poor xbench scores

[macguy!]

hi,

can anyone think why i have such low xbench scores for the disk test for my mac pro, and would this explain the 40 second+ bootup times.

btw the hd's a 7200.10 seagate one (320gb) and cpu is 2.66ghz

thanks in advance

macguy

edit: i've run the test multiple times with no improvement

 

[FF_productions]

First off, Xbench sucks.

Second, were you running other Apps while running the test?

Third, is your hard drive full?

Fourth, Have you run any tests on your hard drive, checking for errors, crap like that?

 

[macguy!]

thanks for replying but the fact that the score is so low is a bit worrying despite the fact that xbench sucks and my boot times are quite long.

No, no apps were running besides xbench.

I have 230 gigs free or so

i've run mac janitor, repaired permissions and verifyed the disk in disk utility, none of them complained of any problems.

 

[krell100]

Same

I too get similar scores for HDD in Xbench. I'm thinking of getting a second 320Gb Seagate and running a striped (Raid 0) array instead of the single disc to boost HDD performance. Hard drive performance really does seem to be the achilles heal of the MP.

 

[FF_productions]

I too get similar scores for HDD in Xbench. I'm thinking of getting a second 320Gb Seagate and running a striped (Raid 0) array instead of the single disc to boost HDD performance. Hard drive performance really does seem to be the achilles heal of the MP.

The hard drive is the achilles heal of every Computer. It is the slowest component.

That's why people love having 2-4 gigs of ram in their computers.

With 1 gig of ram (or less), you're toast! The computer starts to hit the hard drive's virtual memory and you start to feel a performance hit unlike any other.

 

[macguy!]

I too get similar scores for HDD in Xbench. I'm thinking of getting a second 320Gb Seagate and running a striped (Raid 0) array instead of the single disc to boost HDD performance. Hard drive performance really does seem to be the achilles heal of the MP.

Does your mac pro take like 40 secs to boot if your getting the same?

 

[macguy!]

The hard drive is the achilles heal of every Computer. It is the slowest component.

That's why people love having 2-4 gigs of ram in their computers.

With 1 gig of ram (or less), you're toast! The computer starts to hit the hard drive's virtual memory and you start to feel a performance hit unlike any other.

I have 3 gigs, so i dont think ram is limiting me, and i normally don't get any/many pageouts

 

[krell100]

Not 40 seconds...

Does your mac pro take like 40 secs to boot if your getting the same?

No, not 40 seconds, about 25 seconds.

Incidentally, I've got 3Gb of RAM so I don't think that is the issue. I agree with the above post that HDD performance is the limiting factor with the MP which is why I'm going to RAID 0 two Seagate 320Gb drive as my boot disc when Leopard appears (if it ever does...). Hopefully those HDD stats will improve and the system will be more responsive. We'll see.

Maybe you'd find that your XBench scores are actually pretty normal?

 

[macguy!]

No, not 40 seconds, about 25 seconds.

Incidentally, I've got 3Gb of RAM so I don't think that is the issue. I agree with the above post that HDD performance is the limiting factor with the MP which is why I'm going to RAID 0 two Seagate 320Gb drive as my boot disc when Leopard appears (if it ever does...). Hopefully those HDD stats will improve and the system will be more responsive. We'll see.

Maybe you'd find that your XBench scores are actually pretty normal?

yeah i've been tempted to do that too, but i've never brought myself to because of the increased risk of disk failure.