Iwill SIDEpro66 ATA66
PCI hard disk drive
controler
Tuesday, January 11, 2000
Introduction Solutions for supporting ATA66 drives are big money these
days, but not everyone is into the idea of shelling out hard cash for a
brand new motherboard. For those who wish to take advantage of the ATA66
standard without going through that trouble, Iwill has developed an
independent ATA66 disk controller, that can be mounted in an available PCI
slot. This controller is based upon the same Highpoint HPT366 that is found
on other controllers, as well as integrated into the circuitry of some
motherboards. |  |
Description The
SIDEpro66 is practically identical to the Abit Hotrod66; not surprising
considering they both sport the same HPT366 controller. The Iwill SIDEpro66
is thus a PCI card with 2 IDE connectors, which can each support 2 ATA66
devices. An 80-wires ATA66 compliant cable is
supplied with the card itself. Finally, it must be mentioned that the ATA66
standard is backwards-compatible - thus supporting older IDE devices, as
well as newer ATA66 drives.
The Tests In
order to see if the ATA66 card built by Iwill is as speedy as the Abit car,
I compared the two with the HD Tach v2.6 program; the results of which
appear below.
HD Tach
2.60
| Read Data Transfer Rate test kb/sec. | | HDD | Max. | Min. | Ave. | CPU | Burst Mode | Random
Access
Time | | Iwill SIDEpro66 | 20,050 | 12,860 | 17,100 | 5.4% | 58.4Mb/sec. | 10.9ms. | | Abit HotRod66 |
20,077 | 12,871 | 17,126 | 4.7% | 57.8Mb/sec. | 11ms. |
As you can see, the difference between
the two cards is insignificant, and in all practicality, the two are
indistinguishable from each other.
Conclusions The
idea of adding an ATA66 card to one's PCI slot is more interesting in terms
of expanding the number of devices one's system can support - rather than
being enticing for its offered performance increase. In fact, I don't
think that the performance gains are enough to be readily noticed under
normal operating conditions. Then again, the immediate ability to add an
another 4 devices to one's system is nothing to sneeze at. Anyone who often
needs to use a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, and a CD-R simultaneously can well
imagine the benefits. In short then, anyone who is, or will be looking to
add a device or 4 to their system, and take advantage of the ATA66
standard, need look no further for a solution... For more information, visit Iwill.
Specifications
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Features
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HighPoint HP366 ATA66
controller chip.
Two indendent IDE channels.
Ultra DMA66, DMA33
and all PIO mode.
256 bytes FIFO per channels.
32bit/33MHz Bus
Master PCI interface.
Supports up to 44MHz PCI bus clock.
Concurrent PIO and bus master access.
¡@(ATA mode accessible during DMA
transfer)
One IDE LED header.
RAID 0/1 function (option).
One jumper to support HotSwap function (option).
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