Re: IBM microdrive.

David Given wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Thursday 14 February 2002 23:45, you wrote:
> [...]
> > > > I've got one of the 5Gb Toshiba PCMCIA drives and an ancient Xircom
> > > > "CreditCard Ethernet Adapter IIps" on my 3650 with a dual-slot sleeve.
> > >
> > > I've just ordered one of these. What's the transfer speed over the
> > > non-CardBus interface?
> >
> > Not clear if you're asking about the disk or the network card. When
> > I repeatedly run "hdparm -t /dev/hda", I see numbers like this:
> >
> > Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 36.56 seconds = 1.75 MB/sec
> > Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 26.79 seconds = 2.39 MB/sec
> > Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 31.40 seconds = 2.04 MB/sec
> > Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 26.54 seconds = 2.41 MB/sec
> > Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 26.96 seconds = 2.37 MB/sec
>
> Well, the card arrived. Has a certain amount of trouble getting detected ---
> keeps showing up as Anonymous Memory --- but once it's running, it works
> fine.

Yep, that's the way mine behaves. It sometimes gets detected as
Anonymous Memory and cannot be mounted. Re-inserting the card
clears it up. Weird.

> Unfortunately, it's even slower than your benchmarks...
>
> Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 152.29 seconds =430.34 kB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 199.30 seconds =328.83 kB/sec
>
> Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 4.46 seconds = 28.70 MB/sec
> Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 4.15 seconds = 30.84 MB/sec
>
> It's slower than 10Mb ethernet! I should have stuck to NFS! It's reported as
> a TOSHIBA MK5002MPL. Any suggestions on how to speed it up? I tried turning
> on multcount, but that didn't have any effect, as you found out.

Ouch! And I thought my card was a slug! So we have a puzzle on our
hands. According to hdparm -v, the only thing I have turned on is
readahead=8. Does that match your setup? Anybody else with one of
these drives noticing bad performance?

> > There are several 10/100 cards listed on the compatibility page at
> > handhelds.org. How does one tell if a card is "non-CardBus"?
>
> That's the problem. I tried a 100Mb card we had here, and the iPAQ didn't
> even notice I'd inserted it. The card was CardBus only. I'd rather not order
> one and find out later that it didn't work.

Was the card you tried listed in the compatibility list? If so, some
feedback to whoever maintains the list might be in order.

Paul

-- 
Boeing Phantom Works                   \ Paul L. Allen, (425) 865-3297
Math & Computing Technology              \ paul.l.allen_at_boeing.com
POB 3707 M/S 7L-40, Seattle, WA 98124-2207 \ Prototype Systems Group