Raptors, TX2300, Stumped...

[HallaDuke]

I just updated my specs in my sig so you know what animal your dealing with. My goal is to eliminate the Hard Drive bottleneck I've been experiencing. Here's what I've done. Originally I connected all four of my HDD's to my motherboards SATA2 controller and made two separate RAID 0 arrays using the utility provided by my motherboard. Both drives experienced mediocre performance averaging 74MB/second Transfer Rate times with burst rates 100mb/s+ (sorry I didn't save results) Then I bought a Promise FT 2300 RAID controller card (PCI). I updated the card's BIOS and used the latest driver when I installed Window XP PRO x64. I attached both 36gb Raptors to the 2300 controller card and ran benchmarks
HD Tune (http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e143/HoloDuke/2300jpeg.jpg) HD Tach (http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e143/HoloDuke/2300tachjpeg.jpg)
Compared to the benchmarks I took earlier, these are slower, and the line zig-zags alot more.
I have manipulated stipe and cluster sizes and have yet to see any Transfer Rates over 100mb/s. I am still researching/experimenting, but any input would be greatly appreciated.

[unhappy_mage]

Mediocre results from a motherboard controller are no surprise. But you shouldn't rely on benchmarks to tell you how fast a given array is - try playing a game, downloading a torrent, or generally doing what you normally do to see how fast the disks are. Benchmarks tell you if the drive is malfunctioning; real life tells you how it performs.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag1.php/mem/428/1.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=428&type=1)

[Vertigo Acid]

I have manipulated stipe and cluster sizes and have yet to see any Transfer Rates over 100mb/s. I am still researching/experimenting, but any input would be greatly appreciated.Sell your two raptors and return the TX2300. Get a 74gb 16mb cache Raptor. Enjoy faster performance across the board without the complexity and reliability issues of RAID-0.

[HallaDuke]

unhappymage- your my idol, thanks for taking the time to reply.
vertigoacid- I agree completely, RAID gives me a headache. :rolleyes: