Does short-stroking work?

To gain the most performance you need to have atleast 3 drives. One drive for OS and storage. One drive for your games. and then the last drive for your paging file. On the drive with your paging file have a 8G partition set up at the begining for the paging file.

I use to have it set up 36G raptor with 8G partion with pagefile and OS on 2nd partion. Then two 74G raptors in raid 0 for my games. When I reformated and loaded everything a couplel of weeks ago went to this set up. Lost a little speed on transfering the game data but increased overall speed of the computer according to SiSoft and Sysmark.
 
Hmmm...Just had a confusion attack, lol.

So, will there be a real-world performance gain? I'd rather not go through all this to gain a few MB/s in some random benchmark and find everything else the same. I'll probably try it nonetheless.

That is what I'd been thinking for the past few days, but I just can't afford a 3rd drive, though it would make life much more simpler.

How come it is not short-stroking? Those TV Recordings on the 640GB: if I'm lucky, one file (4.5GB approximate size) is accessed a day. But all the other time, it should be "idle" in that partition.

Here is what I uneasiness stems from:

1. My games are on the slow hard drive.
2. I have both my games and page file on the same hard drive.

I guess there is no way to fix this without a 3rd drive?

~Ibrahim~
 
dcds1 said:
To gain the most performance you need to have atleast 3 drives. One drive for OS and storage. One drive for your games. and then the last drive for your paging file. On the drive with your paging file have a 8G partition set up at the begining for the paging file.

I use to have it set up 36G raptor with 8G partion with pagefile and OS on 2nd partion. Then two 74G raptors in raid 0 for my games. When I reformated and loaded everything a couplel of weeks ago went to this set up. Lost a little speed on transfering the game data but increased overall speed of the computer according to SiSoft and Sysmark.
Click to expand...

An 8GB page file. I'm sorry but no, that is just not needed. A 2GB page file isn't even used for most systems. Why? Because most people have the sense to have enough RAM. What does a page file have to do with "short stroking?"
 
protias said:
An 8GB page file. I'm sorry but no, that is just not needed. A 2GB page file isn't even used for most systems. Why? Because most people have the sense to have enough RAM. What does a page file have to do with "short stroking?"
Click to expand...

With 2 gigs of RAM, EQ2 would wreak havoc on a page file. 2 gigs of page file was minimum for EQ2. When I was playing was when I found out about putting the page file on its own partition. One reason was to make it easier to wipe out and start fresh, and the other so that the system could access the game and the page file independently. But EQ2 is the only application where I ever read that this was needed.

Yes. Ibrahim, no matter how you slice it, your gains will be minimal at best.
 
protias said:
An 8GB page file. I'm sorry but no, that is just not needed. A 2GB page file isn't even used for most systems. Why? Because most people have the sense to have enough RAM. What does a page file have to do with "short stroking?"
Click to expand...

My page file is about 3,067MB, so 3GB or so. I made it 5GB because it is a nice, even number. It has to do with short-stroking because you actually short-stroke the page file itself by putting it in its own partition.

Anyone know the answers to the issues in my previous post? Because if not, I'm about to purchase the drive.

ikjadoon said:
1. My games are on the slow hard drive.
2. I have both my games and page file on the same hard drive.

I guess there is no way to fix this without a 3rd drive?
Click to expand...

~Ibrahim~
 
upriverpaddler said:
Explain how leaving the space unallocated is more of a benefit than storing data that will not be accessed during the "data intensive tasks". Either way, the arm will never go there. Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...

Short Stroking is not for the benefit of data storage, its for the benefit of data access. Its for speed not capacity.


ripken204 said:
and why cant you just make the extra space into storage that you will rarely use?
the head wont move there if you arnt using anything in that partition.
Click to expand...

The head does move there. Even if your not actively seeking data on that partition, windows still sees it and continually sees it with background processes, virus scanners, caching and other file system processes.

Short stroking is generally not used in the soho desktop market. Its traditionally used in the realm of data centers and the like, where every and any bit of performance is needed with dis-regard for price. Its like spending tens of thousands of dollars on a formula 1 car, just for lighter bolts and screws.
 
Really? Does anyone have any proof of this? It sounds logical, but wouldn't there still be a performance increase, even if there is data there?

~Ibrahim~
 
raid:0 works way better...

i have 3 20gb 7200/8mb drives in raid:0, it flys....windows loads in less than 20 seconds, installing programs, copying from the array, it's incredibly fast...
 
Ziggy!talon said:
raid:0 works way better...

i have 3 20gb 7200/8mb drives in raid:0, it flys....windows loads in less than 20 seconds, installing programs, copying from the array, it's incredibly fast...
Click to expand...

Not this discussion again.... :mad: :(
 
ikjadoon said:
QFT. I don't have the money for RAID, so let's not get off topic.

~Ibrahim~
Click to expand...


a decent controller card can be had for like 50 bucks tops....

if you want a fast OS/games partition, pick up about 4 40GB 7200.8mb hard drives, install your OS and games on your new 160GB array that can read/write at 140MB/s with awesome access times and your golden.
 
Ziggy!talon said:
a decent controller card can be had for like 50 bucks tops....

if you want a fast OS/games partition, pick up about 4 40GB 7200.8mb hard drives, install your OS and games on your new 160GB array that can read/write at 140MB/s with awesome access times and your golden.
Click to expand...

What controller is that?

And why would you go with 7200.8 drives when .11 are out? Besides, this thread is about "short stroking," not transfer speeds.
 
protias said:
What controller is that?

And why would you go with 7200.8 drives when .11 are out? Besides, this thread is about "short stroking," not transfer speeds.
Click to expand...


because i was trying to keep things cheap for you...

and a raid:0 array would be quicker than any short stroking setup period. in access and transfer speeds..

oh and pretty much any hardware based controller card out there.... they start at like 30-40 bucks....
 
Ziggy!talon said:
a decent controller card can be had for like 50 bucks tops....

if you want a fast OS/games partition, pick up about 4 40GB 7200.8mb hard drives, install your OS and games on your new 160GB array that can read/write at 140MB/s with awesome access times and your golden.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that RAID 0 did not lower access times; actually it had a slight tendency to increase them?

Now instead of one drive failing, I have the chance of four drives failing. Also, I am purchasing a 640GB for a reason: I really need the space! I don't want to sound rude or stubborn, but I've already researched the pros and cons of having a RAID setup. Thanks, though.

~Ibrahim~
 
Ziggy!talon said:
because i was trying to keep things cheap for you...

and a raid:0 array would be quicker than any short stroking setup period. in access and transfer speeds..

oh and pretty much any hardware based controller card out there.... they start at like 30-40 bucks....
Click to expand...

Those are software based controllers. You might as well use the feature on the motherboard then. Again, transfer speeds do not equal access times. Haven't we already discussed this?
 
Matrix RAID.

If you have an intel RAID controller you can set up two different configurations over one subset of physical discs.

I have 3 x 7200.11, 500GB. I sliced out the first 25GB of all 3 drives and configured them in one 75GB RAID0 array, I then took the remaining space and configured it for RAID5. 900 GB or so of fully redundant storage space and triple disk RAID0 performance on SATA2 for Windows and games.

Best of both worlds and as an added benefit you can image windows to the RAID5 partition. You lose a drive, pop in a new one, boot from cd, rebuild your RAID0 from the image and away you go. No data lost and you have an OS install exactly how you like it. The raid controller was onboard my Maximus Formula and I got the drives for 90$ each from NCIX.
 
Overrider said:
Matrix RAID.

If you have an intel RAID controller you can set up two different configurations over one subset of physical discs.

I have 3 x 7200.11, 500GB. I sliced out the first 25GB of all 3 drives and configured them in one 75GB RAID0 array, I then took the remaining space and configured it for RAID5. 900 GB or so of fully redundant storage space and triple disk RAID0 performance on SATA2 for Windows and games.

Best of both worlds and as an added benefit you can image windows to the RAID5 partition. You lose a drive, pop in a new one, boot from cd, rebuild your RAID0 from the image and away you go. No data lost and you have an OS install exactly how you like it. The raid controller was onboard my Maximus Formula and I got the drives for 90$ each from NCIX.
Click to expand...

I know for a fact the R5 array will be ungodly slow doing that (compared to using separate disks for for R5 and separate disks for R0). The only thing I don't know is, if you lose the R0 array, if it will take out the R5. I don't think it will, but I'm not 100% sure as you are using the same disks.
 
physically, they are the same drives, but according to intel, logically, they are seen as separate entities.
this is one of the big selling points of matrix raid. It is really truely redundant.

If theory, it sounds awesome.
You partition the drive any which way you want..
now here the unspoken down side....

the raid 0 and raid 5 are on the same physical disks.. so regardless of anything, that WILL slow down the raid 0 access times. even if you only have media files and rarely use them. Windows still runs background check and might index them. Anti virus will scan them. a defrag will defrag them... there are a few programs out there that will slow you down, and some, simply run in the background. it only takes one request for data on that Raid 5 to throw that whole concept into the toilet.
 
Right. I've heard about Matrix RAID, but no Intel chipset. :(

~Ibrahim~
 
How do you know for sure where your partition(s) are on the physical disc? If I set up a RAID 0 array (Adaptec card), do I just set up a partition or volume that is smaller than the total size of the logical drive/array? Will the first or only partition/volume always be on the outer portion of the disc?
 
Short-stroked 640GB with a 50GB OS partition. Seems very responsive, but that might be due to the reformat; :D. Still looking for an application that can benchmark PARTITIONS, not complete drives to test results.....

~Ibrahim~
 
An interesting read. For my next system I'm playing around with the following idea:

1. Single fusionio solid state drive with 0.1ms access times and 800MBs read for OS (no need to partition with SSDs since performance is the same across the entire drive)

2. 6x1TB drives in a Intel matrix RAID with the fastest 10% sliced off in RAID0 for apps and games (i.e. 600GB drive with ~400-500MBs read and ~6-7ms access times), and remaining 90% in a RAID10 for backup of RAID0 partition, backup of SSD, movies, music, data storage, etc, (i.e. 5.4TB drive with ~200MBs read and ~12-14ms access times).

3. 8GB of RAM and disable page file so the OS isn't constantly writing stuff from RAM to the hard drive

The thought is that the SSD will be added so that the OS sits on its own drive. Access time is much more important than sustained reads/writes for the OS, and SSDs are an order of magnitude better (0.1ms vs 6-14ms). Also, the OS constantly accesses the hard drive, even while using an app or playing a game, so you want those concurrent events happening on different spindles. If the OS and apps/games are on the same array, then the spindle is going to jump back and forth on the drive to read data for the app/game and for the OS. While the same could theoretically happen with the RAID0 and RAID10 array, the number of times the RAID0 and RAID10 data will be accessed at the same time will be VERY limited, so I'll be able to realize the access time and throughput performance of my RAID0 array almost all the time.

BTW - to the person who isn't quite sure if short stroking / slicing / partioning your hard drive makes a difference, you're crazy. For years everyone has bought 150GB Raptor hard drives because they are fast (~7ms access times versus ~12-14ms for standard hard drives, ~75MBs reads). These days you can purchase any of the latest 1TB drives which have better throughput than the Raptors (~80-90MBs reads), through they have slower access times (~12-14ms). BUT if you short stroke / slice / partition off the fastest 15% of the drives, you'll have a 150GB hard drive (same as Raptor) but with better throughput AND access times (~6-7ms access times, ~100-120MBs reads). Not to mention you will have a quieter hard drive, it will cost less money, and you'll have a bonus 850GB partition that you can use for data storage and backup.
 
Sounds nice. But you might want to look into those new 300GB VelociRaptor's out, they do WORK on sequential read/writes.

~Ibrahim~
 
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