SE/30 Benchmarks: Mechanical HDD vs. RaSCSI vs. BlueSCSI

[rollmastr]

Hello everybody,

After watching the latest BlueSCSI video by ActionRetro I had to do some tinkering...

I used my Mac SE/30 with 8MB RAM and System 7.5.5 and HDT 1.8 to compare the speeds of the following devices:

IBM H3171-S2 - 160MB SCSI drive from 1993:


BlueSCSI 1.0-c with the latest firmware (v1.1-20220404):


RaSCSI 2.4a with the latest firmware (v22.02.01) using a Pi Zero 2 W:


The image file was initialized with patched Apple HD SC Setup 7.3.5 and shared between the BlueSCSI and the RaSCSI.

I was surprised to find out that both BlueSCSI and RaSCSI delivered lower transfer rates than the IBM HDD and that RaSCSI was the slowest of the bunch. Due to the significantly lower access time both SD solutions feel zippier than the HDD though.

Is there an issue with my setup or do these numbers seem right? I did expect a better performance from the RaSCSI to be honest. Thank you!

 

[rjkucia]

I think that more or less makes sense - HDDs have always been quite good at raw throughput, the issue is with seek time/latency (which is reflected in your test). As far as the RaSCSI, I've heard it's very dependent on which model Pi you use. A Pi Zero is definitely going to be limiting (relatively, at least - that's what I'm using!), and I'd expect a Pi 4 to perform much better.

 

[Skate323k137]

I'm using a Pi 4 B and performance has been solid... it would be interesting to benchmark it. I haven't done any real documented benchmarking since 2018ish.

 

[bcschmidt]

I got almost a Meg per second read on my bluescsi, every test shows the bluescsi way faster, but real world use of the machine proves the hard drives are faster. Overall the system is way snappier and responsive with my old Quantum 80s. Tried exfat too

 

[Berenod]

I got almost a Meg per second read on my bluescsi, every test shows the bluescsi way faster, but real world use of the machine proves the hard drives are faster. Overall the system is way snappier and responsive with my old Quantum 80s. Tried exfat too

Biggest gains probably are when used on machines with the very old scsi drives..
Thinking about the 20/40MB mini scribes...
I use BlueSCSI on a portable (M5120) and a SE (M5011), and on both machines feel like waaay snappier!

6.0.8 loads in less then 10 seconds, with the harddrive it can be a full minute, not even that much faster then booting from floppy (and just as noisy).