Bench Testing the Oxford 911: New Fire, Old 'Books by Remy Davison Recently, I've tested a new Oxford 911-based FireWire enclosure on two previous-generation G3 PowerBooks: a Wallstreet and a Lombard. So how do these older G3s stack up in FireWire performance? Specifically, how does the Oxford 911 perform with CardBus FireWire? Hardware and software First, let's lay out the test equipment: PowerBook G3/233 Wallstreet, 512K L2 cache, 128MB RAM, 3.0GB Hitachi 4,200rpm internal HD, OS 8.6, Connectix SpeedDoubler 8.1.2. PowerBook G3/400 Lombard, 1MB L2 cache, 512MB RAM, 6.0GB IBM Travelstar 4,200rpm internal HD, OS 9.2.1. NewerTech FireWire2Go CardBus card (price: around $35). iceCube 3.5" Oxford 911 enclosure (marketed as 'Fire'n'Ice' from Think Computer Products ($280 including IBM Deskstar 40GB). Also marketed under a number of other vendors' labels. IBM Deskstar 60GXP 7,200rpm IDE hard drive, 40GB, 2MB buffer (price: approx. $130 for bare drive - less on the street). For performance testing, the following software was used: ATTO ExpressPro-Tools 2.5 (free download). FWB HDT 4.5. Apple FireWire extensions, v.2.8.4 (comes with OS 9.2.1). HDT 4.5; El Gato Disk Control 1.1; VST 2.3.1; Prosoft Datafab; Radialogic 1.8.1; and Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools 3.2 FireWire drivers. The IBM drive has several operating modes, but these are only accessible via a DOS programme. There are no real benefits for the Mac in any case. The drive is extremely quiet and DOS users can make it quieter still, although there is a performance hit. The Fire'n'Ice case is marketed by several different firms, varying only in external brand marking detail (mine's not a Fire'n'Ice branded case, but is identical nonetheless). It's an attractive metal enclosure wrapped in transluscent plastic. It supports ATA-5, UDMA-5 (ATA-100), PIO modes 1-4, drives with 2MB buffers (such as the Deskstar) and the FireWire bridge is equipped with 512K of flash memory. Installation was straightforward: plug in the hard drive to power and IDE connectors and reassemble the enclosure. Like most cases, it has two FireWire ports for chaining devices together. The Newer Technology FireWire2Go CardBus card is still readily available from vendors such as Outpost and Other World Computing. However, note that Newer filed for bankruptcy late in 2000, and vendors selling the card have limited warranties and support. However, in 12 months of use, I've had no problems. FireWire2Go works with Apple's out-of-the-box Mac OS drivers in OS 8.6 and later. OS X support is uncertain. The card also uses what is now an older FireWire chipset, comparable to that used in the B&W PowerMac G3s. The Wintel version of FireWire2Go is also available, and rumor has it that it has a slightly later chipset revision than the Mac card. However, note the Mac version comes with a copy of QuickTime Pro 4.0 which may be useful to you. Benchmark Tests Here, I tested both the Lombard and the Wallstreet with the same equpment and software. Note that not all of the software drivers were tested on the Wallstreet. Take a look at the relative performance of the different drivers - some of them are eye-openers. Lombard 400, FWB HDT 4.5 Bench Test Driver Tested Sus Read (KB/sec) Sus Write (KB/sec) Average Average Reads Writes Low Peak Avg. Low Peak Avg. Access(ms) Seek(ms) (sec) (sec) FWB HDT 4.5 FireWire driver 14265 17766 15628 8625 8711 8686 9.5 0.0 5994 3245 El Gato Disk Control 1.1 24403 28310 26371 10998 11046 11030 9.3 0.0 13913 1155 Prosoft DataFab driver 1.0b2 25888 30383 28101 11593 11657 11629 9.1 0.0 1549 1199 Intech HardDisk SpeedTools 3.2 24534 28376 26328 11032 11074 11060 9.2 0.0 13268 1308 Radialogic StorageMaster 1.8.1 24669 28019 26265 10869 10953 10925 9.3 0.0 10124 1185 VST FireWire drivers 2.3.1 24277 31738 27664 11670 11728 11697 8.9 0.0 12203 1212 Wallstreet 233, FWB HDT 4.5 Bench Test Driver tested Sus Read (KB/sec) Sus Write (KB/sec) Average Average Reads Writes Low Peak Avg. Low Peak Avg. Access(ms) Seek(ms) (sec) (sec) VST 2.3.1 driver 4598 4782 4701 9149 9187 9174 8.4 0.0 7961 1203 Radialogic StorageMaster 1.8.1 9728 10499 10089 9864 9918 9898 8.4 0.0 4023 1180 El Gato Disk Control 1.1 9732 10324 10062 9987 10020 10006 8.4 0.0 9140 1187 FWB HDT 4.5 FireWire drivers 6566 6977 6726 7248 7450 7428 10.2 0.0 4902 5128 In both instances, note the particularly poor performance of FWB's own driver software (on its own bench test). This was consistent in a number of tests on both the Wallstreet and the Lombard. If anyone from FWB cares to tell me why, I'll be pleased to listen. I was also a little bemused by the Wallstreet's relatively low-key performance, although Wallstreets are reputed to have fairly pedestrian CardBus FireWire performance. For initial testing, I used Apple's FireWire 2.7 extensions (comes with OS 9.1) with the Wallstreet's installed OS 8.6. As Apple's 2.8x drivers are reputed to deliver better performance, I pulled FireWire 2.8.4 from the OS 9.2.1 installer tome and loaded them onto the Wallstreet. The results above are what I obtained. There was no discernible difference between the two sets of Apple drivers on the Wallstreet. Ironically, two of the best-performing FireWire disk drivers are no longer made: Radialogic's (by Prosoft) StorageMaster and El Gato's Disk Control. The Disk Control software was acquired by SmartDisk/VST in 2000, and their VST 2.3.1 drivers are an updated and repackaged version of the El Gato software. Oddly enough, on the Wallstreet at least, the VST software does not perform as well, although it's virtually line-ball on the Lombard. You can download the VST software, although you'll need an older version of the VST software or the El Gato software if you want to use it. Intech's Hard Disk SpeedTools, tested on the Lombard, performed consistently around average in these tests. However, I understand that the latest version (3.4?) has much improved FireWire performance. If Intech wants to send us an update, we'll be happy to test it. The Datafab driver - also written by Prosoft - turns out to be a strong performer, with speed only second to the VST drivers on the Lombard. It's bundled with a few retail drives. Other Benchmarks To provide a basis for comparison, I also ran ATTO's Express ProTools bench test, using the VST software on both the Wallstreet and Lombard. Results are in the table below. ATTO, Express ProTools 2.5 Peak read (MB/ps) Sustained read (MB/ps) Peak write (MB/ps) Sustained write (MB/ps) Transfer size Sample size Wallstreet 233 11.7 10.64 10.24 10.24 8MB 2 Lombard 400 34.41 33.16 11.95 11.93 8MB 2 What explains the Lombard's vastly superior read performance? I suspect the answer lies in the Grackle PCI controller which was introduced with the Lombard. This (then) new controller provides vastly superior PCI performance, which translates to everything that's connected to the PCI bus - including video and CardBus. Given both systems have a 66MHz bus, this seems to be the major differentiating factor between the two systems. However, it's worthwhile pointing out that the Lombard's write performance - the critical factor for writing, say, DV - is only 1MB or so better per second than the Wallstreet's. Comments on CardBus/PCI FireWire and USB 2.0 More recent CardBus FireWire cards (even older ones, such as the Ratoc card) will deliver better performance than the Newer card, as MacWorld testing from 2 years ago demonstrated. VST, Macally and many other vendors offer CardBus FireWire. Adaptec now offers a card with three 1394 ports on the dongle. Adaptec also claim this card is faster than the built-in FireWire on the Pismo and Titanium. Bare Feats have substantiated that CardBus FireWire is indeed faster than the built-in FireWire on PowerBooks/iBooks (except iBook 2001). As noted in a previous column on FireWire and PowerBooks, 3400, 2400 and Kanga G3 can be upgraded to accommodate FireWire, while non-FireWire iMac owners should look to Sonnet's Harmoni CPU upgrade/FireWire card, available any day now. Any beige PCI Power Mac can be upgraded with a multi-port FireWire card for under $100. To give you a basis for comparison with USB 2.0 performance, the San Jose Mercury recently tested a Compaq AMD Athlon 1.4GHz desktop system with USB 2.0 PCI. They copied a 512MB file to a USB 2.0 hard drive. I did the same test with the Lombard via Cardbus FireWire. Here's the comparison: Time to copy 512MB file Compaq 7000, Athlon 1.4GHz, USB 2.0 53 seconds Lombard, CardBus FireWire 1 min, 18 seconds When you consider the Compaq's advantages: fast 5,400 or 7,200 internal hard drive (not specified); much faster internal bus; and faster RAM, the Lombard's performance is not too shabby, as it only has a 66MHz system bus; a system clock less than a third the Compaq's 1.4GHz; slower memory (limited to a 66MHz pipeline); only a UATA-33, 4,200rpm hard drive; and a much older CardBus FireWire chipset (not to mention the damn PowerBook is two years old!). It's likely that an iBook 2001 would equal or better the Compaq desktop when doing data transfers via an Oxford 911 bridge chip and a G4 desktop would most likely smoke the Compaq. Before we 'went to press', Rob Art Morgan of Bare Feats contacted IGM and suggested two things were apparent from his tests. First, that Oxford 911 bridges can differ in overall performance (firmware may be an issue here); and, second, other new-generation FireWire bridges, such as Indigita's, can match Oxford 911 performance (thanks to Rob for the heads-up on this). As a result, it's worthwhile checking what type of bridge an enclosure or FireWire package has. For OS X - even with 10.1 - CardBus support is somewhat flakey for PowerBooks and Apple needs to fix this. There have been some preliminary reports that some Oxford 911s don't work well - or at all - with 10.1. Older FireWire bridges do not seem to have issues with 10.1. Certain vendors are posting firmware upgrades to overcome the problem. It's probably worthwhile holding out testing 10.1 (at least with PowerBooks, and maybe desktops) until it's clear how Apple or third-party vendors deal with the 911 issues. We'll also have to see which developers create or update FireWire drivers for OS X, bearing in mind a number of Mac FireWire driver software developers have disappeared already (or have been subsumed by other firms). Summary The biggest variable I learned about here was that driver software can be critical to performance. This was entirely unexpected. Clearly, some vendors have optimised their FireWire software, while others have some work to do. Note that although neither of these PowerBooks takes full advantage of the throughput offered by the Oxford 911, they are both easily fast enough to grab full-frame digital video (DV) via FireWire. You may drop frames with a 233, but a 292 or 300 Wallstreet should be fast enough. Also note that in any case, the Oxford 911 bridges offer vastly superior performance to earlier-generation FireWire bridges, and this should enable slower Wallstreets to capture DV to FireWire reasonably well. Lombards, Pismos, iBooks and TiBooks do not pose a problem in this regard. If you're thinking about a new iBook, iMac or G4, you will get full benefit from the Oxford 911. These models all have the new FireWire controller which dramatically - in some cases doubles - the original, built-in Firewire performance of the Pismo and TiBook. Buying Advice If you want the fastest data transfer performance possible, go with an Oxford 911 or comparable bridge device. Conversely, if you're looking for cheap storage for backup or extra space, an older FireWire bridge device is plenty fast for most needs. If you're thinking of a 5.25" enclosure for a CDRW - or a CDRW external FireWire retail package - you don't need to worry about its bridge. CDRW read and write speeds don't even approach the bandwidth limits imposed by the original FireWire specification. You'll also find a lot of bargains around now 3.5" and 5.25" enclosures sporting the original FireWire bridges as the Oxford 911 supersedes them.