Supra XP 500 vs GVP Series II
Clare Chu Ayala
I know this has been asked before, but I'm torn between getting
a Supra XP 500 vs GVP Series II harddrive expansion for my A500.
I've heard of people having problems with the GVP where the drive
stops spinning, and the fan goes up and down.
I'm also interested in the differences between RAM expansion.
The GVP is relatively straightforward. There are four SIMM
slots. You can either plug in 1x8 Simms or 2 4x8 Simms (to get 8 Mg).
Does anyone know if you can plug in 1 4x8 Simm to get 4 Megs
instead of 4 1x8 Meg Simms? Right now I only want max of 4 megs,
but you never know about later on.
The Supra configuration has me more confused. I called them and
the guy said that you had to buy the one with 2 Megs installed to
get more than 2 megs. If you buy the one with 1/2 meg installed
you can only get a maximum of 2 megs! That didn't make sense to
me, as I thought, why can't I take out the 1/2 meg (which is 2
256x4 Dram) and plug in the 1x4 Zip? It seems like there are
only 2 slots available (is that true?) And also is it true that
if you need to expand further than 2 Megs you need to buy another
ram expander board?
Finally, I'm interested in how important is the low power consumption
of the Supra. The guy on the phone claimed that it didn't need an
extra power supply. However I'm planning on getting one anyway.
I'm concerned about GVP using too much power. I don't want to
drain too much power from my wall socket. Right now, everything
(Amiga, monitor, HP DeskJet 500, Supra Modem) is hooked to a power strip.
Isn't something bad likely to happen if you have too many things
drawing power from one socket?
Finally, what other Amiga hardware (boards) use the 1x8 Simms and/or
the 1x4 zips? This is to maximize my reuse of chips in case I
get a 3000 or something. Not likely at the moment, but just to keep
in mind.
Thanks for any information on the two, or any comments on other
configurations.
Clare
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clare Chu, Ph.D. Data & Information Services
NYNEX Science & Technology cl...@nynexst.com
White Plains, NY 10462 AMIGA RULES!!!
Robert Cline
> I know this has been asked before, but I'm torn between getting
> a Supra XP 500 vs GVP Series II harddrive expansion for my A500.
I was too, when I was looking for mine. I bought the Supra, and I'll
tell you what I've found...
> I've heard of people having problems with the GVP where the drive
> stops spinning, and the fan goes up and down.
Hmm, never heard of that one, though.
> I'm also interested in the differences between RAM expansion.
> The GVP is relatively straightforward. There are four SIMM
> slots. You can either plug in 1x8 Simms or 2 4x8 Simms (to get 8 Mg).
> Does anyone know if you can plug in 1 4x8 Simm to get 4 Megs
> instead of 4 1x8 Meg Simms? Right now I only want max of 4 megs,
> but you never know about later on.
The Amiga uses 16-bit wide memory only... a 4Megx8bit simm only
provides half of that- that's why they're always paired up.
> The Supra configuration has me more confused. I called them and
> the guy said that you had to buy the one with 2 Megs installed to
> get more than 2 megs. If you buy the one with 1/2 meg installed
> you can only get a maximum of 2 megs! That didn't make sense to
> me, as I thought, why can't I take out the 1/2 meg (which is 2
> 256x4 Dram) and plug in the 1x4 Zip? It seems like there are
> only 2 slots available (is that true?) And also is it true that
> if you need to expand further than 2 Megs you need to buy another
> ram expander board?
Basically, what they mean is that using 256x4 Dram, you can put in a
maximum of 2 megs (8 sockets total), but yes, if you take those out you
can use 1x4 Zips, it's just then you got 1/2 Meg sitting around. Also,
to use Zips the 'expander board' is basically just to adapt Zip sockets
for the Dip sockets inside the XP's case, since 1x4 Dips are either
nonexistant or hard to find (I forget which).
> Finally, I'm interested in how important is the low power consumption
> of the Supra. The guy on the phone claimed that it didn't need an
> extra power supply. However I'm planning on getting one anyway.
> I'm concerned about GVP using too much power. I don't want to
> drain too much power from my wall socket. Right now, everything
> (Amiga, monitor, HP DeskJet 500, Supra Modem) is hooked to a power strip.
> Isn't something bad likely to happen if you have too many things
> drawing power from one socket?
You don't need to worry about how much they drain off your house current-
no computer should drain that much. You do need to worry about how much
you drain off the computer's power supply. The Supra claims that even with
a drive, it & the drive don't take too much of the stock Amiga 500 power
supply, but many people don't believe this, and claim your supply will
wear out faster. Since I already wore out one supply just using 2 floppies,
I got an IBM power supply cheap, and it had the connectors for hard drives
already sticking out of it, so that's powering my (now two) drive(s). For
more than one drive, the extra supply would be a necessity. If you have
for some reason gotten a bigfoot or something, don't worry about another
supply. The GVP uses it's own supply for the drive (& memory I think)
so you woudln't worry about it at all (unless the problems you mentioned
were due to it being a lousy power supply...)
> Finally, what other Amiga hardware (boards) use the 1x8 Simms and/or
> the 1x4 zips? This is to maximize my reuse of chips in case I
> get a 3000 or something. Not likely at the moment, but just to keep
> in mind.
It seems to me a lot of GVP equipment uses the same simms, except for
boards that use 32-bit wide simms. You'd have to check on the ram the
3000 uses (I don't know- I only wish I could afford one :)
> Thanks for any information on the two, or any comments on other
> configurations.
Two additional comments: First, the major deal between these two drives is
price & performance. The Supra is way cheaper to start out with, and you
can buy the power supply if you need it later- that's why I bought it. The
GVP is supposed to be way faster, comes with it's own supply, and uses
the standard simms, so it's worth and costs more.
Second, since the GVP is DMA-driven, it delivers better performance on a
stock 500, but can lead to problems if you want to accellerate your
machine- typically 500 accellerators don't allow DMA into their ram, so
the drive performance goes way down as the system compensates with buffering
and I've heard of problems using AdSpeed with a DMA-based controller, as
it's cache needs to be flushed before any DMA.
All in all, I'd say if you're going to use the unacclerated 500, and can
afford it, get the GVP. I liked the base price of the Supra, but would've
bought the GVP if I could have afforded it right off the bat.
Incidentally, on an accellerated 500 my Supra worked about 2-3% faster
than normal.
> Clare
Rob Cline
Gerald G. Washington
>cl...@nynexst.com (Clare Chu Ayala) writes:
>> Finally, I'm interested in how important is the low power consumption
>> of the Supra. The guy on the phone claimed that it didn't need an
>> extra power supply. However I'm planning on getting one anyway.
>> I'm concerned about GVP using too much power. I don't want to
>> drain too much power from my wall socket. Right now, everything
>> (Amiga, monitor, HP DeskJet 500, Supra Modem) is hooked to a power strip.
>> Isn't something bad likely to happen if you have too many things
>> drawing power from one socket?
>You don't need to worry about how much they drain off your house current-
>no computer should drain that much. You do need to worry about how much
I, too, have a SupraDrive 500XP (40MB/2MB-RAM). The drive runs off of
my A500's power supply as does my external floppy drive. I have been
using this setup intensively for about 16 months now; I have had no
problems. Lucky?
>Two additional comments: First, the major deal between these two drives is
>price & performance. The Supra is way cheaper to start out with, and you
>can buy the power supply if you need it later- that's why I bought it. The
>GVP is supposed to be way faster, comes with it's own supply, and uses
>the standard simms, so it's worth and costs more.
Not to mention that GVP Impact Series II drives have the expansion slot.
The 286 bridgeboard is already available for this slot; this may be a
big factor to consider.
>Second, since the GVP is DMA-driven, it delivers better performance on a
>stock 500, but can lead to problems if you want to accellerate your
>machine- typically 500 accellerators don't allow DMA into their ram, so
>the drive performance goes way down as the system compensates with buffering
>and I've heard of problems using AdSpeed with a DMA-based controller, as
>it's cache needs to be flushed before any DMA.
I did not know that the SupraDrives were not DMA controllers. Is this the
case for all ROM versions? (I have the Series II ROMs.) Is a ROM upgrade
worth the trouble?
The VXL accelerator is supposed to allow DMA to its 32-bit RAM. Of course,
this RAM is not available yet, but would this give huge performance
increases?
>All in all, I'd say if you're going to use the unacclerated 500, and can
>afford it, get the GVP. I liked the base price of the Supra, but would've
>bought the GVP if I could have afforded it right off the bat.
>Incidentally, on an accellerated 500 my Supra worked about 2-3% faster
>than normal.
What accelerator do you have?
Thanks for your time.
-- Gerald
Barry McConnell
[...]
>Second, since the GVP is DMA-driven, it delivers better performance on a
>stock 500, but can lead to problems if you want to accellerate your
>machine- typically 500 accellerators don't allow DMA into their ram, so
>the drive performance goes way down as the system compensates with buffering
>and I've heard of problems using AdSpeed with a DMA-based controller, as
>it's cache needs to be flushed before any DMA.
The GVP can handle non-DMA 32-bit memory correctly, unlike many other DMA
controllers (including older A590/A2091's). It uses a buffer in 16-bit fast
RAM which is much larger than the one the FileSystem supplies. With an '030,
you won't notice much of a slowdown at all.
Advertisement On:
If you have a DMA controller that doesn't handle non-DMA memory correctly,
then consider one of SSL's accelerators: they come with a new - greatly
enhanced - version of my program DMAfix, which is even better than the solution
provided by the GVP! ;-)
Advertisement Off.
>Rob Cline
Barry.
Clare Chu Ayala
>
> The Supra configuration has me more confused. I called them and
> the guy said that you had to buy the one with 2 Megs installed to
> get more than 2 megs. If you buy the one with 1/2 meg installed
> you can only get a maximum of 2 megs! That didn't make sense to
> me, as I thought, why can't I take out the 1/2 meg (which is 2
> 256x4 Dram) and plug in the 1x4 Zip? It seems like there are
> only 2 slots available (is that true?) And also is it true that
> if you need to expand further than 2 Megs you need to buy another
> ram expander board?
>
vocabulary down, I was able to call Supra again, and get everything
straightened out. It turns out that the first time I called, I
called the 800 number and got a sales-droid. This time I called
the 503 number and got a real techie person. He told me that
in the old days, you needed an expansion board, but they've done
away with that. He explained that they don't use the 1x4 zips
anymore, but stick with the 1x4 dips. He also said that they
ship the ones with 1/2 Meg installed using 256x4 Drams, and
therefore you would have to unplug those chips to put in the
1x4's. If you want to have > 2Megs, you should buy the ones
with 2 Megs installed and make sure that they are 1x4's.
He handles the Safe Harbor account so he knows for sure that
the ones they ship with 2 Megs installed are 1x4's, allowing
for future expansion. He also mentioned that they sell an
extra power supply for those who are worried.
There are 16 slots total, and using 1x4 megabit chips, you
can get a total of 8 Megabytes.
Robert Cline
>The GVP can handle non-DMA 32-bit memory correctly, unlike many other DMA
>controllers (including older A590/A2091's). It uses a buffer in 16-bit fast
>RAM which is much larger than the one the FileSystem supplies. With an '030,
>you won't notice much of a slowdown at all.
Firstly, you're right- any DMA-based controller could use DMAfix, I didn't
mention that, but DMAfix, nor whatever the GVP uses couldn't be considered
handling the problem 'correctly'. The extra buffering required does slow
down the system, and that's what I was talking about, but you're right, it's
not a drastic slowdown, nor GVP's fault. I do wish the MMR could allow the DMA.
>Barry.
Rob
Clare Chu Ayala
What is DMA, and is it good or bad for a hard-drive controller?
The GVP ads say it is good, because it makes drive access faster.
The Supra ad says "A2000 performance with no DMA problems".
The Grandslam is also non-DMA. Thanks to several people, I'm
now considering the Grandslam also. Fast drive access is not
that important to me, as lack of problems. Of the three, which
system has the least problems and is easiest for a non-hardware
hacker to set up? I get the feeling it is the Grandslam, but
if anyone has had any problems with it, please e-mail me.
Thanks, Clare
Harri Holopainen
>In article <cline.7...@ee.ualberta.ca> cl...@ee.ualberta.ca (Robert Cline) writes:
>>bmcc...@unix1.tcd.ie (Barry McConnell) writes:
>>
>>
> What is DMA, and is it good or bad for a hard-drive controller?
DMA stads for Direct Memory Access and basically it allowes the controller
to transmit data to the memory without using the processor. On an A3000
one can get 1MB/sec data transfer rates with 5%-10% CPU usage.
> The GVP ads say it is good, because it makes drive access faster.
> The Supra ad says "A2000 performance with no DMA problems".
I wonder what those problems are :)
I've been using a500 gvp series II controller, my friend had a gvp series I for a2000,
now has gvp turbo scsi and no problems whatsoever. (well, we found a rodime
ro3000 drive that made some trouble, but the drive was old. Our other drives
have been seagates & quantums)
> The Grandslam is also non-DMA. Thanks to several people, I'm
> now considering the Grandslam also. Fast drive access is not
> that important to me, as lack of problems. Of the three, which
> system has the least problems and is easiest for a non-hardware
> hacker to set up? I get the feeling it is the Grandslam, but
> if anyone has had any problems with it, please e-mail me.
I'm not familiar with Grandslam, but i have been hearing people
complaining about their supra's...
>
> Thanks, Clare
>
>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Clare Chu, Ph.D. Data & Information Services
>NYNEX Science & Technology cl...@nynexst.com
>White Plains, NY 10462 AMIGA RULES!!!
--
Harri Holopainen
hur...@cs.hut.fi
Rob Tulloh
have a new GVP Series II HD8+ on my Amiga 500. I am also using the
Mega-Midget Racer 68030 board with 4MB 32-bit DRAM. I have only had the
MMR for a *short* while, but I have seen no problems. Plugging in the
GVP was a 5 minute job. You will have a bit more work if you buy your
memory from somewhere else and install it yourself. I bought 2MB of
RAM from Memory World and had to install it myself. This requires taking
the cover off the GVP which is pretty easy. The hard part of installing
memory was a difference between the jumper chart in the drive case and the
one described in the documentation. I forget which one was in error, they
may have fixed this by now. Also, I had a little problem with the 'Game
Switch' wire coming unplugged when I put the thing back together, but
if you are careful, you will not have this problem. If you do, it is only
a matter of seconds to fix the problem.
My guess is that the Supra is no harder to install than the GVP.
I liked my old Supra and when I went to replace it, I shied away from
the new Supra offerings. My only worry was power. Also, GVP was offering
the trade in program and that made it no contest. I have every external
plug on my system in use (floppy, printer, modem), and an A501 card. Since
I wanted expansion RAM, I did not want to risk adding RAM, a disk, and
have all this run from my 500 power supply. Thus, I opted for the GVP
and have been very happy. My only complaint might be the noise of
the fan. My old Supra was pretty noisy too, so the GVP fan didn't strike
me as noisy until I saw some postings here in this group. I listened again
and noted that it was pretty loud. I don't know if this matters, but this
is the only thing I could see as a negative. I have also heard you can
replace the fan with a quieter one (anyone confirm this?)
As far as the DMA question (Hi Barry!), you might want to listen to
some of these other folks who are lot more knowledgable about DMA than
myself (Hi Barry! Hi Scott!).
Rob Tulloh
--
INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. Tel: (512) 343 0376 Ext. 116
9442 Capital of Texas Hwy. North Fax: (512) 343 1414
Arboretum Plaza One, Suite 700 Net: rob...@isc.com (polled daily)
Austin, Texas 78759 ro...@itx.isc.com (same thing!)
Dave Haynie
>cl...@nynexst.com (Clare Chu Ayala) writes:
>> What is DMA, and is it good or bad for a hard-drive controller?
>My understanding is that a DMA (Direct Memory Access) controller can
>read/write from memory without using the CPU. Thus, data can travel
>directly between the device amd memory. This would allow for huge
>performance increases with Fast RAM if the controller performs DMA.
>Anyone, correct me if I am wrong.
Yup, that's basically it. What Amiga folks call a DMA-driven HD controller
would probably be called a "bus mastering HD controller" by PClone folks.
Anyway, you generally get something like this:
DISK <---scsi--->SCSI Chip<---fifo--->Amiga Bus
The controller's FIFO sucks up data from SCSI until it's about full, then
takes over the Amiga's bus, transfers the data at full bus speed, usually into
its final destination memory, then gives the bus back when the FIFO is empty.
Once the transfer is complete, the controller sends an interrupt to the CPU.
During the whole transfer, the CPU can be off doing other things. With a
typical 1.5MB/s SCSI drive, this means you get around 60% of your normal CPU
time free during a full-speed transfer on an A2000 or A500, about 95% free on
an A3000. In terms of raw measured hard disk speed, it's possible to get
slightly faster benchmark numbers with a programmed I/O controller that polls
a SCSI chip, but system performance is way down since the CPU can't do
anything. The A3000 and some '030/'040 boards give you the fastest possible
DMA -- I think they recently got something like 4MB/s THROUGH THE FILESYSTEM
measured on an A3000 and some exotic new hard drive.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh BIX: hazy
"What would they do if I just sailed away?" -Jimmy Buffett
Clare Chu Ayala
so that people can understand. Your article in the last
.info magazine was very informative too!
Now that I've seen the GVP 530 40Mhz Turbo for the A500,
I'm going to get that instead, when it comes out...
and when I save the additional bucks. :-)
justi...@cybernet.cse.fau.edu
> Now that I've seen the GVP 530 40Mhz Turbo for the A500,
> I'm going to get that instead, when it comes out...
> and when I save the additional bucks. :-)
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Clare Chu, Ph.D. Data & Information Services
> NYNEX Science & Technology cl...@nynexst.com
> White Plains, NY 10462 AMIGA RULES!!!
Ahem... Hey, can you or anyone lese please post about this new GVP 530
Turbo? This is the first I've heard.
Alejandro J. Kurczyn S.
A500? It's seems like a dream come true: HD+memory expansion+accelerator.
I just sold my HD to buy this little gem :-)
-Alejandro