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Success: USB HDD 300GB

Success: USB HDD 300GB
Fri, 25 Nov 2005 01:32:28 +010
As there have been some questions around about
USB HDD, here are my results with my new backup disk.

USB HDD:
  TrekStor DataStation y.uh 300GB USB 2.0

Mainboard chipset: (Athlon64)
  VIA K8T800, southbridge VT8237

Driver/kernel revisions:
  USBD.ADD     10.158
  USBMSD.ADD   10.145
  FAT32.IFS    0.9.10 (from Netlabs)
  OS/2 kernel  14.103a_W4

Problems:
  The drive was preformatted with FAT32 in one primary
  partition. Initially I couldn't use it on eCS but on WinXP.
  I couldn't even delete the partition in LVM (option grayed out).
  So I booted to XP and removed the partition and created
  a new extended partition with 3 logical partitions:
  180GB, 60GB, 45GB (the rest)

  I formatted the 180GB partition with NTFS on XP. Then
  I booted eCS 1.15 again, and plugged the disk in. It
  was immediately attached and all 3 partitions got a drive
  letter. Then I started LVM, deleted the 60GB and the 45GB
  partitions (now it was possible) and recreated them as
  LVM volumes. I closed LVM saving the changes.
  Afterwards I formatted the two volumes with JFS and copied
  some files to them. Everything works fine.
  I also tried to attached the NTFS partition and had success.

Performance tests:
  I wanted to know what transfer speed is available with
  eCS and WinXP. For eCS I used Sysbench 0.9.5.

   Disk I/O disk 39-5: 286166 MB - Unknown disk
    Avg. data access time :       15.100    milliseconds
    Cache/Bus xfer rate   :       14.815    Megabytes/second
    Track 0 xfer rate fwd :       14.820    Megabytes/second
    Middle trk rate fwds. :       14.805    Megabytes/second
    Last track rate bwds. :       14.170    Megabytes/second
    Average Transfer rate :       14.598    Megabytes/second
    Disk use CPU load     :        9.620    percent
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total                 :       83.094    Disk I/O-marks

  This is acceptable for backups (much faster than my DVD-RAMs).
  WinXP performed quite a bit faster. It reached around 27 MB/sec.
  So there seems to be still room for improvements in the USB drivers.

Finally I can fully make use of the 300GB.

Hope this information is of value.

Heiko
Post Reply
Re: Success: USB HDD 300GB
Fri, 25 Nov 2005 06:38:33 GMT
On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:32:28 UTC Heiko Nitzsche 
<hn-expires-31-dec-05@arcor.de> wrote:

> As there have been some questions around about
> USB HDD, here are my results with my new backup disk.
> 
> USB HDD:
>   TrekStor DataStation y.uh 300GB USB 2.0
> 
> Mainboard chipset: (Athlon64)
>   VIA K8T800, southbridge VT8237
> 
> Driver/kernel revisions:
>   USBD.ADD     10.158
>   USBMSD.ADD   10.145
>   FAT32.IFS    0.9.10 (from Netlabs)
>   OS/2 kernel  14.103a_W4
> 
> Problems:
>   The drive was preformatted with FAT32 in one primary
>   partition. Initially I couldn't use it on eCS but on WinXP.
>   I couldn't even delete the partition in LVM (option grayed out).
>   So I booted to XP and removed the partition and created
>   a new extended partition with 3 logical partitions:
>   180GB, 60GB, 45GB (the rest)
> 
>   I formatted the 180GB partition with NTFS on XP. Then
>   I booted eCS 1.15 again, and plugged the disk in. It
>   was immediately attached and all 3 partitions got a drive
>   letter. Then I started LVM, deleted the 60GB and the 45GB
>   partitions (now it was possible) and recreated them as
>   LVM volumes. I closed LVM saving the changes.
>   Afterwards I formatted the two volumes with JFS and copied
>   some files to them. Everything works fine.
>   I also tried to attached the NTFS partition and had success.
> 
> Performance tests:
>   I wanted to know what transfer speed is available with
>   eCS and WinXP. For eCS I used Sysbench 0.9.5.
> 
>    Disk I/O disk 39-5: 286166 MB - Unknown disk
>     Avg. data access time :       15.100    milliseconds
>     Cache/Bus xfer rate   :       14.815    Megabytes/second
>     Track 0 xfer rate fwd :       14.820    Megabytes/second
>     Middle trk rate fwds. :       14.805    Megabytes/second
>     Last track rate bwds. :       14.170    Megabytes/second
>     Average Transfer rate :       14.598    Megabytes/second
>     Disk use CPU load     :        9.620    percent
>    
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Total                 :       83.094    Disk I/O-marks
> 
>   This is acceptable for backups (much faster than my DVD-RAMs).
>   WinXP performed quite a bit faster. It reached around 27 MB/sec.
>   So there seems to be still room for improvements in the USB drivers.
> 
> Finally I can fully make use of the 300GB.

I've got a similar problem with a thumb drive formatted FAT32.  I'm 
pretty sure that part of the problem comes from the FAT32 IFS driver 
plus an LVM issue with FAT32 and no usable IFS.  Works fine with HPFS,
NTFS, and FAT16 so the problem is isolated to USB with FAT32.

-- 
Post Reply
Re: Success: USB HDD 300GB
Fri, 25 Nov 2005 07:42:25 GMT
On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 06:38:33 UTC, "Will Honea"
<whonea@yahoo.com> 
wrote:

> I've got a similar problem with a thumb drive formatted FAT32.  I'm 
> pretty sure that part of the problem comes from the FAT32 IFS driver 
> plus an LVM issue with FAT32 and no usable IFS.  Works fine with HPFS,
> NTFS, and FAT16 so the problem is isolated to USB with FAT32.

The documentation I have for FAT32 say that it does not support 
removable media.  I think that it may work with removable media if you
have a FAT32 partition on your hard drive so that the FAT32 driver 
gets initialized properly.


-- 
Post Reply
Re: Success: USB HDD 300GB
Sun, 27 Nov 2005 15:20:15 +010
> I've got a similar problem with a thumb drive formatted FAT32.  I'm 
> pretty sure that part of the problem comes from the FAT32 IFS driver 
> plus an LVM issue with FAT32 and no usable IFS.  Works fine with HPFS,
> NTFS, and FAT16 so the problem is isolated to USB with FAT32.

Just to prevent misunderstanding, I didn't actually try
FAT32 IFS (0.9.10) again after creating the new logical
volumes. So I don't know whether it works or not.

The initial 300GB primary partition was detected as FAT32
partition by LVM and also a drive letter has been assigned.
But the drive showed only 30GB free space and the file that
was on the partition was invisible. So the FAT32 IFS might
have a size limit of around 250-260GB.
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