PC Transporter speed vs. Tandy 1000TX and 1000HX

[HoJoPo]

I did a little benchmarking with an old copy of Norton Sysinfo V5.0 I found on a utility floppy from 25 years ago, and thought I'd share the results:

System CPU Disk Overall
PCT 2.4 6.3 3.7
1000TX 4.0 4.0 4.0
1000HX 1.2 Fail Fail

Specs:

PC Transporter with 7.16 Mhz NEC V30 CPU (Sysinfo reports 11Mhz), 640k RAM, in a Rom 03 Apple IIgs with 5 meg of RAM, Zip GSX 8MHz CPU upgrade, and MicroDrive Turbo DMA compatible compact flash adapter, 1 gigabyte Sandisk CF card.

Tandy 1000TX, 8Mhz 80286, 640k RAM, with XT-IDE v1.x (XT+?) adapter, 64 megabyte Sandisk CF card.

Tandy 1000HX, 7.16Mhz 8088, 640k RAM, with XT-IDE v2.x adapter, 128 megabyte Lexar CF card. Disk speed benchmark hangs on the 1000HX.

I'm a bit surprised at the high disk performance on the IIgs/PCT combo, as the data has to come across the 1Mhz 8-bit Apple II bus. The MicroDrive Turbo is a DMA compatible controller, so it could be the speed is due to DMA direct into/from the Apple II memory. A 20 megabyte file on a 32 megabyte ProDOS partition contains the PCT hard disk image.

The XT-IDE on the Tandy 1000TX was about twice as fast as a stock PC/AT hard drive, though the CPU was about 10% slower at the same clock speed (probably due to the 8/16 bit nature of the 1000TX vs. PC/AT).

Some screenshots for the PCT / 1000HX are attached.

 

[Krille]

Disk speed benchmark hangs on the 1000HX.

Does it also hang with other (slower) drives?

 

[HoJoPo]

Does it also hang with other (slower) drives?

I have the HX setup with a CF adapter in the second floppy slot. I don't have an older, slower IDE drive to try out with it, just the CF cards.

The XTIDE in the HX is a smaller card than the one in the TX, if I have the TX apart I might pull the XTIDE out of it and try it on the HX.

TX screenshots attached.