On 10/04/2023 13:07, Java Jive wrote:
>
> On 08/04/2023 23:53, David W. Hodgins wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 08 Apr 2023 18:14:23 -0400, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Well now, the plot ever thickens ...
>>>
>>> Booting from a W98 DOS Mode USB-stick, it gets to the config.sys menu in
>>> just 9 secs, just the same as the others!
>>>
>>> WTF is going on here???!!!
>>
>> Different controllers. Perhaps there is a problem with the sata
>> controller or one of the devices connected to it (in terms of the
>> device being slow to initialize), or a barely working sata
>> cable/connector.
>>
>> Start by re-seating all of the sata connectors.
>
> I'd already removed the HD to try the P3 one, but nevertheless I took it
> out again and examined the connectors, and there's nothing visibly wrong
> with them.  I can't examine the mobo connectors or the controller chip
> without a major dismantling of the laptop, and I'm too busy to do that ATM.

After a test re-imaging of the slow PC, a Dell Precision of M6300
laptop, with an old XP SysPrep image, I noticed that the DVD-Writer
wasn't showing in Device Manager. I swapped it with one of the others,
and now both DVD-Writers are showing up on both PCs, and on the problem
PC the long delay between the POST screen and beginning to load the OS
has been removed, so it seems that delay was being caused by the CD-DVD
unit being second in the boot search order, between USB (1st) and HD
(3rd), but no actual device being found at boot time.

However, in normal use, it's still behaving erratically and is unstable,
even after the re-imaging; usual symptom is the first explorer process
- the one that runs the Desktop as opposed to subsequent ones that run
the File Manager - crashing. However, that wasn't happening, at least
not that I can definitely remember, previously, so that may be related
to reverting to quite an old image. Having concluded my testing with
this image, I shall put the original image back on to see what happens.

However, whether or not extra problems have been introduced by the old
image, it still seems treacle-like slow, so there's still some problem
with it.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

In message <u0p3bc$qnoo$1@dont-email.me> at Fri, 7 Apr 2023 08:46:36,
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> writes
[]
>While in Windows, run HDTune benchmark, and look for "bad spots" in the curve.
[]
> https://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe # ten year old free version
[]
>On a hard drive, the outer circumference offers better rates than the
>hub does, which is why the benchmark curve gently declines to half-rate.
>When you see stairsteps in the bench curve, that is "zoned recording",
>and the formatting of the tracks changes from one part of the disk
>to another, on purpose. The stair steps then, are normal, and part of
>design.
[]
I have (what I think is a) fairly conventional HD (500G, in a
second-hand laptop I bought in January), which displays a fairly normal
HDTune curve - flattish up to about 40%, then gentle rolloff to about
half speed: but then hops up again to a high speed for the last 2% or
so! It's consistent - two pairs of runs (I always run it twice) about 3
months apart. (The second run also shows the Access Time - the yellow
"milky way" of spots - along the bottom.)

I'll try to include the last pair but they may not attach or propagate.

In message <u11k8d$2933d$1@dont-email.me> at Mon, 10 Apr 2023 19:24:12,
Dave <dave@cyw.uklinux.net> writes
>On 06/04/2023 16:02, Java Jive wrote:
>
>> Can anyone point to a UK source of reliable, genuinely new,
>>moderately priced non-shingled laptop drives from about 500GB to 1.5TB?
>
>WD model WD10JUCT is available from various suppliers for about £60.
>It's intended for CCTV, DVRs and similar uses where the volume of data
>written is similar to the volume read. OK the ones I have are new-old
>stock dated 2017 - 2019.

I think the ones for TV purposes are "purple", in WD's colour scheme.
Whether they're good (or even overkill), or bad, for general PC use,
I've no idea. (I _suspect_ they're probably good on reliability,
possibly only middling on speed, at least for random access.)

I don't know if they're different when it comes to the magnetic
surfaces, or just the controllers.
--
J. P. Gilliver

In message <u0s8nj$1bera$1@dont-email.me> at Sat, 8 Apr 2023 18:36:51,
Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> writes
[]
>Yes, previously, I've rather been put off SSD drives, because ...
[]
>... which between them give a combined failure rate of at least 15%,
>which I would have guessed was higher than that for conventional HDs,
>but now, trying to remember back systematically as best as I can over
>about 3 to 4 decades, actually I recall 5 early failures in at least
>about 25 HDs, or a maximum of around 20%, so for me SSDs certainly have
>performed no worse, and most probably have performed better, than
>conventional HDs, which I wouldn't have expected to be the case without
>systematically trying to recall the details of the HDs that I've had.
>
_My_ nervousness about SSD drives has been the _manner_ of failure - and
that's probably unfairly based on my experience with USB sticks: my
_feeling_ is that solid-state memory devices fail suddenly with no
warning, whereas spinning drives _tend_ to decline gradually. (Not
always I know: I had one where - I think - the head or heads
spot-welded, so obviously the drive suddenly stopped spinning! [It had
been in a laptop with a heating problem. After all the usual methods
failed, I actually opened it in a clean cabinet we had at work, which is
how I know what happened: I freed it, and got 95-98% of the data off,
though condemned it thereafter.]) But on the whole HDs give advanced
indication of failure: make funny noises, or - more often, I think - no
obvious indication (unless you keep running HDTune), just get slower and
slower as the ECC works harder. (I know someone whose XP - or might have
been '9x - machine was eventually taking a quarter hour to boot! It was
fine once it _had_ booted, unless you did something disc-intensive.)
Then there's the bit about SSDs having a write counter, and suddenly
becoming read-only when it passes a certain point - do they still do
that? - and one product line (Intel I think) which became a brick
(neither read _nor_ write, so you couldn't even rescue the data) at that
point.

Obviously, if you back up properly, none of this should matter, but …
(-:
--
J. P. Gilliver

On 5/3/2023 5:33 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <u0s8nj$1bera$1@dont-email.me> at Sat, 8 Apr 2023 18:36:51, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> writes
> []
>> Yes, previously, I've rather been put off SSD drives, because ...
> []
>> ... which between them give a combined failure rate of at least 15%, which I would have guessed was higher than that for conventional HDs, but now, trying to remember back systematically as best as I can over about 3 to 4 decades, actually I recall 5 early failures in at least about 25 HDs, or a maximum of around 20%, so for me SSDs certainly have performed no worse, and most probably have performed better, than conventional HDs, which I wouldn't have expected to be the case without systematically trying to recall the details of the HDs that I've had.
>>
> _My_ nervousness about SSD drives has been the _manner_ of failure - and that's probably unfairly based on my experience with USB sticks: my _feeling_ is that solid-state memory devices fail suddenly with no warning, whereas spinning drives _tend_ to decline gradually. (Not always I know: I had one where - I think - the head or heads spot-welded, so obviously the drive suddenly stopped spinning! [It had been in a laptop with a heating problem. After all the usual methods failed, I actually opened it in a clean cabinet we had at work, which is how I know what happened: I freed it, and got 95-98% of the data off, though condemned it thereafter.]) But on the whole HDs give advanced indication of failure: make funny noises, or - more often, I think - no obvious indication (unless you keep running HDTune), just get slower and slower as the ECC works harder. (I know someone whose XP - or might have been '9x - machine was eventually taking a quarter hour to boot! It was fine once it
> _had_ booted, unless you did something disc-intensive.) Then there's the bit about SSDs having a write counter, and suddenly becoming read-only when it passes a certain point - do they still do that? - and one product line (Intel I think) which became a brick (neither read _nor_ write, so you couldn't even rescue the data) at that point.
>
> Obviously, if you back up properly, none of this should matter, but … (-:
SSD drives have three-core ARM processors. There is a whack of
firmware in there, doing maintenance and maintaining "power-safe"
operations (keeping a copy of the translation table). Quite frequently,
when your hand is off the mouse, that three core processor
is doing stuff. The LED does not flash, when the three core processor
is on a rant.
The consumer SSD drives run without using a SuperCap. That's what
"power-safe" means, immediate power failure does not endanger
the "critical data" content. Power failures are also recorded
in SMART, so if you've been mis-treating your SSD, there is
a counter pointing at your misdeed. (I have a SATA to USB
converter that causes the power-failure counter to increment!
Not a builder of confidence, when a flush() was already sent.
This should not be happening. PC SATA SSD operation works fine.)
Early Enterprise drives had a SuperCap and the drive ran off
SuperCap energy, once the primary power feed was observed to
have gone away. This takes some of the pressure off writing
"power-safe" firmware. The SuperCap does not work (necessarily)
at rail voltage, and may use a boost converter to power
circuits on a failure. It only has to run for a second or two.
A few bucks worth of SuperCap would be enough, rather than
one of the $100 ones you could weld with :-)
Some consumer SSD drives, if you examine the PCB, you can see
the pads for the SuperCap (no part installed). The boost chip,
inductor and other bumpf, are also depopulated in the bill of
materials. Shopping on Ebay for a Supercap, isn't enough.
Some SSD drives have DRAM cache, cheaper ones do not. You won't
really find any discussion threads, where there is "evidence
these things exist". Presumably such cache, helps with wear
life and write amplification, best case.
USB sticks ? It's lucky they even have bypass caps.
There is nothing of value in a USB stick. Yes, a dinky
microcontroller is in there. A few USB sticks are "featureful",
but we have to take the word of manufacturer tech support,
and they're not known for information reliability. Most
modern USB sticks, die well before the computed wear life.
Even with no wear leveling, I should be able to write 600
times, and if it fails after 8 writes (dd.exe ==> ISO file),
you have to wonder.
They're just not in the same class.
There is much room for improvement, on USB sticks.
There are a couple sticks with both static and dynamic wear leveling.
But we cannot take some manufacturer tech support dood word for
this, because it could be abject marketing. Only the engineering
department at such a company, would know for sure.
Paul

On 5/3/2023 5:17 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <u11k8d$2933d$1@dont-email.me> at Mon, 10 Apr 2023 19:24:12, Dave <dave@cyw.uklinux.net> writes
>> On 06/04/2023 16:02, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>>> Can anyone point to a UK source of reliable, genuinely new, moderately  priced non-shingled laptop drives from about 500GB to 1.5TB?
>>
>> WD model WD10JUCT is available from various suppliers for about £60. It's intended for CCTV, DVRs and similar uses where the volume of data written is similar to the volume read. OK the ones I have are new-old stock dated 2017 - 2019.
>
> I think the ones for TV purposes are "purple", in WD's colour scheme. Whether they're good (or even overkill), or bad, for general PC use, I've no idea. (I _suspect_ they're probably good on reliability, possibly only middling on speed, at least for random access.)
>
> I don't know if they're different when it comes to the magnetic surfaces, or just the controllers.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/surveillance-hard-drive-performance,3831-6.html

The bottom chart has Access Time, and the Access Time on the Purple is slow.
In a non-threaded storage situation (PC desktop), they would likely suck.
They would suck like my Seagate 4TB 5900RPM drive sucked yesterday :-)
Man is that thing slow. Good sequential though. For making backups.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/surveillance-hard-drive-performance,3831-5.html

When you buy the wrong drive, you can always pretend it was for backups.

Paul

On 5/3/2023 4:55 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <u0p3bc$qnoo$1@dont-email.me> at Fri, 7 Apr 2023 08:46:36, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> writes
> []
>> While in Windows, run HDTune benchmark, and look for "bad spots" in the curve.
> []
>>   https://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe   # ten year old free version
> []
>> On a hard drive, the outer circumference offers better rates than the
>> hub does, which is why the benchmark curve gently declines to half-rate.
>> When you see stairsteps in the bench curve, that is "zoned recording",
>> and the formatting of the tracks changes from one part of the disk
>> to another, on purpose. The stair steps then, are normal, and part of
>> design.
> []
> I have (what I think is a) fairly conventional HD (500G, in a second-hand laptop I bought in January), which displays a fairly normal HDTune curve - flattish up to about 40%, then gentle rolloff to about half speed: but then hops up again to a high speed for the last 2% or so! It's consistent - two pairs of runs (I always run it twice) about 3 months apart. (The second run also shows the Access Time - the yellow "milky way" of spots - along the bottom.)
>
> I'll try to include the last pair but they may not attach or propagate.

Well, you certainly got your moneys-worth.

It's like something from a Cracker Jack box.

One of your plots, has HDD sequential transfer rate and SSD-like access times.

The piece on the end, *might* be consistent with a short-stroked
drive. A short-stroked drive only uses half of the platter (the
outer half) and the heads never touch the hub. On a short stroked
drive, the transfer curve starts at full rate, but at the end, it
has only declined to about 80% or so. The transfer speed is
mostly consistent over the storage surface.

I am lucky enough, to have acquired just one short stroke drive,
and there is absolutely no notation in the part number, indicating
my Cracker Jack either. I have three drives of that model, two
normal, one is short stroked.

Mine is a a WD 500GB 3.5" drive which is using a 1TB platter inside,
both surfaces are certified, and they only use the first 500GB because
I only paid for a 500GB drive. They make up a batch of 1TB drive,
some become 500GB drives, some stay as 1TB drives. This solves the
problem, of having no platters available any more, to make the
500GB drives.

But that translation, makes no sense. You would not "jump the heads to
the middle of the disk" for the last bit of certified storage on the
drive. What I'm saying is, if your drive was short stroked, the height
of the material on the right, is consistent with a short stroke drive.
But that's just a (weak) attempt to explain where the height would come
from.

But your Access Times of 0.3ms blows the whole charade. Something
like that might happen, via a user adding some sort of Samsung caching
software. Still pretty hard to justify or believe.

There are two anomalies, and I cannot adequately explain either of them.

I'm not saying it's Space Aliens that did it, but it's Space Aliens.

If you were running RAID, had a 500GB hard drive, a 16GB Robson cache,
maybe there would be some way to rig that. (Check and see if your
storage is being run by the Intel RST driver.) Like first, I have to dream
up some materials to make this work. But then the "behavior" part of
the observation, still makes no sense. A Robson cache, I don't think
the curves look like that, and the label for the upper left would
not read the way it does either. There would be an artifact of
the presence of RST for the drive name.

Kudos on your puzzle.

Paul

In message <u2uvs8$1gp0k$1@dont-email.me> at Wed, 3 May 2023 20:56:40,
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> writes
>On 5/3/2023 4:55 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
[]
>> I have (what I think is a) fairly conventional HD (500G, in a
>>second-hand laptop I bought in January), which displays a fairly
>>normal HDTune curve - flattish up to about 40%, then gentle rolloff to
>>about half speed: but then hops up again to a high speed for the last
>>2% or so! It's consistent - two pairs of runs (I always run it twice)
>>about 3 months apart. (The second run also shows the Access Time - the
>>yellow "milky way" of spots - along the bottom.)
>> I'll try to include the last pair but they may not attach or
>>propagate.
>
>Well, you certainly got your moneys-worth.

I'm very pleased with the machine: I paid £80 for it - it's a 15+", with
the 500G and 4G, though I presume the reseller probably inserted those.
(It can take 8G, but I wanted 7-32.) It seems very responsive. The make
[of the laptop] is "stone" (yes, with a lower case S), which I'd never
heard of. The only bad point is this weird loss of connection (but not
for YouTube and Google!) after a few hours, but that wasn't there when I
first got it (in January IIRR), so is something I've done.
>
>It's like something from a Cracker Jack box.
>
>One of your plots, has HDD sequential transfer rate and SSD-like access times.

I nearly always do two runs one after the other, so I'm guessing there's
some sort of buffering - or similar - that the elderly HDTune isn't
aware of: the pair of runs I did also have the very low access time on
the second one, though not _quite_ as drastically so (a _few_ of the
yellow "milky way" dots are still where they "should" be, and it shows
1.4 ms rather than 0.3).
>
>The piece on the end, *might* be consistent with a short-stroked
>drive. A short-stroked drive only uses half of the platter (the
>outer half) and the heads never touch the hub. On a short stroked
>drive, the transfer curve starts at full rate, but at the end, it
>has only declined to about 80% or so. The transfer speed is
>mostly consistent over the storage surface.

But on mine, it does decline to about 50%, or would if the odd jaggy
wasn't there at the end! So I don't _think_ it's short-stroked.
>
>I am lucky enough, to have acquired just one short stroke drive,
>and there is absolutely no notation in the part number, indicating
>my Cracker Jack either. I have three drives of that model, two
>normal, one is short stroked.
>
>Mine is a a WD 500GB 3.5" drive which is using a 1TB platter inside,
>both surfaces are certified, and they only use the first 500GB because
>I only paid for a 500GB drive. They make up a batch of 1TB drive,
>some become 500GB drives, some stay as 1TB drives. This solves the
>problem, of having no platters available any more, to make the
>500GB drives.

I'd have thought they'd make all drives with 1TB platters into 1 TB
drives, with those sold as 500G not being so sold to satisfy a demand
for 500G, but because on testing they found a big fault in the second
half. Rather like - _many_ decades ago, before PCs I think - you used to
sometimes get two versions of memory chips (or it might even have been
EPROMs) of a given capacity, one where one of the "enable" lines had to
be high and one where it had to be low, and it was fairly obvious that
these were chips made to twice the capacity but had had a fault found on
testing in one half or the other. (Obviously for HDs, if the fault was
in the _first_ half they'd scrap them.)
>
>But that translation, makes no sense. You would not "jump the heads to
>the middle of the disk" for the last bit of certified storage on the
>drive. What I'm saying is, if your drive was short stroked, the height
>of the material on the right, is consistent with a short stroke drive.
>But that's just a (weak) attempt to explain where the height would come
>from.
>
>But your Access Times of 0.3ms blows the whole charade. Something
>like that might happen, via a user adding some sort of Samsung caching
>software. Still pretty hard to justify or believe.
>
>There are two anomalies, and I cannot adequately explain either of them.
>
>I'm not saying it's Space Aliens that did it, but it's Space Aliens.

As I say, I suspect some sort of caching (or similar) hardware, either
in the drive or the PC, that is fooling HDTune on the second of two
successive runs. (It takes about 7 minutes, with HDTune left at its
default settings for block size etcetera.)
>
>If you were running RAID, had a 500GB hard drive, a 16GB Robson cache,
>maybe there would be some way to rig that. (Check and see if your
>storage is being run by the Intel RST driver.) Like first, I have to dream
>up some materials to make this work. But then the "behavior" part of
>the observation, still makes no sense. A Robson cache, I don't think
>the curves look like that, and the label for the upper left would
>not read the way it does either. There would be an artifact of
>the presence of RST for the drive name.

Certainly not (knowingly!) running any sort of RAID. (I'm pretty sure
there's only one HD - certainly the flap on the bottom of the machine [I
checked when buying it that there was a suitable access flap - I didn't
want one of these machines where you have to take the whole bottom cover
off to get at e. g. HD or RAM - is the normal size.)
>
>Kudos on your puzzle.

I won't worry about it if it gives me no trouble! And I'm backing up now
I've got my external drive back (unfortunately it was loaned to someone,
to get some of my data back, when the connection funny happened, so I
don't have a backup from before that).
>
> Paul
>
>
John
--
J. P. Gilliver

In message <u2uu1h$1ghd1$1@dont-email.me> at Wed, 3 May 2023 20:25:21,
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> writes
>On 5/3/2023 5:17 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>> In message <u11k8d$2933d$1@dont-email.me> at Mon, 10 Apr 2023
>>19:24:12, Dave <dave@cyw.uklinux.net> writes
>>> On 06/04/2023 16:02, Java Jive wrote:
>>>
>>>> Can anyone point to a UK source of reliable, genuinely new,
>>>>moderately  priced non-shingled laptop drives from about 500GB to 1.5TB?
>>>
>>> WD model WD10JUCT is available from various suppliers for about £60.
>>>It's intended for CCTV, DVRs and similar uses where the volume of
>>>data written is similar to the volume read. OK the ones I have are
>>>new-old stock dated 2017 - 2019.
>> I think the ones for TV purposes are "purple", in WD's colour
>>scheme. Whether they're good (or even overkill), or bad, for general
>>PC use, I've no idea. (I _suspect_ they're probably good on
>>reliability, possibly only middling on speed, at least for random access.)
>> I don't know if they're different when it comes to the magnetic
>>surfaces, or just the controllers.
>
>https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/surveillance-hard-drive-performance
>,3831-6.html
>
>The bottom chart has Access Time, and the Access Time on the Purple is slow.
>In a non-threaded storage situation (PC desktop), they would likely suck.

For access time, yes. Whether they'd be more reliable, I don't know - as
I said, I don't know if the magnetic arrangements - whether shingled,
say, or types of magnetic material - are any different to
non-CCTV/"purple" drives, or whether it's just the controller. (Though
of course that may affect reliability anyway.)

>They would suck like my Seagate 4TB 5900RPM drive sucked yesterday :-)
>Man is that thing slow. Good sequential though. For making backups.
>
>https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/surveillance-hard-drive-performance
>,3831-5.html

I see they're using HDTune 2.55 - that's the ancient free one we use!
>
>When you buy the wrong drive, you can always pretend it was for backups.

(-:
>
> Paul
--
J. P. Gilliver