Odd Perfomance From Raptor Raid 0.

[jnex26]

Ok I've just got my raptor raid 0 set up (Note this is for windows and generall applications I don't need great data security).

Well I seem to be getting lower than adverage from my setup.

My system Specifications are as follows.

Lanparty 875 ProB (Revision A)
Intel P4 2.8Ghz (Model C. 800 Mhz FSB, HT Enabled)
Dual Channel 1 GB Ram. (DDR 333 - Running at 320)
Seagate Barracuda (SATA On main board)
IBM Deathstar ( IDE On Highpoint 3xx onboard controller)
Western Digital Caviar ( IDE On Highpoint 3xx onboard controller)
Maxtor 6 ( IDE On Highpoint 3xx onboard controller)
NEC ND-2500A (IDE On Mainboard)
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS(7.1 mode)
ATI 9600 Pro
(The Array specs below)
Highpoint Raid Rocket 1520
WD Raptor 36Gig 10K rpm x2 (64Kb block size)

Ok onto the screen shots as you see there is a strange spiking going on and below par performance.

http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/HDTACH.JPG
http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/SISOFT.JPG
http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/RAPTOR.JPG

Any help you could offer would be appreciated

Thanks

Jnex26

[phaelinx]

uh? 72mb/s is about normal for those drive in a raid setup. Don't expect miracle speed, especially with using the raid setup for general applications. Its not gunna happen..Only time raid0 even becomes beneficial is when doing alot of HD thrashing programs..like photo editing..video editing, mp3 decoding..etc

EDIT: lemme rephrase..72mb/s is about normal with ONBOARD raid setup. If you want something that shows a major improvement..buy a 600 dollar raid card with its own memory.

[jnex26]

Wel It's noticable diffrence from my single SATA Segate driive. Especially when Dealing with Large compressed files or playing games (Loading Time Dramitically reduced). And Especially installing games has (For some Reason) become very fast.....

So I'm Happy with the raid I am somewhat concerned about the "Unstable" performance showen by HDTACH. I would be interested into why there is not a stable disk performance.

All these peaks and vallys Just does not seem right to me.

[The_Mage18]

Your post doesn't add up...
According to DFI's webiste, http://www.lanparty.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=1880&CATEGORY_TYPE=MB&SITE=US, the Highpoint RAID controller is EIDE, not SATA. The SATA RAID is controlled by the ICH5R Intel Southbridge.
Unless I'm mistaken, Raptors are only available in SATA.

The revision B of the same board has the same specs but adds processor support. According to your screen caps, the results are comming off of the Highpoint controller. That's impossible if you do have a Serial ATA RAID 0.

The results themselves, as phaelink stated, are right in spec with onboard RAID setups.

[jnex26]

I Got more than one Raid controller on my system. One's in Jbod mode the other is in Raid 0 Configuration.

Unfortauntly They are BOTH highpoint controllers (This Caused me many headaches getting windos to detect the 1520 and not the onboard)


The Controller I'm talking about is a Highpoint Raidrocket 1520....

It's a 2 Channel SATA Controller with the latest Bios and Latest Drivers. I Have all the latest system Drivers on my Machine

Infact to Be specific I have 3 Raidable devices on my machine.

ICH5 (875 Intel Chipset)
Highpoint 3xx 1.5 Raid Controller.
Highpoint 1520 Sata Raid Controller.

Funnily Enough with all my HD's, Cards and Various other bit's in my machine. It takes longer to get though post than to boot into windows..... Go Figure !!!!

[The_Mage18]

Funnily Enough with all my HD's, Cards and Various other bit's in my machine. It takes longer to get though post than to boot into windows..... Go Figure !!!!

LOL! My P4P800-Deluxe has the same fate! USB CDRW, Via IDE Raid, Intel SATA Raid AND regular IDE. Hell ain't it?


Back to the subject at hand, now I understand a bit more. The best suggestion I can make is move the Sata's to the Intel RAID. You may get a slight increase but honestly, without getting an Enterprise SATA raid controller you're not going to get much more performance.

[jnex26]

So The Spikes and Vallys on reading is normal is it ?

[Tigerbiten]

Does the size of the spikes and valleys equal your stripe size.
My first thought was that one of your drives was running slow as they areso regular.

Luck......... :D
http://www.mentallyretired.com/h/index.cfm/u=Tigerbiten.gif

[jnex26]

My Stripe Size It 64K.

And Both Harddisk's were bought at teh same time they are theact same model and Batch of production. you can't get closer than that eh !!.

I've not individually tested tehm do you think I should do that and can I Do that without breaking the raid ?

[ATW]

It's the stripe size. I had mine on the Nvidia Raid at 64k and my graph looked just like that, with a 68MB/s avg read. Reformat at 16k produced 99MB/s and a cleaner-looking graph.

[codeflux]

yep, go with 16k stripe size. i actually benched it at one point:

http://codeflux.com/mods/raid0bench/16kbhd.png

http://codeflux.com/mods/raid0bench/16kbss.png

benches for 32 and 64k stripe sizes can be found here:

http://codeflux.com/mods/raid0bench/

[jnex26]

So If i rebuild the Arrya with 16Kb Stripe could I Format my NTFS file system with a 16K Block Size ?

Or would Lost alot of avilible Disk space......

edit :\\ What about your random speeds they seem very low for a Dual Rapto Raid array...

Altough does anything even use unbuffered HD Accessing anymore ?

[jnex26]

Well I've re-build the Array and re-installed windows. I've also Improved cooling for the drives.

However Still not Great.


See the Spikes Not good!!!!!

http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/Dang.JPG

Err if you getting any red X'es please bear with me I'm trying to figure out why ...

http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/NoChange.JPG

[Imitation]

I'm curious to know how you got windows to format your array at a 16k size. Doesn't XP format at a different block size than 16k by default during the install? I've never seen an option to change it in the install format, only once you get into xp can you format things with whatever size you want.

[jnex26]

Yeh I did'nt bother with that.

BTW I Got it sorted......

Silly Fing PCI Raid controller.... POS......


check out the benchies now....

http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/OHYEH.JPG

http://www.asvu76.dsl.pipex.com/OHYEH2.JPG

[[M]aynard [M]cGuffin]

Use the ICH5R. It's better than any PCI controller could hope to be, it isnt on the PCI bus.

[jnex26]

I've come to that conclusion now !!!!!!! Shame It took so long to come to that conclusion.

[zandor]

aynard [M]cGuffin']Use the ICH5R. It's better than any PCI controller could hope to be, it isnt on the PCI bus.

Unless it's a 64-bit card in a duallie... :D

[[M]aynard [M]cGuffin]

Even then, the ICH5R is better, trust me. It's basically between the southbridge and the northbridg, isnt really on a bus at all.. For two disk striping, you won't find better performance.