20, 2014, 12:21:53 AM
At least when it comes to tracking, im pretty sure that two PATA drives (preferably 7200rpm) is enough.
I have a 120gb 7200rpm for system and apps and one 250gb 7200rpm for audio and recording.

This is enough for me and my MDD to be able to record 64 mono tracks or 32 stereo tracks at the same time in 48khz and 24bit.
I have though about getting SSD's or RAID two rotating drives on a SATA card, but I can't justify it since what I have now works without any problems :)

Sorry If I went off topic, just wanted to share my experiences.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Jakl on March 20, 2014, 01:00:36 AM
This question is for Mactron: Is this all on Macos9?
If so what RAID software system are you using?

Thanks
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 20, 2014, 05:55:58 AM
The average PowerMac user in 2014 spend 10 Euros on a chinese generic SIL 3112 33Mhz pci for 2 sata port for use it at 40/70 Mb/s. It is required to flash it on a PC. I am afraid to ask how much did you spend in this SATA interface.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1690231

interesting that u post this, it seems they have taken the firmware from this card:

CRU / WIEBETECH
(http://www.pcsuperstore.com/prod-img/cru-tcs2-0-10574347-image.jpg)
http://www.pcsuperstore.com/products/10574347-CRU-TCS20.html
Call for Availability

Item Number: q90239
Vendor Number: 30300-0400-0000
Vendor: CRU-WIEBETECH

i was previously unaware of this card.. even tho its mostly about the cards bios firmware,
looking closely at the transistor/capacitor layout on this card its very similar to the ones that i have that were programmed for me by "dougg3" http://www.downtowndougbrown.com/ a guy from
the 68k mac forums site... (u can see the original thread that resulted in that here: https://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21488)
he said he had to physically change the bios chip to be able to fit the FIRMTEK/SERITEK firmware onto the card..
the firmtek/seritek firmware is the best for os9 because u can boot from both ports
from what i read on that thread... it seems only one of the ports is bootable on the weibetech firmware..
but it seems it is bootable! at least in X... not sure if the people who posted were talking of X or 9..
the screenshots would suggest that they are only trying to boot X. we should try to contact http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?u=612797
as hes a member of our forums as well http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=profile;u=5 and he would know the details for sure. whether this card is capable to boot 9.
but im pretty sure that simply flashing a 3112 card with this firmware isnt equivelent to the firmtek/seritek os9 firmware
and like i said from what i was told the actual bios chip needed to be changed to be able to flash the rom as its bigger in size and was unable to be reduced in size by people who tried to make it fit. but this is all offtopic from this thread..  and deserves its own thread;)

but one things for certain, my SIL3112 card is on duty right now in my powermac g4 sawtooth, and its booting os 9.2 thats for sure;)
but if i look at this card in osx, it will say SeriTek1S2 as the identifier and it thinks its a 1S2 firmtek card
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1s2/
(http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1s2/SeriTek.jpg)

as u can see visually very similar to the wiebetech/cru card above.. they are all similar to each other its the firmware/bios that makes the difference
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 20, 2014, 08:03:58 AM
i referred back to the original thread where we started discussing this just now (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=306.0)

Quote
quote from everymac.com re: g4 450mhz
"In the default configuration, this model has three open 33 MHz 64-bit PCI slots, and a 133 MHz 2X AGP slot occupied by the graphics card. It also has an open AirPort (802.11b) expansion slot."
so that is why these are not pci-x slots.. because pci-x is 66mhz 64-bit i think?

and it seems that these slots are not 66mhz at all.. so my theory of  266mb/s for a 32 bit card is not possible in a g4 apparently!  (but would be possible if the 32bit card was put into a 66mhz capable slot such as those in any 2003+ pc motherboard or a g5 slot is probably 66mhz capable at 32bit)
so that means that mactrons pci-x card, while compatible with a g4, is functioning at its lowest speed thruput (33mhz operation), and would work much faster in a non-g4 computer (such as a g5.. )
Quote
  PCI 64-bit, 33 MHz: 266 MB/s
    PCI 64-bit, 66 MHz: 533 MB/s --speed it would work at in a 66mhz capable slot

if we take a look at (for example) my g5s specs:
(http://www.everymac.com/images/cpu_pictures/apple_powermac_g5.jpg)(http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mac/macpro/g5-pcislots.jpg)
Quote
This model has "three open full-length PCI-X slots: one 133MHz, 64-bit slot and two 100MHz, 64-bit slots", an 8X AGP Pro slot that "supports up to 2-GBps data throughput" and is occupied by the graphics card, as well as expansion slots for AirPort Extreme (802.11g) and Bluetooth 1.1. --source: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powermac_g5_1.8.html

so the slots in g5 are able to operate at these higher 100+ mhz speeds.. strange they seemed to skip over 66mhz speed slots entirely.. as even the last mdds all had 33mhz slots..
and then the g5s.. they made with 100-133mhz slots..

but one thing is for sure.. my 32bit card would perform better in a g5.. so if i can get a 64bit card to run in my g4..and put the existing card i have in a g5.. they would both run at 266mb/s.. as the 32bit card running at 66mhz.. and the 64bit card running at 33mhz.. would be equal in performance.

i found this image depicting which slots are which speed on pci-x g5's
(http://flylib.com/books/2/193/1/html/2/images/636fig01.jpg)

Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 20, 2014, 09:42:33 AM
the sonnet tempo-x is the ultimate 64bit card, with 4 internal connections + 4 external connections
http://www.sonnettech.com/publicfiles/pdfs/pdf_datasheets/tempo-x_esata44_datasheet.pdf
mac + Windows compatible too!

^^ oops this is OSX only i think.. my bad :(

so.. seritek1s2 = sonnet tempo YES EQUAL
seritek 1v4 etc  != tempo-x, E4P NOT EQUAL

so yea the only card for 64bit 33mhz operation in g4's are the firmtek cards... cant find any other ones anywhere that claim mac os 9 compatibility
i find that kind of annoying that the only one that works can only be bought for 130$ from owc.. ugh

(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/kSIAAOxygPtSwxoq/$_57.JPG)
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: MacTron on March 20, 2014, 10:11:31 AM
This question is for Mactron: Is this all on Macos9?
Of course. I'm not a troll.  What's the point of doing it on Windows 8 or Mac os X? for me it is zero.

Quote
If so what RAID software system are you using?
Thanks
SoftRaid 2.2.2

are u booting from the raid0 too?
The two SSDs have a Raid 1 partition to boot and a second partition in Raid 0 that can't be used to boot AFAIK.

I was afraid after hearing DieHard and others that ANY pci-to-ide or pci-to-sata interface "eats"  too many bandwith that could lead to audio drops.
This is true.
Even using a standard IDE motherboard connector, but ATA 100 on the MDD (that goes into different PCI BUS).
The real impact on this, depend on how many audio tracks are traveling along the PCI BUS.

It doesn't matter if some cards can work on a 33/66/133 Mhz PCI bus. Installed on a Mac G4 it ALWAYS run at 33 Mhz (unless overclocked PCI bus)
The only difference is if work at 32 or 64 bits.
If works at 32 bits (short connector) the max bus transfer rate is 133 MB/s
If works at 64 bits (long connector) the max bus transfer rate is 266 MB/s

I just test that the last was true.
No more :)

The Sil3112 cards are all 32 bits and need a 2 or 4 Mbits EPROM, so a EPROM change and reflash is usually needed, unless you are lucky enought to find one with this big EPROM :(
The "little" EPROM reflash doesn't supports Mac Os 9. AFAIK
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 20, 2014, 05:49:51 PM


I was afraid after hearing DieHard and others that ANY pci-to-ide or pci-to-sata interface "eats"  too many bandwith that could lead to audio drops.
This is true.
Even using a standard IDE motherboard connector, but ATA 100 on the MDD (that goes into different PCI BUS).
The real impact on this, depend on how many audio tracks are traveling along the PCI BUS.

It doesn't matter if some cards can work on a 33/66/133 Mhz PCI bus. Installed on a Mac G4 it ALWAYS run at 33 Mhz (unless overclocked PCI bus)
The only difference is if work at 32 or 64 bits.


There is a exception. Non-agp PowerMacs where " The ATI Rage 128 graphics card with 16 MB of SDRAM occupies a 66 MHz PCI slot " http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html)
Maybe a headless system can use it at 66 MHz instead of 33MHz 64 bits
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 20, 2014, 07:05:15 PM
There is a exception. Non-agp PowerMacs where " The ATI Rage 128 graphics card with 16 MB of SDRAM occupies a 66 MHz PCI slot " http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html)
Maybe a headless system can use it at 66 MHz instead of 33MHz 64 bits

wow .. good point!!!!!!  8) 8) 8)
holy shit hes right..
this means if any 32bit card pci sata was inserted into this 66mhz pci slot on pci only mac .. then it could reach speeds the same speeds as the 64bit card mactron has in pci-64 slot at 33mhz
its the same for all pci based g4 (and also powermac g3) all feature 1x 32bit 66mhz slot

pci macs with 66mhz pci slot (originally intended for video)
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_300_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_350_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_400_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_450_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_350.html

question is...would this cripple video performance too much?...
but we are into audio;) so its ok.. but maybe the video refresh + graphics would be realy bad?

so its a revelation: it may be possible to achieve 266mb/s with a 32bit PCI sata card if the card is insert
into the 66mhz "VIDEO PCI slot" of a pci non-agp g3 or g4.. at the cost of reduced video performance

Quote
Standard   Bit   Clock   Transfer rates
(bi-directional)
PCI 2.3   32 Bit   33 MHz   133 MB/sec
PCI 2.3   32 Bit   66 MHz   266 MB/sec <------ possible on pci based g3/g4 using video slot using 32bit pci sata card?
PCI 64   64 Bit   33 MHz   266 MB/sec
PCI 64   64 Bit   66 MHz   533 MB/sec
PCI-X 1.0   64 Bit   66 MHz   533 MB/sec
PCI-X 1.0   64 Bit   100 MHz   800 MB/sec
PCI-X 1.0   64 Bit   133 MHz   1066 MB/sec
PCI-X 2.0 (DDR)   64 Bit   133 MHz   2132 MB/sec
PCI-X 2.0 (QDR)   64 Bit   133 MHz   4264 MB/sec
PCI-Express   1 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   512 MB/sec
PCI-Express   2 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   1 GB/sec
PCI-Express   4 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   2 GB/sec
PCI-Express   8 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   4 GB/sec
PCI-Express   16 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   8 GB/sec
source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xeon-cpus-intel-p4-extreme-platform,808-4.html

so now it is up to ProTools5LeGuy .. u must get a pci 32bit sata and test this theory on your g3!
if mactron could make available the softraid software?

Quote
Maybe a headless system can use it at 66 MHz instead of 33MHz 64 bits
headless? cant u just swap slots? put the video card in a 33mhz slot? & the sil3112 in the 66mhz slot... or would this not work?
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 20, 2014, 07:16:01 PM
also wanted to point out a bit of text on the press release from 2004 of these pci-x sata cards

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1v4/pr/launch/

FirmTek Announces Solutions for Internal and External Personal RAID Storage
Fast Enough for Uncompressed HD Video

The SeriTek/1V4 and SeriTek/1VE4 PCI-X adapters each allow up to four Serial ATA drives
to be striped for unprecedented performance

San Francisco, California (January 11, 2004) -- FirmTek, LLC, the world's leading developer of ATA host adapter solutions for Apple's Macintosh, announced today at Macworld Expo their latest Serial ATA host adapters. The SeriTek/1V4 and SeriTek/1VE4 adapters utilize PCI-X interface technology which offer superior performance in Power Mac G5 computers while retaining compatibility in standard PCI slots. Each delivers Serial ATA's 1.5Gbits/sec performance to as many as four drives simultaneously, allowing for storage speeds among the fastest in desktop computing. When today's fastest Serial ATA drives are connected to these high-performance cards, and then striped with OS X's disk utility software, the resulting array can handle live, uncompressed HD video.

SeriTek/1VE4:
The SeriTek/1VE4 adapter offers four external Serial ATA ports that are independently controlled, fully shielded and completely hot-swappable. This design allows for the quick connection of drives to virtually any PCI-based Macintosh for any number of applications, and the hot-swap feature means that multiple users or applications can share the same machine without rebooting between projects. Even a fully operational RAID volume can be unmounted, disconnected, and replaced with another volume without powering the Macintosh down, a FirmTek exclusive feature. This can be especially useful in applications where large video files are being created.

SeriTek/1V4:
This solution employs the same FirmTek quality as the 1VE4, but utilizes internal connections for RAID arrays contained entirely inside the Macintosh. It has the same performance without employing hot-swap capability.

With legacy G4 platforms, including most of the "Sawtooth" varieties of Power Macintosh, both of the new SeriTek solutions are limited by bus speed more than the processor speed, which results in impressive performance. While the original Sawtooth machines will often outperform 130MB/sec throughput, the later Digital Audio, Quicksilver and MDD systems deliver RAID performance nearly equivalent to the latest G5 towers. Given these older systems' greater internal storage capacities, this will be important for many video professionals.

"2004 saw several firsts from FirmTek with external Serial ATA and hot-swap capabilities. Now we're kicking off 2005 with a bang with these latest solutions," said Chi Kim Stanford, Vice President of Business Development for FirmTek. "While many of the world's best-selling ATA solutions for the Mac use FirmTek designs, we are proud that the SeriTek/1VE4 and 1V4 are making their debut with a FirmTek label. The Macintosh has been widely acclaimed as a professional video development tool, and with this high-speed storage solution the promise is now complete."

The SeriTek/1VE4 and SeriTek/1V4 offer the key benefits of speed and capacity with remarkable flexibility and ease of service. With drives now surpassing 500GB each, there are few applications with requirements too extreme for the new SeriTek models. When formatted and controlled by Mac OS X's RAID software, the highest performance drives support the storage of uncompressed high-definition streaming video, which was not easily accomplished on desktop systems before the arrival of Serial ATA. The easy and accessible cabling of Serial ATA drives also makes installing and servicing them a snap when compared with their predecessors.

SeriTek/1VE4 and SeriTek/1V4 Key Features and Benefits

Code: [Select]
Latest 133MHz PCI-X interface technology
Compatible with all PCI-based Power Macintosh computers
Hot-swaps both stand-alone drives and drives within a RAID volume (1VE4 only)
Self-contained booting functionality supports direct booting from attached drives
Four independently controlled Serial ATA ports
Boosts overall system performance with data transfer rates of up to 150MBytes/sec or 1.5Gbits/sec per port
"Plug and Play" drivers built-in for Macintosh
Supports Mac OS 8, OS 9, and OS X version 10.1.5 or later
Provides performance and protection: Supports native OS X RAID 0/1; OS 9 RAID (with third party software)
User-upgradeable firmware for easy updates
Large LBA support for drives larger than 137GB
Includes two "works with Macintosh" thin and flexible SATA cables to allow easy, optimal placement of devices (1V4 only)
Ideal for multimedia-intensive applications: audio/video capture and editing, graphics manipulation and high-end digital publishing
Delivers top performance for all Power Macintosh "Sawtooth" G4, and all G5, computers
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 23, 2014, 02:57:29 AM
I think ONBOARD ata-66 with a "classic" ata 3.5" 7200 rpm with 8 mb cache can give sustained 24 tracks and keep a free pci...

I could be wrong.  ;D

I don´t force PT in OS9 to work more than 8/17 tracks (Audio Click).
Be there demo from protools LE runs even on a 5400 rpm drive.

remember my chart
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=578.0

the PCI g3/g4 based macs have the worst IDE disk speed of all they dont even have ATA-66 they have ATA-33!!

so it would be a real "flip the script" if it turns out that these non-agp macs can use 32bit SIL3112 cards to a faster effect
via this video 66mhz pci slot!!! as they would have the MOST to gain from this.. going from ata-33 to SATA150 full bandwidth of 266mb/s with two drives in raid0..
(that is if its even possible to boot OS9 from a softraid raid0.. but wait..  i think mactron said that this is only possible from a softraid RAID1 volume?
i really wish i had a pci mac to test this out!! i may have to find one now just to make sure LOL
this would be news for.. who was the one who came in the forums with this powered up G3 1ghz powerlogix zif??
so every b&w g3 features this 66mhz slot...
i would like to see this old ancient computer
with a cpu upgrade
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Cube-PowerMac-G4-Sonnet-Encore-1-4-ghz-CPU-Upgrade-/151259534800?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2337c555d0
and this sil3112 in the 66mhz slot!
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 23, 2014, 10:32:21 AM
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=569.0 (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=569.0)
Dane D. has the fastest G3 in Forum
G3s and G4 pci graphics have a CPU socket called "ZIF" zero insertion force"

The fastest upgrades in ZIF sockets are:

G3 at 1.1Ghz and at native (100 mhz) bus speed
G4 1.0 Ghz at 66 mhz bus speed (sonnet made a 66 bus hack to achieve this)
G4 550-600 Mhz at native speed
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on March 23, 2014, 10:41:45 AM
I tried 2 ATI rage 128 GL (pci 66MHz comp) on my g3 years ago, one in 66 bus and other on 33 bus standard.
My G3 B&W is a rev1. It does not support two drives on ATA33 bus (It corrupts data)
I bought my G3 with a sonnet tempo ATA66 card (acard card with other firmware and other label over the firmware)
Apple sponsorized the use of SCSI drives for servers on G3s as Steve Jobs said when releasing first iMac and first B&W keynote (In this keynote you could see a G3 B&W serving MacOS and  video to 16 iMacs without any hard drive)
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 23, 2014, 10:45:26 AM
yes yes thats all fine ... but do u have a sil3112 card to try in this 66mhz slot???   8)
its sunday.. i was just about to go and buy some ssd to do the test with my acard card but i asked mactron a few questions and he didnt respond....
so i think maybe i will just buy 2 normal SATA3 80gb drives because they are cheap
they should be fast enough to saturate 133mbs+ when in dual raid .. (using the ACARD 6890M hardware raid for OS9... not softraid 2.2.2... I dont hvae this software even... noone has made the effort to share this for people on this site yet ...! but im hopign we can get a copy, i personally dont have it or know much about it..)
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 23, 2014, 12:09:06 PM
ok so i bought 2 brand new sata3 spec 80gb drives .. they are seagate 7200.10 model
they arent ssd's but im hoping to see that whether or not i can get above 133mb/s with two drives combined..
this means the drives must at least be able to provide more then 66mb/s
given the fact that they are sata3 spec drives.. they should be able to saturate a sata150 card i thought..
which means i should theoretically get 133mb/s the max speed..

im not sure what mactron used to benchmark his transfers, so i will have to figure something out
if anyone knows what i can use to measure my disk transfer please respond!

(http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/22-148-231-06.jpg)
seagate 7200.10 80GB SATA3 8mb cache
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148231
these are the drives

heres the card im going to use
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NjgzWDEwMjQ=/$%28KGrHqZ,!qYFHmGJritiBSC98K8+m!~~48_72.JPG)
acard 6890M

im going to be performing this test in my 867Mhz DP MDD

well... checking the specs of the drive
it says its only capable of giving 72mb/s...
so this might not be much of a test;)

Code: [Select]
Spindle speed (RPM) 7,200
Internal data transfer rate (Mbits/sec max) 1,030
Sustained data transfer rate OD (Mbytes/sec max) 72
I/O data-transfer rate (Mbytes/sec max) 300

ok im confused.. does this mean 72 .. or 300?
maybe it is 300...  i hope so.

anyways.. they were a steal at 14.99!!

i set the jumpers and immediately my system recognized the drive as one drive, and not two.. with a total capacity of 149GB
now i just need somehow to test the speed.. sure wish mactron had posted which software he used for this benchmark


is this what i should be using?
http://www.intechusa.com/HDInfo.html
i searched for hard disk benchmarking mac os 9 and this is what i found;)
(http://www.intechusa.com/Icons/HDinfobox.jpg)

this is interesting!
(http://www.intechusa.com/ScreenShots/StripeBlockSize.jpg)
Quote
Intech's QuickStripe technology allows you to quickly setup any two hard disk drives which use the SCSI command set. This includes actual SCSI drives, ATA drives connected to most third-party PCI ATA host bus adapters, and FireWire drives which have the SpeedTools FireSCSI extensions installed.
http://www.intechusa.com/QS.html

for sure this will work for hd's connected to sil3112 + other sata cards because, in drive setup, i just saw it says SCSI in front of the drive..
shame if it doesnt work for the internal IDE ports!
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 23, 2014, 03:12:47 PM
would be really great if someone could tel me what i can use to bench the disk speed?
im literally sitting here trying to figure it out.. so any help or advice would be appreciated thanks

---
ok i just used macbench 4.0
and my highest speeds were around 94mb/s i think
i will keep testing..
maybe i will back up the contents of my ssd's and use them for a test
if the top speed is 133mb/s then 94mb/s is  operating @ 70% of theoretical max

and if i apply the same math to mactron's findings
if the top speed is 266mb/s then 190mb/s is operating @ 71% of theoretical max

seems to be about right..
i wonder if using SSD's instead of SATA3 Seagate barracuda 7200.10 would make a difference..

update:
i just ran macbench on my other single sata drive which is connected to the SIL3112 card and the results are impressive
the speed is close to that of the dual disk on the acard... with the acard (striped raid) having alot of improvement on smaller size files
but the single disk actually beat the raid stripe for large sequential read.. by about 5mb/s
i will have to post a more detailed image to represent this data!

the biggest gains were random writes on small files with up to 185% performance of the single disk
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 23, 2014, 07:41:32 PM
my results on macbench
red=single sata drive on 32bit/33mhz sil3112 controller (1s2 firmtek firmware)
yellow=2x sata drive RAID0 STRIPE on 32bit/33mhz acard 6890m
disregard the 6100 info its actually a DP 867mhz MDD

(http://www.macos9lives.com/downloads/_img/chrisBench/randomRead.jpg)

(http://www.macos9lives.com/downloads/_img/chrisBench/randomWrite.jpg)

(http://www.macos9lives.com/downloads/_img/chrisBench/SeqRead.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/downloads/_img/chrisBench/SeqWrite.jpg)

now after seeing these results
i have found some other articles that were negative reviews of this acard..
frm people looking for "best performance" they accused this acard card of being not a true
SATA solution. the accusation was that this card featured a IDE-SATA converter technology
and did not offer any gains on top of its previous IDE only adapter cards.

so although this card may not be best of the best. it is still hardware raid.. + mac os 9 compatible..
no software required for set up.. just set dipswitch + go.. which makes it still cool and especially very usefull for RAID1
even tho at the time of these tests i had it in a stripe configuration, my main reason for buying this card
was not for speed but for protection of my main boot drive to protect from disk failure.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 24, 2014, 04:23:20 AM
At least when it comes to tracking, im pretty sure that two PATA drives (preferably 7200rpm) is enough.
I have a 120gb 7200rpm for system and apps and one 250gb 7200rpm for audio and recording.

This is enough for me and my MDD to be able to record 64 mono tracks or 32 stereo tracks at the same time in 48khz and 24bit.
I have though about getting SSD's or RAID two rotating drives on a SATA card, but I can't justify it since what I have now works without any problems :)

Sorry If I went off topic, just wanted to share my experiences.
sharing experiences is never offtopic knez  ;D thats what forums are for;)

(http://www.futurestorage.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/diskspeeds.jpg)
ata33= pci powermac g4
ata66= most agp powermac g4 (http://tinyurl.com/kw9fjch " For PowerMac older than G4, AEC6260M can really boost the disk performance up to 100%. " LOL)
ata100= only the MDD models, and only one of the IDE controllers (Can officially support four internal hard drives -- two Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) and two Ultra ATA/66 (ATA-5))
ata133 =32bit ide ata-133 controller would be next (such as http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=715.msg2324#msg2324)
sata150=32bit controller (sil3112 short pci adapters) (such as http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=306.0)
sata150=64bit controller (seritek 1v4 etc) would be well off this graph... even higher!! BYALOT!
(as we saw with mactrons result of 190mb/s)

http://www.realworldtech.com/5400rpm-vs-7200rpm/2/
heres a "Real world" test

7200 ATA-66 | 5400 ata-100 | 7200 ata-100
57.8mb/s      | 76.7mb/s       | 81.2mb/s
these numbers are "Burst" on "win98se" via chipset not on a mac tho

this real world performance would put it on this graph above inbetween ata66 + ata100 "theoretical max values"

i believe that these drives you are talkign about.. 7200 RPM IDE drives..
are capable of higher speeds when connected to ATA133 controller
and given our info + findings on 32bit vs 64bit it makes sense now
that moving IDE controller to a 64bit-33mhz capable card
is something that may be both affordable + very very beneficial for the people
using ide hard drives... or even using new drive with sata-IDE bridge
this would allow for speeds much higher then 81mb/s I BELIEVE
even a 32bit ATA-133 controller should allow passing the ata-100 speeds

but your comment is 100% true! ata-100 is "Good enough"
but are we satisfied with good enough? or are we looking for "the best performance" :)
tracking is one thing.. loading of vsts + apps that are reliant on the loading of
large sample libraries.., this is the issue and reason for the search;)
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on March 24, 2014, 04:50:22 AM
just bought on ebay
soon i will see the real potential of IDE 7200 on powermac g4  8)
same as mactron's firmtek.. 64bit.. up to 266mb/s due to downgrade from 66mhz to 33mhz operation in powermac g4 slot
Raid 0+1 would truely be the best of both worlds! protection + performance! amazing;) maybe the bst performance with this thing
could be 4 sata drives with sata-IDE adapters.. in RAID0+1.. i cant wait to get this;)
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on October 07, 2014, 07:07:00 PM
this seritek card .. http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/spec/
it says it supports pci-x 133mhz (in a powermac g5)
so the top speed of this bus is:
PCI-X 133       1.067 GB/s

i wonder if this card in a g5 would peform between 533mb/s (PCI 64bit/66MHz) + the bus limitation of 1,06GB/s (pci-x 133mhz)

probably not because it only claims Data Transfer Rates :   

    Up to 150 MBytes/second or 1.5Gbits/second burst data transfer rate

or perhaps this speed is *per disk* as mactron got a speed of 190mb/s using 2 ssd...
what if u used it in a g5... with 4 ssd!!! lol
190mb/s divided by 2 is 80mb/s per port it seems to be capable of with a fast disk.. but that was on a pci 33mhz 64bit bus...
if u used pci 133mhz 64bit... how much per port would it be capable of then?
or the g5 also has 100mhz slot (PCI 64bit/100MHz   800 MB/s)
i would guess it probably can do 100mb/s per port..
if using all 4 maybe it can do 400mb/s but it would be cool if mactron has a g5 to test the real potential of this card on a faster mhz bus!!


Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: ELo on November 17, 2014, 12:15:36 AM
Hi Chris, the for the pictures SATA card no longer show up.  Is this the same firmtek model as mactron's?  (I'm also looking for a SATA PCI-X card that can boot OS9)

Thanks,
Ed

just bought on ebay
soon i will see the real potential of IDE 7200 on powermac g4  8)
same as mactron's firmtek.. 64bit.. up to 266mb/s due to downgrade from 66mhz to 33mhz operation in powermac g4 slot
Raid 0+1 would truely be the best of both worlds! protection + performance! amazing;) maybe the bst performance with this thing
could be 4 sata drives with sata-IDE adapters.. in RAID0+1.. i cant wait to get this;)

Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on November 17, 2014, 10:00:12 AM
the pictures that arent showing up were of the Acard 6885M pci-x raid card. (64bits)
(http://www.2san.com/upload/200807010859323216885M.gif)
'same as mactrons'; meant that it is a 64bit pci-x card vs a normal pci 32bit 33mhz card
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: ELo on November 18, 2014, 10:45:39 PM
Cheers! 

  :D

the pictures that arent showing up were of the Acard 6885M pci-x raid card. (64bits)
(http://www.2san.com/upload/200807010859323216885M.gif)
'same as mactrons'; meant that it is a 64bit pci-x card vs a normal pci 32bit 33mhz card
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Yamaha8181 on December 17, 2014, 11:02:59 PM
Un bon sujet,m'aide résoudre beaucoup de problèm.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on December 17, 2014, 11:08:35 PM
Un bon sujet,m'aide résoudre beaucoup de problèm.
google translate
Quote
A good story helps me solve a lot of Behavior .
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: MacTron on January 29, 2015, 09:48:28 AM
When a Hard Disk data transfer occurs, alongside the user data, some other data is transferred also (control data, address data, etc ) this usually use around 20% of bandwidth. That's why if we measure actual speed of file transfer over a ATA 100 the most we can expect is 80% of the ATA 100 speed (100MB/s), ie 80 MB per second.

I've used a SATA3 Samsung 840 EVO (Max Read = 540 MB/s Max Write = 410 MB/s)

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/memory-cards-hdd-odd/ssd/840-evo/MZ-7TE120BW

In to some of my test, to avoid the limiting factor of the storage device.

But  according to this chart:

(http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2023.0;attach=1494)

190 MB/s on raid mode is less than expected (230-244 MB/s) on the Seritek 64 bits card. Including the 20% of bandwith lost.

So what's the limiting factor now? And what we can learn on this?
The 410-540 MB/s of the SSD sure is not.
The 256 MB/s of the 64 bits PCI may be not.

In Raid Mode we surpass the 150MB/s of the SATA 1 speed. ie A raid of 2 HD (150+150 = 300 Mb/s) surpass the 64 bits PCI also.
Will the Seriteck chip capacity the limiting factor? probably yes.
Two Seriteck cards with a SSD each, in RAID mode would reach the MAX 64bits PCI bus (256 MB/s)?
Who have two 64bits Seritek cards?

A 64 bits data can be divided in high (32bits) and low (32bits) part. Can the 64 bits bus use the full bandwith (32+32 = 64 bits) even with 32 bits cards?
If this were true: Three Sil3112 with a SSD each, in RAID mode would reach the MAX 64bits PCI bus (256 MB/s)?
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on April 29, 2015, 02:59:40 AM
On the other hand given the price of the seritek and the price of 2 SSD@120gb perhaps for a RAID setup is cheaper 2 (or 3) 33Mhz sil 3112 pci cards.

this is actually a very good pt.. without any flashing needed u can buy 2 x sil3112 cards and, at a cost of 2 pci slots.. u can achieve a similar 190mb/s speed that mactron achieved with one slot.... possibly even higher.. using 2 seperate cards..
which brings to mind .. what if u were to use 2 x 64bit cards?? in RAID0 so that it has the bandwidth of 2 64bit pci slots!!!!!!!!!

here we have uncovered a ghetto speed option for less then 30$ off ebay (for the cards at least, not the ssd! but 120gb ssd are more affordable now then ever!)

and a super speedy ultimate max that may be capable of clearing above mactrons record of 190mb/s!!!! using 2 64 bit cards...

i wonder if both cards would need to be bootable with a stripe raid 0 or if having one of the 64bit cards a seritek official card would be enuff to allow it to boot??
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: MacTron on April 29, 2015, 04:56:21 AM
... u can buy 2 x sil3112 cards and, at a cost of 2 pci slots.. u can achieve a similar 190mb/s speed that mactron achieved with one slot.... possibly even higher.. using 2 seperate cards ...

Yes, but the main point was already noted:
A 64 bits data can be divided in high (32bits) and low (32bits) part. Can the 64 bits bus use the full bandwith (32+32 = 64 bits) even with 32 bits cards?
If this were true: Three Sil3112 with a SSD each, in RAID mode would reach the MAX 64bits PCI bus (256 MB/s)?

Now I have two Sil3112 and two Samsung 120g SSD so ...  I could do the test to solve the question, "some day" may be ...
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on May 09, 2015, 05:49:43 PM
just a quick note on the 6885M acard 64bits card.. this card will give u problems if u try to use it to boot mac os 8.6
it requires 9.0+

the 6880M card works with 8.6  ;D
i learned this the hard way :o
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on May 14, 2015, 03:50:01 PM
it would seem that 190MB/s must be the max for the g4 architecture.. because this is the same max that i saw on my 6885M with 2 drives.. i still have not tested 4 drives in raid on this controller.. but i have a feeling it might not go above 190MB/s

this would make sense as to why Firmtek/Seritek never made any SATA2 spec interfaces for the mac..(and any other manufacturer aswell) because its incapable of these speeds.. even with the 64bit extended pci
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: MacTron on May 14, 2015, 04:22:33 PM
it would seem that 190MB/s must be the max for the g4 architecture.. because this is the same max that i saw on my 6885M with 2 drives.. i still have not tested 4 drives in raid on this controller.. but i have a feeling it might not go above 190MB/s

this would make sense as to why Firmtek/Seritek never made any SATA2 spec interfaces for the mac..(and any other manufacturer aswell) because its incapable of these speeds.. even with the 64bit extended pci
That's exactly what I have thought when I have read about your Max transfer results.
This Max " efective throughput " about 190 MB/s is because hidden in the background there is a lot of control data that are "wasting" the remaining bandwidth, up to the theorical 266 MB/s Max. IMHO.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: supernova777 on May 14, 2015, 04:25:06 PM
190MB/s is a good speed - definately 4 x the average performance that normal users would have experienced with using these computers with the hard drives of that day + age on the native ATA33 & ATA66 controllers

6x faster then any B&W g3 would have been when shipped
4x faster then any g4 would have been when first shipped
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: stephenvalente on February 01, 2017, 04:43:15 AM
As someone new to the old PPC series Macs, I've acquired several iMac G4's, 2 Power Mac G4's, a PM G3 and PM G5.

Is there an available option to upgrade the PM G4's still? I'll be collecting one of the Dual Processor 1.42GHz models soon, and would be keen to upgrade in any way.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: MacTron on February 01, 2017, 09:06:52 AM
The G4 MDD 1.42 can be overclocked to 1.58-1.66 Ghz or upgraded with a  Sonnet MDX duet 1.8 ghz.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: stephenvalente on February 02, 2017, 02:03:25 AM
The G4 MDD 1.42 can be overclocked to 1.58-1.66 Ghz or upgraded with a  Sonnet MDX duet 1.8 ghz.

Not too fussed about overclocking. More interested in finding a SATA card, with or without RAID. Read a few of the threads around, and it seems a difficult thing to obtain.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: stephenvalente on February 03, 2017, 06:59:39 AM
IOCrest SATA II 4 x PCI RAID Host Controller Card SY-PCI40010

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002R0DZZ8/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002R0DZZ8/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8)

This card is said to work in a Power Mac G4 by a reviewer, but non-bootable? Anyone else used it? I'd happily use this alongside a small SSD with an IDE-SATA adaptor card for a solution to speeding the storage side of things up.
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: macStuff on May 26, 2019, 01:08:57 AM
The G4 MDD 1.42 can be overclocked to 1.58-1.66 Ghz or upgraded with a  Sonnet MDX duet 1.8 ghz.

Not too fussed about overclocking. More interested in finding a SATA card, with or without RAID. Read a few of the threads around, and it seems a difficult thing to obtain.

something that alot of regulars on this site are seemingly oblivious to; i keep posting trying to draw peoples attention to the fact that a modern solution needs to be worked out but im getting very little cooperation or assistance with chasing that goal. everyone is asleep at the wheel around here. there are people posting sonnet tempo sata pci cards for 400$ on ebay because there is no other solution available to anyone untill some real progress is made with a fix for this.

IOCrest SATA II 4 x PCI RAID Host Controller Card SY-PCI40010

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002R0DZZ8/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002R0DZZ8/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8)

This card is said to work in a Power Mac G4 by a reviewer, but non-bootable? Anyone else used it? I'd happily use this alongside a small SSD with an IDE-SATA adaptor card for a solution to speeding the storage side of things up.

i think you misread - that was someone using an HP server that used the name G5; (from what i can see) that is a PC; also; that card is only 32bit / it would be much more gainful to focus on testing a 64bit card such as the sil3124; specifically the Silicon Image PB3124 that i have been posting about; which already contains a Macronix 040 flash chip in a socket; which is a verified chip usable by the 1S2 Firmtek firmware;
Title: Re: 64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
Post by: mePy2 on February 02, 2020, 04:13:26 AM
When a Hard Disk data transfer occurs, alongside the user data, some other data is transferred also (control data, address data, etc ) this usually use around 20% of bandwidth. That's why if we measure actual speed of file transfer over a ATA 100 the most we can expect is 80% of the ATA 100 speed (100MB/s), ie 80 MB per second.

I've used a SATA3 Samsung 840 EVO (Max Read = 540 MB/s Max Write = 410 MB/s)

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/memory-cards-hdd-odd/ssd/840-evo/MZ-7TE120BW

In to some of my test, to avoid the limiting factor of the storage device.

But  according to this chart:

(http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2023.0;attach=1494)

190 MB/s on raid mode is less than expected (230-244 MB/s) on the Seritek 64 bits card. Including the 20% of bandwith lost.

So what's the limiting factor now? And what we can learn on this?
The 410-540 MB/s of the SSD sure is not.
The 256 MB/s of the 64 bits PCI may be not.

In Raid Mode we surpass the 150MB/s of the SATA 1 speed. ie A raid of 2 HD (150+150 = 300 Mb/s) surpass the 64 bits PCI also.
Will the Seriteck chip capacity the limiting factor? probably yes.
Two Seriteck cards with a SSD each, in RAID mode would reach the MAX 64bits PCI bus (256 MB/s)?
Who have two 64bits Seritek cards?

A 64 bits data can be divided in high (32bits) and low (32bits) part. Can the 64 bits bus use the full bandwith (32+32 = 64 bits) even with 32 bits cards?
If this were true: Three Sil3112 with a SSD each, in RAID mode would reach the MAX 64bits PCI bus (256 MB/s)?

Interested in this.
May you all come discuss about it here? https://discord.gg/8WHpu2m