Archive Magazine CD 1995

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============================================= || || || !HDspeed Version 1.00 || || || || H A R D D I S C S P E E D T E S T || || || ============================================= Copyright D.J.Holden 1994,1995 ********************************** THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES RISC-OS 3+ ********************************** _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Contents About HDspeed 1 Licence to Use (READ THIS) 2 Licence to Copy 3 Using HDspeed 4 Iterations 4 Disabling a test 4 Time and KB/sec 4 % Comparison 4 Testing a drive 5 Pause and Stop 5 Saving the results 6 The !SpeedLogs application 6 The tests 7 Random access tests 7 Block load and save 8 Configuration 9 The Baseline file 10 General notes 11 Page 1 ------------------ | About !HDspeed | ------------------ !HDspeed is a straightforward program for testing the speed of hard disc drives and interfaces. It can be used to test almost any type of disc, even floppies, on any filing system. The only requirements are that it must be a standard Filecore filing system and respond to normal OS_File commands. It was originally written entirely for my own use and the first release wasn't particularly fancy or sophisticated. This is a much improved version with a Wimp 'front end' and is much more 'user-configurable'. I have looked at lots of hard disc speed programs and this is the only one I have seen where the test results obtained correspond with the 'subjective' feel I get from the drive when I use it. In recent years I have tried many different types of drive and interface and I have never yet found one which gave test results returned by this program which were at odds with the 'feel' of the drive in use. In fact I never use this test first, I try the drive, form an opinion and THEN test it, as this way my subjective opinion can't be influenced by the test. This program, unlike most of those supplied by hard disc distributors, is NOT designed to show up the best points of a particular drive or interface. I am not interested in phony Mb/sec statistics because they are absolutely meaningless. (When was the last time you sat in front of a Mode 0 screen swapping 20Mb chunks of data around?). The tests used are intended to reflect the way that drives are used in the real world, and to return results which, although still meaningful in absolute terms, can be directly compared with the results obtained when the program is used with another drive or interface to give a comparison between the performance you will experience when you put them to work for normal everyday use. Use with RISC-OS 2 ------------------ Although the program is specified as RO-3 only there is no reason why it is unsuitable for RO-2, it is simply that the Templates have been designed with features specific to RO-3. When I have time I shall produce a set of RO-2 templates. If you particularly want to use this program on a RO-2 machine please contact me. Page 2 THIS PROGRAM IS NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN, IT IS sssss h h aa rrrrr eeeee w w aa rrrrr eeeee s h h a a r r e w w a a r r e sssss hhhhhh a a rrrrr eeee w w w a a rrrrr eeee s h h aaaaaa r r e w w w aaaaaa r r e sssss h h a a r e eeeee ww ww a a r r eeeee Shareware is NOT 'free software'. It is copyrighted, commercial software, just like any other normal programs that you buy. Shareware is simply a try before you buy distribution method. Using a Shareware program without paying is software piracy, and carries exactly the same penalties as using any other illegally copied program. Licence to use -------------- You are licensed to evaluate this program for a period of SEVEN DAYS. At the end of this time you must either stop using it or send a cheque for FOUR POUNDS to me at the address below. Use after this time is a breach of this licence and, as well as being morally reprehensible, is now a criminal offence. When you register I will send you the latest version and your personal 'H_Reg' file which will disable the annoying start up message and put your name in the 'Info' box instead of the word 'Unregistered'. You will also get a laser printed Manual. The H_Reg file contains your encrypted name and will work with any future version of !HDspeed. This means that, PROVIDED YOU REMOVE THE H_reg FILE FIRST you can pass a copy of !HDspped on to your friends, or obtain a later version from a PD library or BBS. The cost of the program has been kept deliberately low to encourage registration. I appreciate that most people will not use this program over a long period, but I would ask you to consider that considerable effort has gone into it. I could have simply kept it to myself, but I chose to make it available to others. The Registration fee is insignificant compared with the cost of even a very cheap hard disc, so if you use it to help you to choose a drive please ***** DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER ***** just because you think you will never need it again! To simplify registration I have made the last page of this Manual a registration form. Please use this when you register as it helps me to keep my records in order. I am always happy to answer queries or listen to suggestions even if you haven't yet registered. Page 3 Licence to copy --------------- Any private individual may distribute copies of !HDspeed provided this is done WITHOUT CHARGE for the program or documentation. If you charge ANY fee for copying this program, whether in money or in kind, or if you control ANY media, including bulletin boards, which distributes software YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO DISTRIBUTE THIS PROGRAM WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. This permission will normally be granted with only minor restrictions. If you wish to distribute this program please write to me at the address below enclosing a SAE and a disc so that I can send you the latest version. Distribution by any organisation without this permission will be treated as Breach of Copyright. You must not make any charge for the program, although you may make a charge to cover media and distribution costs. No alterations may be made to any of the program or ancillary files or documentation and you must include the Manual (this) file. You must ensure that you supply the Baseline file derived from a Miniscribe 20Mb ST506 drive referred to in this Manual. You must ALWAYS include a copy of the !SpeedLogs application with !HDspeed, and this should not be distributed separately. You must ensure that you do not include a Setup file in the application directory so that !HDspeed will automatically start up using it's normal default settings. You may include additional Baseline or example Logfiles if you wish, but you must not make any charge for doing so. Use of this program for any COMMERCIAL purposes or for the DEMONSTRATION or PROMOTION of any product or service without the prior written permission of the Author is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN. I reserve the right to charge a Fee for granting this permission IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to distribute copies of any H_Reg file or any version of the program which does not display the 'Start Up' message. These are for the personal use of registered users ONLY. David Holden 39 Knighton Park Road Sydenham London SE26 5RN 0181 778 2659 A.S.P. Message -------------- This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the Shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427, U.S.A. or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536 or FAX 616-788-2765. Page 4 ------------------ | Using !HDspeed | ------------------ To use the program just double-click on the icon. It will then install itself on the icon bar just like any other program. Clicking MENU on the icon will display a Menu with the usual 'Info' and 'Quit' plus a third item 'Save log'. At this stage clicking on this will have no effect. If you click SELECT on the icon the main window will open. This is rather large and will nearly fill a Mode 12 screen. At the left of this are two areas showing the tests which will be carried out. Iterations ---------- After the description of each test most have a writable icon in a column labelled 'Iterations'. This is the number of times that the test will be carried out. You can change these by simply entering the number you want. It is best to perform the shorter tests several times so that the elapsed time measurement can be 'averaged' and therefore more accurate. This is not so important with the longer tests, especially the random read/write tests, which is why these are always performed only once. Disabling a test ---------------- After 'Iterations' is a column of 'Option' icons. These are normally all ON, but if you set any OFF that test will not be performed. Time and KB/sec --------------- At first the icons in this column will be blank, but as each test is performed this will show the time in centiseconds (c/s, 1/100th's of a second) that the test took for the byte access tests or data transfer speed in Kilobytes per Second for the block load and save tests. Where several iterations of a test are performed time is the time taken per iteration, not the total time as in earlier versions. % Comparison ------------ This column will show the percentage increase over the 'baseline' speeds. Normally the baseline speeds are those obtained by testing a Miniscribe 20Mb, 65 ms, ST506 drive, as fitted to the A420 series. This is probably about the slowest drive you are likely to encounter, so test results will normally be faster by 200%, 300%, or even more. A result of 100% means that the drive tested is exactly the same speed as the baseline. 200% would mean it is twice as fast, 50% only half as fast, and so on. Page 5 ------------------ | Testing a drive | ------------------ Open a filer window on the drive you want to test. Near the bottom right hand side of the main window you will see a Hard Disc icon. Simply drag this to a filer window on the drive to be tested. As soon as you do this a temporary file will be created and the tests will begin. The status message just above this icon will then change from 'Waiting' to 'Working' and the icons labelled 'File system' and 'Drive' at the top RH corner will show the filing system (ADFS, IDEFS, SCSI, etc.) that is controlling the drive and the disc name. As each test is carried out the results will appear in their respective icons. If you have chosen to skip any tests the word 'Omit' will appear in the results icon for that test. If there is a 'recoverable' error during a test then an error message will appear and a line of **'s will be shown in the results icon. **** IMPORTANT **** It was deliberately decided to make the program operate in the Desktop environment so that the results returned are 'real' and reflect the performance that you can expect with a drive and controller in normal use. It is therefore important that you do not touch the keyboard or move the mouse while the program is operating. Doing so will generate 'hardware interrupts' which can interfere with the results. In fact this is not likely to be significant, particularly with the faster ARM-3 or Risc PC models, but it can influence results on an ARM-2 machine. Similarly because, unlike some programs that are intended to produce artificial results, you can control the screen mode used, you should always use the same desktop mode when testing. This is not so important with machines like the Risc PC which are not noticeably slowed by large high definition modes. 'Pause' and 'Stop' ----------------- These do exactly what their name implies. 'pause' will temporarily stop operations and the Status message will show 'Paused'. You can continue by clicking on 'Pause' again. 'Stop' will abandon the test after asking if you are sure. There will be a delay before either of these take effect because the Wimp is not 'polled' during disc operations so the program won't 'know' that you have done anything until the current operation is completed. Page 6 Saving the results ------------------ When the tests are complete another window will open. This lets you save the results as a 'Logfile'. This is actually a plain text file which you can edit, print, incorporate into other documents, or simply keep for reference. Before you save the Logfile you can enter text in two icons in this window. This will appear in your Logfile so you can use it to record any descriptive text such as the drive and controller type or any other information you may wish to include. As well as these comments the first line of the Logfile will always show the filing system and disc name of the drive tested and the time and date the test was carried out, (assuming that the machine's clock is correctly set!) By default the name of the drive will appear in the filename icon but you will probably want to change this before saving the Logfile. Some Acorn IDE filing systems don't return the disc name properly but just show the drive number, so you may have to type a name, but this is always a good idea anyway to avoid 'wiping out' another Logfile with the same name. The Logfile can be saved by dragging the Textfile icon to a filer window, by clicking on the 'OK' icon, or by pressing RETURN with the caret in the Filename icon. Either of the two latter methods will result in the Logfile being saved in the special directory reserved for them (see below). Clicking on 'Cancel' will just close the window, but you can re-open it by clicking on 'Save log' on the icon bar menu. The !SpeedLogs application -------------------------- As well as the !HDspeed application you should find another application called !SpeedLogs. This is simply a convenient place to put all the Logfiles. Once the Filer has 'seen' this application the main HDspeed program will 'know' where it is and so will be able to save all your Logfiles in the correct place without the need to open a filer window. This is particularly useful when testing hard drives because it lets you keep the !SpeedLogs application on a floppy disc so that you can switch hard discs. If you double-click on the !SpeedLogs application it will open the directory containing the Logfiles. This also resets the OS variable which defines the location of the Logfile directory so if you move the !SpeedLogs application you should double-click on it to ensure that the !HDspeed application will know where to find it! Page 7 ----------- | The Tests | ----------- The tests used are divided into two sections, random access and block load/save. Random access tests ------------------- First a large test file is created. By default this is 8Mb but you can easily change it. The size is shown in the icon labelled 'Random size' near the top RH side of the main window. you can either enter a size directly, or if you click MENU with the mouse pointer over this icon you can select the size you want from the menu which will appear. Beside the icon are two 'option' icons labelled 'Mb' and 'Kb'. As this suggests, these define whether the file size is in Megabytes or Kilobytes. Obviously megabytes would normally be used but you may wish to use kilobytes for testing floppy disc access times or for checking a file of a specific size. The first test reads 50K sequentially from this file, the next writes 50K sequentially. This should give a fairly fast result. The next two tests do the same with 512K. These sizes were chosen because most cached drives have at least a 64K cache so the first test will employ the cache, but very few have a cache as large as 500K so the drive will need to read repeatedly directly from the disc. Unless you have a very small drive the head should only need to step once or twice during this test, so step speed should not be a significant factor. The next four tests are much more demanding. These use the same random access file but read and write 1,000 bytes to anywhere in the file at random. (In fact the random number generator is 'seeded' so that the same random sequence is generated each time). The first pair just write to the first 50K so not much track switching should be needed, and a well managed cache could 'field' much of this. The second test reads and writes over the whole file. 1,000 operations might not sound like a lot, but if you have an 8Mb file the disc head will have to do a LOT of rushing about as it zooms from one end of the file to the other. This is a superb trial of drive 'step' and 'seek' speed and is perhaps the most demanding test used. A large modern drive should perform well here but if you have an old ST506 drive go and put the kettle on first - it really will take ages! The results of all these tests are shown in hundredths of a second. Where a test has been performed more than once this is the time taken for each iteration, not the total time for all. Page 8 Block load/save --------------- These use standard OS_File commands to load and save a block of memory. The first two test load and save a 50Kb file. This isn't a very large file but it is about the average size used by most programs. The next two tests again load and save but this time the block of memory is very much larger. By default this is 2Mb but it is shown in the icon 'Lge block file' on the rh side of the window and can be changed in exactly the same way as the Random Access file size. As these operations transfer data in a block from RAM to disc you must have at least as much free RAM as the size you choose. You will therefore need at least 4Mb of RAM to retain it at this size, so if you have only 2Mb I suggest you change its value to 1Mb or perhaps 1500 kilobytes. The next three tests are a variation on this theme. The first alternately saves and loads a 50K block, the second a 512K block, and the third alternately saves and loads the large block file. The reason for the choice of these three sizes are that 50K will probably be held in the cache of a drive as many modern drives have a 64K cache. Since 50K is a reasonable average file size on a Archimedes it gives a good indication of repeatedly loading/saving a wp or program source file. 512K almost certainly won't be held in the cache so this is a good test of loading and saving larger DTP, graphics, spreadsheet or similar files. Instead of showing the time actually taken by each test the results are instead translated into Kilobytes per Second. This is done for two reasons. Firstly it allows a direct comparison to be made between the various tests without the need to perform mental arithmetic on the results. Secondly this is the way that the results of most commercial programs are shown so once again it permits a direct comparison. Don't be surprised if a 'speed test' program supplied by the manufacturer of your interface board seems to give a higher Mb/sec transfer speed than !HDspeed. It may well use direct commands to the interface, disable screen updates, or other dubious techniques to 'massage' the statistics. Page 9 ----------------- | Configuration | ----------------- You may have noticed the three buttons named 'Save', Restore' and 'Default' in the box labelled 'Setup' at the bottom of the main window. Clicking on 'Save' will save your configuration as a file called 'Setup' in the application directory. This means the file sizes, which tests are enabled/disabled, and the number of times each test is carried out. This will automatically be loaded the next time the application is Run. If you change these setting then clicking on 'Restore' will re-load the Setup file thus restoring the configuration to your chosen settings. Clicking on 'Default' will reset everything to the default settings. The 'Baseline' file ------------------- In the !HDspeed application directory you will find a text file called 'Baseline'. This is the datum from which all the 'relative percentage' results are calculated. The file supplied with the application was, as has been explained, obtained from a Miniscribe 20Mb ST506 drive fitted to an A420. If you wish you can, of course, change this, although you should keep a copy of the original so that if you do wish to pass on a copy of !HDspeed to a friend you can supply the standard baseline file. For example, you may intend to buy a new drive or interface and want to find out how the speed of a prospective purchase compares with your present setup. You can then create a personal Baseline file from your present drive. Any trials you carry out will then show the comparison between your current drive and the new one you are trying, so you can see instantly how much faster (or slower!) a prospective purchase would be. You can load the default Baseline file into a text editor to see how it is constructed. Any line beginning with a vertical bar character (|) is a comment and will be ignored. The first significant line should describe the baseline derivation and will always appear in a Logfile so that you know the reference for comparative results. This line MUST be present, although its content is entirely at your discretion. After this come fifteen numbers, one on each line. These are the test results taken from your datum drive, and should be entered exactly as they appear in the main window or in the Logfile for that drive. The first eight numbers are the random access test results, and these may have a decimal component. The last eight numbers are the Kb/sec data transfer rates and these should be whole numbers. DO NOT USE TAB CHARACTERS in the Baseline file. Page 10 ---------------- | General notes | ---------------- There must obviously be enough space on the drive for the temporary file. To get the best results this file should be contiguous, ie. not fragmented. If the drive you are testing has been in use for some time it could well be that although it might have 20Mb of free space this is all in small chunks. When the test file is created it could be split up into several pieces spread about over the disc and you will get extremely disappointing results, especially for large file random access tests. You should therefore Compact the disc first so that all the empty space is in a contiguous block. If the interface doesn't support a proper Compact where the data is physically moved then you might get poor results, but these will reflect the real state which will exist when your drive gets full. As there isn't (to my knowledge) a proper de-frag program for the Archimedes the only way to do this properly to a hard drive is to copy the files somewhere else, delete them from the drive, and then copy them back again. Quite often the only way to do this (unless you have lots of spare space) is to perform a Backup and Restore. In order to get the best from this program you need to be able to interpret the results intelligently. The random access tests, especially using a large file, should give a good indication of how fast the drive can step and seek to a particular track or sector. These tests are unlikely to be influenced by the interface used, although a good, cached, interface, or a cache on the drive, may improve the times with smaller files. The block load and save tests should show up any deficiencies in either the drive or the interface. If your formatting program permits the interlace to be changed you may wish to experiment with it in order to improve these speeds, as this can often have a dramatic effect. Once again, a well designed cache can improve small file performance considerably. If the cache is bigger than 50K then if you are repeatedly loading the file a 'smart' cache will 'know' after the first time that it has all the data you require in the cache, so it won't need any physical disc access for subsequent operations. This test can therefore be an indication of how fast the data can be transferred from the drive software and handled by the interface, without being affected by the performance of the drive hardware. A slow drive with a good cache may out-perform a much faster drive with a poor cache on this test. The large file load and save tests are brute force speed tests. they should return quite high transfer rates if the drive is clean when the test file is created. These are the tests which are most likely to be influenced by a wrongly suited sector interleave. The often quoted and much overrated Step Speed of a drive will probably not have too much effect. You may notice that the drive seems to operate one more time than the number of iterations specified during some tests. This is NOT a mistake. Before a file can be accessed it must exist (!) and so for some test the first operation is just this file being created. Registration Form for HDspeed Please send this form with a cheque for Four Pounds to: David Holden, 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RN __________________________________________________________________ Name and Address: __________________________________________________________________ Where did you obtain the program: __________________________________________________________________ Have you had any problems: __________________________________________________________________ What additional features would you like: