A Gurus Guide To Macintosh Performance Acceleration

  Here at MacGurus Hardware Heaven, we take one of our major responsibilities- the need for speed- very seriously indeed. In fact, our most enjoyable pastime is guiding our valued customers in the fine art of transforming an off-the-shelf, garden-variety Mac into a finely-tuned, drool-worthy earth-shakin' beast!

  Our recipe for your success is simple and scalable. First, start by taking advantage of the superior built-in multi-tasking advantages of the modern Power Mac. The most speed-limited component system in your computer is hard drive storage. You can increase your data transfer rates by factors of three or four or more with a few simple changes to your system. How? Well, first a little background is in order...

  We all know that CPUs get faster every year. In fact, we’ve seen huge increases not only in clock speeds- which came from around 300 MHz just five years ago to 2.5 GHz today- but also to bandwidth and bus speeds for RAM, PCI, and Video acceleration. All in all, a huge ten-fold increase in performance in just 5 years!

  Yet hard drive performance has only improved from 25 MB/sec five years ago to around 75 MB/sec today. Hardly front page news. And unfortunately, with these newer, faster CPUs, hard drive performance is still the same bottleneck it was in 1999. These new CPUs simply need more data throughput or sadly, that speed is wasted waiting on data.

  The easiest way to bypass this hardware limitation is by enabling your Macs amazing multithreading capabilities. There are two factors to storage performance: 1) More data channels (multithreading) and 2) Faster storage (if your hair isn’t on fire it can still be made faster). By installing additional drives and/or host cards, or even by building the world’s fastest RAID array, huge performance benefits can be achieved by increasing your storage pipelines, bandwidth and speed.

MultiThreading

  Separating your "User" data from the Operating System and Applications is the simplest and most cost effective beginning. All it takes is two or more hard drives on separate and independent channels! In today’s Mac towers- like the Mirrored Drive Door G4 and the G5- Apple has already given us two discreet internal channels to accomplish this: an ATA100 bus and an ATA66 bus in the G4 and two separate SATA channels in the G5. With the drives installed on separate ATA buses or separate SATA channels, you instantly enjoy twice the available storage throughput as you would with a single drive or with an ATA Master/Slave pair (a master and slave pair perform no faster than a single drive since only one access can happen at any given time) Just by putting your high access "User" data on a separate drive from the OS and Applications, you will enjoy a significant performance boost at minimal cost.

  By separating data into discreet data pipelines, your system can be accessing different drives with different types of data simultaneously. This is an incredible benefit all by itself. Current drive and bus technologies allow the memory controller of your computer to perform most access routines between your hard drives and your RAM without much if any CPU overhead. By having separate data channels you allow the memory controller to upload data from your data drive into RAM while swapping out temp files to a dedicated scratch drive and also simultaneously downloading instructions from the application on your OS and Applications drive. This example uses three drives. However four, five or more drives on separate channels can be accessed all at once within the Mac OS and hardware platform.

  Different applications and usage can benefit from slight modifications on the basic plan here. Separating your data into dedicated channels and drives increases performance far beyond the relative low costs in hardware. Those multiple simultaneous accesses are essential to feeding the ravening maw of a CPU hungry for data.

Speed! (Ah, the life blood of a Guru)

  Available storage technologies are getting faster. The faster the bus and drives, the better your potential performance.

  ATA has been getting much faster these last couple of years going from ATA33, a 33 MB/sec bus to ATA133, basically a 133 MB/sec bus. Not to be confused with bus specifications, hard drive performance is common today in the mid 50 MB/sec and even in the mid 60 MB/sec for current top performers. Replacing your 2 or 3 year old ATA66 or ATA100 drives with new models will usually double drive performance even on your original ATA bus. Installing a host card for a faster bus can increase that even more.

  One thing to keep in mind is that ATA Slave drives reduce performance dramatically. A Master and Slave pair on a single channel share that channel’s bandwidth. And since only one of the two can be accessed at any one time, using Slaves reduces your overall performance to half, because access must alternate between the two drives. Around MacGurus the rule is- No Slave drives allowed on high performance systems.

  Going with the newer Serial-ATA (SATA) bus and drives in your G4, or as it comes stock in your G5, gives a further increase in the capabilities of your bus and drives as well. The fastest current SATA drive, the 10k rpm Raptor from Western Digital is getting close to SCSI performance, up in the 70 MB/sec range from a single drive. These feature laden drives reduce latency and are fast enough to get you a traffic ticket for speeding. Raptors are a favorite for storing your OS and Applications, giving good acceleration benefits since the OS and Apps can most benefit from the supercharged cache and access speeds. SATA gets around traditional ATA bus weakness of Slave drives limiting bus performance by not using any Slaves. All drives on a SATA bus are Master configured. Each drive is on an independent channel and cable for best possible performance.

  SCSI is still the king of storage performance and quality, built to higher tolerances, spinning faster, up to 15,000 rpm, and utilizing a features set so far unknown or only dreamed of in ATA and SATA buses. SCSI is da BOMB. With Ultra320 buses that are capable of an amazing 320 MB/second in burst mode, SCSI drives are pushing 80 MB/second sustained data transfers with 90 to 95 MB/sec drives planned to release in the winter of 2004. Longer warranties and higher quality is the standard with SCSI. The most versatile specification allows up to 15 devices on a single channel. SCSI is the top choice when either internal or external, no holds barred, ’give me my speed fix’ performance is required.

RAID Striping for Storage Acceleration.

  In high performance graphics and video, just separating your data isn’t always enough. Applications like Final Cut Pro and Photoshop require large quantities of fast, uncluttered storage for raw data files, finished data, scratch space, history, even multiple scratch spaces for real-time rendering. For the most efficient operations in these demanding workflow environments, nothing beats the incredible time savings when combinations of separate channels and drives and 2 or 4-drive striped RAID arrays are implemented. Graphics professionals know all too well that time is money, and watching those progress bars fly by is one of the most satisfying feelings imaginable when you’re under the crunch.

  Over the years, Photoshop jocks have discovered and implemented a variety of ways to optimize the program. The top methods to speed up operations (and cut short the "coffee breaks") are to use the fastest possible computer- preferably a dual-processor, install a fast startup drive, "cram with RAM", and install a second hard drive or striped disk array to be used exclusively as a dedicated ’scratch disk’- a place where Photoshop can store and access its invisible but ever-present temporary data file. Here at the Guru’s Performance Shop, our comprehensive testing has confirmed that Photoshop all-around performance is measurably improved with a dedicated scratch disk - even on machines with maximum memory installed.

  Scratch disk performance in Photoshop is further enhanced by using the fastest possible hard drive or even ’striping’ an array of fast drives in a RAID configuration. These days, a myriad of possibilities for ramping up Photoshop scratch disk acceleration are available to the average Mac user: MultiChannel SATA host cards, external SATA arrays, off-the-shelf external ATA and Firewire boxes, Apple’s own XRaid...

  With little or no technical expertise, the average Joe or Josephine can install a couple of inexpensive SATA drives into a modern Mac, stripe ’em together with Apple-supplied software, and voila!- a fabulously fast scratch disk for Photoshop with sustained read/write speeds of over 100 Megabytes per second- an accomplishment once reserved only for chronically sunshine-deprived techno-geeks. MacGurus offers a variety of these quality ATA and Serial ATA solutions for demanding pros and amateurs alike who require a serious Photoshop speed boost without breaking the bank.

  But for you "Liquid Sky Geeks" who’s work requires the fastest possible performance, only a supersonic SCSI scratch disk will truly satisfy...

  OK, we heard you gasp in disbelief: "SCSI? Thought that went out with hot wax and mini-skirts!" While it’s true common wisdom predicted the demise of the venerable and time-tested SCSI interface, that never came to be. Breakthrough advances in SCSI design and quality continue right along side of those of the ’new kids on the block’- ATA, SATA, Firewire, and Fibre Channel. Here at Micro D Headquarters, we never tire of fondly repeating the timeless adage, "SCSI is, always has been, and always will be.."

  So folks- you heard it right the first time, but we’ll say it again to dispel the last shreds of any remaining doubt: For the fastest possible Photoshop scratch disk performance available today, MacGurus recommends the use of a SCSI sub-system striped RAID array.

  Paired with the latest dual-processor G5’s, a 4-drive SCSI striped RAID array is capable of sustained read/write speeds of over 280MB per second! This translates into shaving precious minutes off work-sessions, and even hours over the course of a week. And this is just the beginning. We expect these benchmark numbers to rise dramatically with continual optimizations to the Mac OS, SCSI host adapters and hard drives, and the PowerMac itself.

  Here at MacGurus, our Prime Directive is to speed up your workflow. We’ve taken the pain out of SCSI by offering only the highest quality gear available, from ready-made plug ’n play RAID arrays to individual components and kits especially designed for the technically-challenged. For you do-it-your-selfer’s, we can help you every step of the way with our unique "Roll Your Own RAID", FAQ topics, and our famous forum-based tech support. We sell only what we ourselves use here at Hardware Heaven, so all our products are thoroughly tested and covered by the best warranties in the business. Our goal is to get you up and running with your new RAID array with a minimum of fuss, so you can get back to what truly matters- realizing your creative genius with the King of all of Macintosh graphics programs.

  The list below summarizes our solutions for effective Macintosh Performance Acceleration.

1. Add RAM.
   
2. Replace OEM 5400rpm or 7200rpm 2MBcache ATA drive with a faster 7200rpm 8MBcache ATA or 10,000rpm 8MBcache SATA drive.
   
3. Add second fast internal drive for scratch or User data.
   
4. Accelerate both those drives with an ATA or SATA Host Card.
   
5. For Audio, Video, or Graphics, consider adding additional fast ATA, SATA, or SCSI drives for scratch/work space with an appropriate host adapter, either internally (some G4s) or externally (G4s and G5s).
   Please note: Macgurus does not recommend RAID striping of any system startup disk and drives containing permanent User data. Those scenarios are far more vulnerable to permanent data loss, tend to complicate implementation of reasonable backup strategies, and yield only very modest performance improvements- if any.

  Graphics professionals and Photoshop users in particular should take a closer look at specific strategies for hardware upgrades, system configurations, and workflow practices in our special guide Photoshop Acceleration Basics.pdf.