Promise IDE on PC164LX

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen complete org>]

Hello,

I own a 600MHz 21164a PC164LX machine with some SCSI and one IDE disk in
it.  As I'm sure everyone is aware, the on-board IDE on this system runs
almost as fast as the old 20MB full-height hard drive sitting in the
closet :-)

I'd like to add some more storage to the system without spending a
fortune, so the obvious choice is IDE.  Maxtor sells some nice UDMA 133
drives that come with a Promise 20269 controller (supported by the
pdc202xx driver on Linux).

Here's my question: if I slapped one of those controllers into my Alpha,
would I get good IDE performance, or does something inherent in the
164LX just make IDE suck no matter what I try?

Thanks,
John