SCSI & Network Throughput, Pt 2

Low End Mac's Online Tech Journal

SCSI and Network Throughput, Part 2

I've done the theory (see Part 1), now on to the testing.

Ethernet v. SCSI on a IIsi

Using a Macintosh IIsi with 17 MB RAM running System 7.5.5 on an Apple-branded Quantum hard drive, I benchmarked performance using Speedometer 3.06. It's not the best benchmark, but it runs on everything and runs fairly quickly.

System	Drive Tested	Disk Rating 1 MB cache	Disk Rating 64KB cache
IIsi	Quantum 80 MB	5.2	2.4
IIsi, Speed Doubler	Quantum 80 MB	2.0	not tested
IIsi	Quantum 40 MB	6.3	1.8
IIsi	Zip drive	5.1	1.6
IIsi	RAM disk (ramBunctious)	5.3	14.9
IIsi, OpenTransport	ethernet, IIfx RAM*	0.38	0.38
IIsi, classic network	ethernet, IIfx RAM*	0.52	0.49
IIsi, classic network	ethernet, IIfx HD	0.31	0.31
IIsi, OpenTransport	ethernet, 7600 HD**	0.50	0.50
IIsi, classic network	ethernet, 7600 HD**	1.1	1.1
IIsi, classic network	LocalTalk, 7600 HD	0.16	not tested

* Macintosh IIfx, 32 MB RAM, System 7.5.5, OpenTransport, AppleShare 3.0, 7.5 MB disk cache, 8 MB RAM disk created with ramBunctious.

** Power Mac 7600/132, 48MB RAM, virtual enabled, System 7.6.1, AppleShare 5.0, 4 MB disk cache.

It's interesting to note that Speedometer reports a lower hard drive score with Speed Doubler than with Apple's cache. (Speedometer tests the drive using a 1 MB file, so a larger cache would not produce a higher score.) Part of the reason is that Speedometer uses random access while Speed Doubler is trying to intelligently predict access.

It's also interesting that classic networking is faster than OpenTransport on the IIsi. Accessing the 7600 server with classic networking was over twice as fast as the newer OpenTransport protocol. There was only a 30% improvement with the IIfx.

It's no great surprise that cache size on the client computer makes no significant difference.

Bear in mind that all these systems are using different hard drives, which will explain some of the difference performance.

Macintosh II Series as AppleShare Server

I claimed any Mac II series computer would make a decent small group server. Time to test that claim. My first testbed is a Macintosh IIsi, 17 MB RAM, 80 MB Apple-branded Quantum hard drive, ethernet, System 7.5.5, and AppleShare 3. I also have a IIfx with 32 MB RAM, 160 MB IBM hard drive, ethernet, System 7.6.1, and AppleShare 3. These are compared with a corporate server, a Power Mac 7600, 48 MB RAM, RAID drive, and AppleShare IP 5.0.

As above, tests are conducted with Speedometer. Tests are run from a Power Mac 7600/180 with 96 MB RAM, a 4 MB disk cache, RAM Doubler, and Speed Doubler. Both computers are on a switched ethernet hub, so network traffic should have no bearing.

Variables include cache size, server (7600, IIsi, IIfx), personal file sharing. AppleShare, classic v. OpenTransport networking, and drive mechanism.

System	Drive Tested	Disk Rating 1 MB cache	Disk Rating 64KB cache
SE, AppleShare 3	classic networking	n/a	0.19
Mac II, AppleShare 3	classic networking	0.50	0.45
IIsi, file sharing	classic networking	0.45	0.42
IIsi, file sharing	OpenTransport	0.30	0.28
IIsi, AppleShare 3	classic networking	0.41	not tested
IIfx, AppleShare 3	OpenTransport	0.38	not tested
IIfx, AppleShare 3	OT, RAM disk	0.57	not tested
7600/132, AS IP 5	OpenTransport	1.75	n/a
7600/180	internal drive	8.4	n/a

Based on these results, I plan to move the IIfx back to System 7.5.5 so I can use classic networking instead of the more processor intensive OpenTransport.

UPDATE: Part of the reason AppleShare 3 is slower with OpenTransport (OT) is that it was designed before OT and doesn't take advantage of OT calls. Current version of AppleShare, which won't run on 68000-68030 Macs, take full advantage of OT.

According to Speedometer, the ancient IIsi with an equally old hard drive offers one-fourth the performance of a 7600 with RAID drives and AppleShare 5. Moving the IIfx from OT to classic networking should put performance at about 0.6, one-third the performance of the Power Mac.

Using a modern hard drive could boost performance even further, perhaps into the area of 0.6 on the IIsi and 0.9 on the IIfx.

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SCSI and Network Throughput, Part 2

Ethernet v. SCSI on a IIsi

Macintosh II Series as AppleShare Server

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