We've
said this before and we'll say it again, your
hard drive is one of the slowest parts of your
computer. Or is it? Let's take a
look at today's computer technology and the
speed ratings for various types of
components. Let's see, your main system
memory is rated in Nanoseconds. Your
Processor's clock frequency is rated in
MHz Your Graphics card is also measured in
MHz for the processor and Nanoseconds for the
memory. Then there is the Hard Drive its
access time ( the time it takes for the drive
controller to gain access to data on the drive)
is rated in Milliseconds. We aren't going
to do the math for you here but "Nano"
is one billionth of a second. "Milli"
is one thousandth of a second. You get the
picture. One of the best performance
enhancements you can make to your computer,
whether you are into Video Production or
Gaming, is speeding up your storage
system.
Just
as the MHz. War has been raging between the
various chip suppliers, the Interface Bandwidth
War has been raging between the two major camps,
EIDE and SCSI. SCSI always seems to be one
step ahead of EIDE and this time is no
different. This is a look at the all new Quantum
Atlas V Ultra160 SCSI Drive. You guessed
it. The "160" here stands for
160MB/sec maximum bus transfer
rate. That is over 2X the
current top end bandwidth of EIDE's DMA66
interface.
Here
are the rest of the details...
Specifications
/ Features Of The Quantum Atlas V
A
7200 RPM and Ultra160 Combo
Capacity
9.1
18.3
36.7
Form
Factor
3.5
inch
3.5
inch
3.5
inch
Interfaces
Ultra160/m,
Ultra2, Ultra SCSI 68-pin Wide
Ultra160/m,
Ultra2, Ultra SCSI 80-pin SCA-2
Formatted
Capacity (MB2)
9,100
18,300
36,700
Disk
Drive Configuration
Number
of platters
1
2
4
Head/Recording
Surfaces
2
4
8
Bytes
per Sector
512
512
512
Maximum
Areal Density (Gb/sq. in.)
6.5
6.5
6.5
Encoding/Detection
Method
24/25
RLL PRML
24/25
RLL PRML
24/25
RLL PRML
Performance
Specifications
Typical
Seek Times3 (ms)
Average
(read)
6.3
6.3
6.3
Track-to
Track
0.8
0.8
0.8
Full
Stroke
15
15
15
Average
Rotational Latency (ms)
4.17
4.17
4.17
Rotational
Speed (RPM)
7,200
7,200
7,200
Internal
Data Rate (Mb/sec)
194
to 340
194
to 340
194
to 340
Sustained
Throughput (MB/sec)
17
to 29
17
to 29
17
to 29
Data
Transfer Rates (Buffer-to-Host)
Ultra160/m
SCSI (MB/sec)
160
160
160
Ultra2
SCSI (MB/sec)
80
80
80
Ultra
SCSI (MB/sec)
40
40
40
Buffer
Size (MB)
4
4
4
Shock
Protection System II
QDT
- Quite Drive Technology
Data
Protection System (DPS)
The
picture above is a view of the 36Gig version
with the lid off. We tested the 18 Gig
version with two 9 Gig platters inside. To
say the least, this is an impressive set of
specs. The notable points are the huge 4MB
Data Buffer size, high density 9Gig Platters,
and blistering fast 6.3ms access. Toss in
the all new Ultra160 SCSI interface and we have
a winner on paper.
So
we decided to see how it looked when we set it
up. Of course we had to put some new
silicon behind this new drive. That's
where Adaptec's
new 29160 SCSI Card comes in.
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