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RAID 0 slowing me down?

N

NerdzRule7

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2002
Messages
244
I've been a happy RAID 0 user for over 2 years now. I've had the same 2 seagates running on raid 0 first in my kx7-333r, and now via some sata adapters, on my nf7-s. Recently on my nf7-s though, it seems as if they are bogging down the system. I'll be doing a lot in windows, i love to multitask, and i'll go to do something else and the system will just about stop. I check my cpu usage and its like nothing, but my harddrive read/write light is goin crazy, it looks solid sometimes its going so much. It will stay like that for about 5-10 seconds, then i'll be going again, but it occurs often. I was wondering if perhaps the RAID array is causing this? they are on a 16kb stripe size, it was perfect for my kx7 and everything i did on that, so i thought it would work good here. Is my stripe size slowing me down? or is it perhaps the sata converters. I'm not sure what i'm going to do... though i might buy a single raptor which would be about the same size as the array is now, and most likely faster. any thoughts on how to fix my slowdown are appreciated.. thanks-The_Nerd
 
i'm getting my problem right now. i'm moving a few large files.. over 700mb, using my laptop to stream some music off of this computer, i'm online with mozilla, and i'm typing in open office. It takes me forever to do anything in that situation. is that too much work for any hard drive configuration? or do you think it could be solved by a larger stripe size or a single, faster drive.-The_Nerd
 
That type of usage pattern is classic for overtaxing IDE units, much less those in a RAID0 array. Doing lots of things simultaneously means more random accesses and more use of the swapfile. IDE drives are not built for low access times, they're built for lots of space at low cost. Putting those drives in RAID0 increases access times by ~30-50% since you're dealing latencies from two drives working in tandem, yet they're not synched. Increasing the stripe size may actually make this worse since the controller will do larger transfers by default, and if you're dealing with small, non-contiguous files more often than not, it will just add to the overhead by reading/writing unecessary data. However, it may increase performance on those large file copies, but again, it may not be enough to make an overall dent in the problem.

So, what do the rest of us do in a situation like this? SCSI and higher spindle speed drives. There just isn't any going back after you get used to low access times. Another option would be a Raptor (74GB/newer model). Run either as an independent drive if you want those low access times.
 
alright.. thats what i've been thinking. i guess i never had the problems on my old comp, cuz i didnt have the processor to keep up with everything. it must have bottlenecked the system before my hard drives did. i've been looking at a raptor for a while now too.. i'll prolly get a single 74gb which will help with cabling and give me the speed i'm looking for. thanks-The_Nerd
 
Actually even older processors are capable of handling high loads like yous. Hard drives have only increased at a linear rate in terms of transfer speed, and access times are actually getting longer as density increases. Only the higher spindle speed units provide the lower access times, be they SCSI or Raptors. As such HDDs have always been the main bottleneck in the system, and it's only getting worse; it's just that most users haven't noticed due to their learning curve. In the past few years people have started becoming less afraid that running several browser windows, some office suite, and media, would crash their machine or an application, and are finding that it can increase their productivity. Hence additional demand on the drives.

Anyway, some of us have been using SCSI a long while. I started in the days of P2s at the suggestion of a friend of mine back in CS undergrad 6 years ago. Back then a 10,000rpm drive and a controller ran about $600-900, but was well worth it. He'd actually been using SCSI since the days of 386s and early Power Macs and had stuck with it. Frankly, it's probably the best advice he ever gave me in regards to computers. If you can afford it, SCSI is worth a serious look.
 
SCSI is badass in the performance arena. Price is retarded high though.
 
Price is retarded high though
Click to expand...

Right now at newegg.com a 74 gig Raptor is $212. At hypermicro.com you can by a Maxtor Atlas 3 10K RPM 74 gig Scsi drive for $196. The Atlas 3 will beat the Raptor in access times. It will blow the Raptor away in multi tasking. Throw it on a LSI U160 card for $49. and your set.

From what I have read SATA doesn't multi task any better than a normal IDE drive does. But I could be wrong. I haven't used anything IDE based in over three years now. Even my girls computer is SCSI based. It is a P3- 933 box.
 
For really good multitasking you want some form of tagged command queueing. SCSI has had this for years in hardware, some PATA units support TCQ in firmware via ATAPI packetization & driver code. SATA plans support for native command queueing, but this requires controller & drive support, which isn't there yet. Raptors support TCQ via ATAPI, but it's not much better than what has been on IBM/Hitachi units since the 90s. The 10,000' overview for TCQ is that it allows the drive to figure out how to order disk operations for optimality rather than performing operations in the order they're received. This really helps when you've got multiple processess interjecting I/O at overlapping or random intervals.
 
so it looks like a raptor would be good, scsi would be better. i'd go scsi the only problem is that i only have 32bit, 33mhz pci slots. i know if i was to get a large RAID card, the pci slot would be a huge bottleneck, would this be the same with the scsi card?


edit: i just read storagereview.com's review for both the maxtor atlas 3 scsi drive and the wd raptor 74gb. from their tests, the raptor is the fastest single drive out there now. from my standpoint, would the raptor be the best choice, especially becasue i already have sata connectors?
 
Regular PCI isn't as much of a bottleneck as most think. With one or two SCSI drives you'll be fine. Most u160 controllers made for 66/64 PCI are backwards compatible with 33/32 PCI, they just hang over the end of the slot a bit, so watch your clearance. If this is for some massive RAID array, yeah, PCI will limit you, but if you're running a massive SCSI RAID array, you really should be looking into server boards to begin with.

As for the drives themselves, if you're going to go SCSI, don't make the common mistake of buying older hardware. Yes, it's cheaper, but it's also older. Older has a near-direct correlation with slower, and when you're dealing with 10,000rpm units, the Raptor can beat them in many instances. Seriously consider current-generation 15,000rpm drives. They're more expensive but show considerable performance gains.
 
how much are we talkin price wise? i dont have a super steady job.. i fix computers locally in a little.. run out of my basement business, but i dont advirtise so my only business is word of mouth.. kinda slow. so for me the $200 for a raptor is a nice upgrade, would i be able to get a nice improvement with a fast scsi drive for not much money? or is it gonna cost me-The_Nerd
 
An 18GB Seagate 15k.3 runs about $200, plus another $50 for a controller. Yes, cost per GB is high, which is why you store mp3s and other large files without fast access requirements on something else.
 
hmm.. as much as i'd like ultimate speed.. 18gb isnt enough. i'm just about maxed on my 10gb windows partiton right now.. and 8gb for games isnt nearly enough with ut2k4 taking up 5.5 alone.. i think the raptor is my best bet.. u think i'll regret it?
 
That's a very subjective thing. SCSI is spendy and addictive, so perhaps you're better off with a raptor. I'm not a serious gamer, so 18GB units are big enough for my needs. Sometime soon I'll be looking at 36GB+ units as the default, but this is still > 6 months out.
 
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