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Velociraptor RAID 0 possible problem

S

Scintir

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 29, 2008
Messages
475
So, I went out and got two 300GB WD Velociraptors from newegg. I of course planned to use RAID 0 on these drives, but now I have a possible problem. After installing Vista(64) and then installing everything my old RAID had, I find that my speeds on reading still seem about the same. Previously I had 2 WD Caviar SE16 250GB sata II hard drives in RAID 0 and in comparison, don't seem much slower now compared to these. I bought these paying about 4 times as much (space wise, only about ~$55 for a 320GB HDD), to see very little improvement. I know these drives in relation to speed are not an incredible amount faster (7200 VS 10,000), but I believed that with the density, and the speed mixed that these speeds would be a little more satisfying. I have both launched and tested these drives as well as use HD tune 2.55 on them (will post results in a second). Overall I see the speeds on HD tune are a bit faster but there are also problems on there with a large amount of dips. The disappointing speeds with the more than "silent" acoustics (these things do grind a bit when it is reading or writing a decent amount) all seem to point that either there is a problem with the drives, my RAID controller, or the drives are just not as great as everyone has said.


HD tune results:



As you see there are constant dips in this test. From this it makes me think only one of the drives is under-performing or something along those lines. What do you guys all think? Does this look like a bad hard drive, controller, etc....


Here are my specs:
MSI K9A2 Platinum (Using the promise controller for RAID 0)
AMD 9850BE @ 3.0GHz (air)
2 X 2 GB Mushkin 800MHz
2 X 300GB WD Velociraptors Sata II
1 X 500GB WD Caviar Sata II
3 X DVD-RW (2 LG, 1 Lite-On) Sata II
Rosewill 750W power supply
Cooler Master Stacker 830 Evolution

(I know most of that hardware doesn't mean anything but I decided to post it so I can just copy and paste into my signature ^^).

Anyways, any comments is appreciated a lot. At this point I am considering just sending these back to newegg and getting two 1TB drives for about half the price and just RAIDing those with 0 and see how those go.

Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to be as detailed as needed so no one needs to ask for more information. :)
 
Don't use HDTune on RAIDs; it was not designed to give any meaningful results in a RAID configuration.

Use benchmarks that test on the filesystem layer, such as ATTO-256. I have setup a mirror here of this simple program (requires no installation):
http://www.fluffles.net/files/ATTO-256.exe

I'm a little puzzled you're using the Promise controller instead of the chipset controller for your RAID though. Any reason for this?
 
HDTune does a great job with RAIDs - it doesn't know the difference -that's the point of RAID.

OP, something's definitely jacked with yer junk there. Way jacked.
 
"From this it makes me think only one of the drives is under-performing or something along those lines. What do you guys all think?"

I think you should check to see for sure. What do they do individually?
 
I am using the promise for raid because If you look, all my optical drives are SATA, I only have 6 sata ports (not including esata of course) which means all of them are taken up. If you enable RAID on the ATI chipset RAID controller, it will then render the promise controller useless (disables it and there is no current way to stop that), which means 2 of my drives wouldn't then be able to transfer and my eSATA wouldn't work. That is the reason basically, if I could get the promise to work, I would just RAID on the normal controller and set up two optical drives on the promise, but since I cannot I am forced to do this. Also, yes I was thinking only one of my drives isn't working. It looks great at one point, then another it just sucks terrible, then it shoots back up, etc.....



Also, there are many other questions I would like to ask. First off, if I actually get two working HDDs (working at advertised levels), will that boost up my higher speed of 140? It seems like one is reading just fine and is trying to compensate for the other as well, so I would imagine if I had two working, the speed would increase even more and then be much more consistent, does anyone have any say to that? Next, what would the speeds of two 1TB or 1.5TB drives in RAID 0? I know density is important, so seeing as these HDD are in a 1TB - 1.5TB configuration would that be some nice speeds although there is a slower RPM? I know that the raptors should definitely preform better, but how much would be my real question I guess? For me, I am just a large enthusiast for computers and love to see things blaze (wasted plenty of money just for this, but what the hell, it makes me happy), so anything to increase speeds makes me happy ^^. Thanks for all the current responses, you guys help me with my final decisions a large portion of the time. I can most of the time be stubborn and think I can repair the things myself, but after a while I know I will just have to throw it to my friends over here at hardocp to see if I am just insane of the loss of a loved part or if I am onto something :D.


I think during this weekend or soon I might try them individually, but sadly I will need to re-do everything again. I just reset all my data on this and got it back to where my old RAID was, so I guess when I get bored I will go through and test them individually ^^.

One last thing, I don't know if I mentioned this early, but either one or both of these hard drives does grind a bit. This just sounds like clicking of old hard drives as they run, which doesn't really indicate failure most of the time. I have heard raptors are really quiet, and for the price I expect them to be. Is this just me being picky or is this another problem I should send the drive back for? Part of the reason for my upgrade was for quieter drives since that clicking bothers me after a small amount of time, especially when I need silence for a game!

If there is anything you guys need from me, I should be on most of the day to respond ^^. As I have already laid out my situation and specs, I assume this is pretty much everything you need ^^.
 
Well I'd download WD's DataLifeguard tools and check the drives for errors. You might have to move them temporarily to one of the non RAID controllers to run the tests, I am not sure..
 
Brahmzy said:
HDTune does a great job with RAIDs - it doesn't know the difference -that's the point of RAID.
Click to expand...
HDTune is too dumb to properly test RAIDs and more complicated storage devices. This is because it does not operate on the filesystem layer and all optimizations are bypassed. Use ATTO and you see what you would truely be getting.

Also read this: Why HDTune is unsuitable for RAID arrays



Scintir said:
First off, if I actually get two working HDDs (working at advertised levels), will that boost up my higher speed of 140?
Click to expand...
RAID0 should give you a lineair speed increase when measuring sequential read/write throughput. In plain english: double the drives then double the throughput.

A number of issues may lower the performance, its too complicated to go in-depth here. If you want optimum performance, learn how to manually correct your partition to avoid a 'stripe misalignment' which otherwise reduces your RAID arrays ability to process multiple I/O at the same time.

Oh, and raptors do not perform better than regular 7200rpm disks when looking at throughput; it even looses in some cases. Raptors are good for IOps - performance you need for a system disk. Boot times for example are highly dependent on the access time; RAID will not reduce access time, but can only be faster by processing 2 or more requests at the same time. So while 1 disk would have processed 1 after 8ms, the RAID0 can process 4 I/O at the same time with a 4-disk RAID0 configuration. This only works properly if you setup stripesize and filesystem correctly.

General advice: use RAID0 if data is replaceable or a backup is maintained. The speed increase can be lineair, both throughput and IOps. But to get the most performance out of your RAID you need to properly set it up which is not as easy as assumed. If you're interested, checkout this link from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;929491&x=10&y=13
 
Here are the individual test of the drives:






As you can see, one drive seems to be malfunctioning badly. I believe that this answers my questions ^^.

Also, I wanted to ask another thing. What do you guys think of a different set up, one with 1 SSD (Looking around 128GBs or so) as the main HDD with the OS and applications on it, then just get two 1TB or 1.5TB drives and use them in RAID 0 for games and storage needs? I have looked over many SSD reviews, and it seems there are still problems and the velociraptor can still rival it, but if I just had the SSD rigged up as my application and OS drive and then the gaming on the others, would it really matter, or would you all say two Velociraptors in RAID 0 as the main OS, app, and gaming drives are better? I would like the fastest machine possible, and currently I just play a lot of games, dabble in programs here and there, but nothing such as video editing and things of that sort. I know SSD (at least the lower class ones) have problems of random incredibly slow write times, but once everything is all installed and done, it seems like it should be fine.

Basically, for $400, which would be my best rig? 2 Velociraptors RAID 0, or 1 SSD and 2 1TB/1.5TB HDDs RAID 0?


Thank you all for your current post, I appreciate them and hope to get more :D.
 
The Intel SSD's do not have the stuttering problems of the other ones. And the fastest ones of those are the X25-E but they are small, the X25-M is still fast and available in larger sizes.

As for if you should get a couple of large drives to RAID 0 for games and storage sure just remember RAID 0 is harder to recover from and more prone to failure than a single drive.. If you are ok with that there is no reason not to.

FYI, RAID 0 helps the most in file creation tasks like video editing etc that you are not doing. see: http://techreport.com/articles.x/9124/1 There are a few games like Age of Conan that do not compress their maps (and thus use 30+GB of drive space) that RAID 0 helps, but for most games even loading levels is more CPU bound than drive speed limited.
 
Definitely something wrong there. With two regular Raptors( 150gb ) in raid0 I was, if I remember correctly, getting an average of 200++mb/s transfer rate and 500++mb/s burst rate( by disabling( or was it enabling?) write cache) using HDtune on Vista64.
 
The problem with the SSD having those terrible rates is in the MLC ones, which are generally the affordable SSDs. The one you are talking about is an SLC SSD which cost a considerable amount more (at least $500 from what I have seen (there is one for $155, but that is only 16GBs)). As you might understand that is a bit too much for me, especially when the size is so small. I in other words, would need to settle for a MLC, which is where the stuttering is.

So essentially, I would then go with an MLC SSD, and two larger sized HDDs for games and storage. I know RAID 0 is risky, but all important data I have is very small and backed up on various sources, so there are no real worries about data loss. I am just looking for speed, speed, and more speed for my cash. I would preferable like a decent amount of storage, but if there is good speed I can sacrafise it (such in the case of the velociraptors or the SSD). My main problem currently is that I don't have anything to really go off of other than benchmarks. The true thing that will sell you is experiencing the drives, which I cannot do due to financial limitations. So I am just curious to see if the SSD's speed on the OS and applications would be worth it, compared to the velociraptors speed on everything? My games I imagine would load about the same as before, which wasn't bad I guess, and multi-tasking isn't that slow either, but with only one velociraptor in working condition I cannot see how well these things really fly. People are always saying these things just blaze, but I just currently cannot see it. I now am running on the good velociraptor and I see the speeds are nice, but I just cannot say that with $400 being thrown, that I am fully satisfied until I at least see the results of RAID 0 on these ( cannot do until I get the one that is broken replaced). I am just basically stuck, I heard these were excellent and so far the one is pretty fast, but I just cannot be sure. SSD look promising on some points but is it worth it? As I said before, I just want the fastest option if possible, but I would also not like to be completely snared on my storage, so if I went SSD I would need a bit of storage to back that up. If I went with the raptors then two in RAID 0 would be plenty, as I have a 500GB extra HDD as well in my rig.

If only newegg had a testing center, ahh what bliss could come :D.
*runs to a newegg warehouse asking to test parts before buying ;).
 
Scintir said:
The problem with the SSD having those terrible rates is in the MLC ones, which are generally the affordable SSDs. The one you are talking about is an SLC SSD which cost a considerable amount more (at least $500 from what I have seen (there is one for $155, but that is only 16GBs)). As you might understand that is a bit too much for me, especially when the size is so small. I in other words, would need to settle for a MLC, which is where the stuttering is.

So essentially, I would then go with an MLC SSD, and two larger sized HDDs for games and storage. I know RAID 0 is risky, but all important data I have is very small and backed up on various sources, so there are no real worries about data loss. I am just looking for speed, speed, and more speed for my cash. I would preferable like a decent amount of storage, but if there is good speed I can sacrafise it (such in the case of the velociraptors or the SSD). My main problem currently is that I don't have anything to really go off of other than benchmarks. The true thing that will sell you is experiencing the drives, which I cannot do due to financial limitations. So I am just curious to see if the SSD's speed on the OS and applications would be worth it, compared to the velociraptors speed on everything? My games I imagine would load about the same as before, which wasn't bad I guess, and multi-tasking isn't that slow either, but with only one velociraptor in working condition I cannot see how well these things really fly. People are always saying these things just blaze, but I just currently cannot see it. I now am running on the good velociraptor and I see the speeds are nice, but I just cannot say that with $400 being thrown, that I am fully satisfied until I at least see the results of RAID 0 on these ( cannot do until I get the one that is broken replaced). I am just basically stuck, I heard these were excellent and so far the one is pretty fast, but I just cannot be sure. SSD look promising on some points but is it worth it? As I said before, I just want the fastest option if possible, but I would also not like to be completely snared on my storage, so if I went SSD I would need a bit of storage to back that up. If I went with the raptors then two in RAID 0 would be plenty, as I have a 500GB extra HDD as well in my rig.

If only newegg had a testing center, ahh what bliss could come :D.
*runs to a newegg warehouse asking to test parts before buying ;).
Click to expand...

The Intel x25-M is MLC, but still $500
 
I would say that the only reason I would mention the MLC and SLC thing is just because of the stuttering. Pretty much all MLC drives have been known to have it (except for the Intel X-25 I guess, which you just mentioned). Anyways, MLC drives are actually affortable on most occasions, the only reason to go with SLC is to stop the stuttering. Sure that may have no stuttering, but as you see, it is expensive ^^. $500 is just too much for me =/, thanks for clearing that up though. More knowledge is always welcomed :D.

Anyways, I think I found out what I am going to do. I will get these returned to Newegg as long as they wave the restocking fee (bitching because these drives are actually bad, so being fee-ed, is just bullshit), if they still stick me with the $67 fee, I might just replace them, but I will be "uber" pissed. The reason for this decision is all based on the promise controller. I just spent an entire day (not counting previous problems) working on this rig because the promise controller is a pain in the ass. I figured it out, but it requires me to do a lot more bullshit then needed (this is just a work around, it isn't like I missed a step or something, this is just some random buggy issue form this shitty controller). If I ever decide to actually upgrade my hard drives again, I KNOW I am going to get a different motherboard. The motherboard has no issues other than the Promise RAID controller, that thing is just a huge pain in the ass now.

Thank you for the responses ^^, they have all helped me out to come to this frustrated conclusion after a few days of dealing with these faulty hard drives and a shitty RAID controller.
 
Scintir said:
Ahh, that's it. I am running 64 bit. I might go and grab the dos ver.
Click to expand...

I could not get the dos version to work off a USB stick, said I msut have windows installed (go figure).

However I got the 32 bit version to work using xp compatability mode in vista 64
 
Scintir said:
I would say that the only reason I would mention the MLC and SLC thing is just because of the stuttering. Pretty much all MLC drives have been known to have it (except for the Intel X-25 I guess, which you just mentioned). Anyways, MLC drives are actually affortable on most occasions, the only reason to go with SLC is to stop the stuttering. Sure that may have no stuttering, but as you see, it is expensive ^^. $500 is just too much for me =/, thanks for clearing that up though. More knowledge is always welcomed :D.

Anyways, I think I found out what I am going to do. I will get these returned to Newegg as long as they wave the restocking fee (bitching because these drives are actually bad, so being fee-ed, is just bullshit), if they still stick me with the $67 fee, I might just replace them, but I will be "uber" pissed. The reason for this decision is all based on the promise controller. I just spent an entire day (not counting previous problems) working on this rig because the promise controller is a pain in the ass. I figured it out, but it requires me to do a lot more bullshit then needed (this is just a work around, it isn't like I missed a step or something, this is just some random buggy issue form this shitty controller). If I ever decide to actually upgrade my hard drives again, I KNOW I am going to get a different motherboard. The motherboard has no issues other than the Promise RAID controller, that thing is just a huge pain in the ass now.

Thank you for the responses ^^, they have all helped me out to come to this frustrated conclusion after a few days of dealing with these faulty hard drives and a shitty RAID controller.
Click to expand...

Lesson Learned many years ago, promise onboard raid sucks, reason I went for the more expensive raid solution (highpoint rocket raid) many years ago. Your best bet is to just get a raid card anyways, onboard raid is usualy processed through the bios anyways so its only as fast as a software raid solution. You want a raid card if you want to really see the extra performance, no MB will offer this.
 
nitrobass24 said:
heres proof of why HDTune doesnt work well in RAID
Click to expand...

If you look at how the guy explains it on the next page, though, you'll see this:
FYI - my times were not maliciously manipulated, nor was it somehow photochopped, these are the actual results. Apparently, there is a huge bug with HD Tune, where it cannot handle larger volume size than 2.199 TB (my volume size is actually about 4.6TB or so - 5 x WD 1TB HDD RAID on ICH10R) and shows these astounding (and highly unrealistic) readings:
Click to expand...

In other words, it works fine as long as you don't have over 2TB of storage in the RAID.
 
Well, if newegg keeps the damn fee ($67 is way too much for me to stomach) then I might just get them replaced. In that situation I think I might go get a Areca-1210 or something ( I think the Areca-1210 is the max I would need for a bit, 4 SATA ports on a RAID controller seems max, doubt I would RAID more then that).

So 2 veliciraptors in RAID 0 eventually on an Areaca-1210, anyone know how well that will work? If it works exceptionally well, I might just add another velociraptor here and there eventually. I know the card is PCIe 8X, so that should be plenty of bandwidth.
 
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