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A7V333 RAID performance

N

NRaygun

Member
I had two 120GB drives connected as RAID 2+0 on my A7V333 w/ the latest BIOS, RAID driver, Windows XP+SP1.

The speed of this config was no better than my main 40GB drive.

I then configured the drives under RAID to be two separate drives(non-RAID) and the performance of each is still not better than my default C: drive.

The two drives are WD 120GB+8MB. The 40GB drive is a WD 40GB drive.

Is this speed difference normal? Shouldnt each drive be at least as fast as the main 40GB drive? Is the Promise RAID controller chip just slow?
 
Which BIOS are you running? You didn't specify. I don't think the RAID chip is "just slow" but there can be many things that affect the speed.
 
I'm using BIOS 1017.

The 2+0 is not a typo - that's what comes up when the system boots. I think it means 2 drives in RAID 0 stripe mode(which is how I have it configured).

Sounds like it should not be slow.

Any ideas?
 
Try this: disable the onboard USB 2.0 controller using the jumper for that purpose, and test again. I have a specific reason for suggesting that, and it'll be interesting to hear the result.
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Try this: disable the onboard USB 2.0 controller using the jumper for that purpose, and test again. I have a specific reason for suggesting that, and it'll be interesting to hear the result.
Click to expand...

I (sort of) remember this issue also but didn't think it was related to the Promise performance. Hmmm, slick thinking though. 😉

In addition, you may consider flashing to the 1016 BIOS. It is generally considered the most stable/best BIOS for that MB. Also, have you downloaded the most recent Promise drivers from the ASUS A7V333 driver download site.
 
I think we're on to something! The performance increased(according to Studio 8).

The read speed is about twice as fast as the write speed(~50Kb/s vs. ~24Kb/s). It's better than it was before disabling USB 2.0 support(I got about 18Kb/s write before).

However, my C: drive is still a little faster overall. I get about 40Kb/s read and 37Kb/s write.

Is this about as good as it gets?

I'll also go back to 1016 unless someone thinks I should stick with the latest.
 
The motherboard's "native" standard IDE ports are riding the 533MB/sec V-link that connects the southbridge to the northbridge, but its Promise RAID controller, despite being soldered to the mobo, is on the PCI bus. So is the USB 2.0 controller on the A7V333-RAID. Disabling USB 2.0 leaves more PCI pipe for the Promise controller.

I had an A7V333-RAID and tried using a PCI-based controller (SCSI, in my case) which was also getting bad performance, and while disabling USB 2.0 helped significantly, the performance was still about 30% lower than on an nForce board, so I ended up retiring the A7V333-R to home use, where it later lost a surface-mounted device when I used a three-lug heatsink on it. Buz2b has a good tip to help you prevent this: put a sheet of cardboard on the mobo before trying to clip down your heatsink 🙂
 
Unfortunately, that makes a lot of sense. 🙂

Why is the read speed faster? Is it because of dual port access to two drives?

Darn. I would have been better off just buying one drive for the other open IDE port. Oh well.

Thanks everyone for your help. FWIW, I also sent a support Q to ASUS. Let's see if they come to the same conclusion.

Thanks again.
 
Originally posted by: NRaygun
Unfortunately, that makes a lot of sense. 🙂

Why is the read speed faster? Is it because of dual port access to two drives?

Darn. I would have been better off just buying one drive for the other open IDE port. Oh well..
Click to expand...

This same "problematic" RAID vs USB2 controller issue is covered in more detail over at the AMDMB forums (sticky archives I think), though I don't know if they ever discussed or solved the read/write discrepancies. Might be worth digging into over there or maybe contacting a couple of the more knowledgable ones on that MB. If you want, you can PM me and I can point you in the right direction.
On the system I just built with that MB, I used the UDMA Lumberjack version of the BIOS and run two HDD's on seperate channels; utilizing the RAID ports as IDE. Performance has been pretty good for a home system. 🙂
 
I'm kinda new to some of this stuff:

What is a "sticky archive"?
What is "PM" and how do I "PM you"? Why would I want to "PM" you? ("you can PM me and I can point you in the right direction.")
What is UDMA Lumberjack? I've heard of UDMA - is this Lumberjack version something special for the A7V333?
How do you measure performance? Is there a freeware HD tachometer out there somewhere?

Sorry for the newbie Q's. 🙂

I'll be checking out AMDMB.com to see if I can answer some of these Q's on my own.
 
Sorry if I confused you. I'll answer most of the questions later but wanted to get back here and give you some info I found. From searching around, I found that installing something called the George Breeze PCI latency patch, you could help your RAID performance. There is more on this issue but I'll get back to you later on that.
 
Originally posted by: NRaygun
I'm kinda new to some of this stuff:

What is a "sticky archive"?
What is "PM" and how do I "PM you"? Why would I want to "PM" you? ("you can PM me and I can point you in the right direction.")
What is UDMA Lumberjack? I've heard of UDMA - is this Lumberjack version something special for the A7V333?
How do you measure performance? Is there a freeware HD tachometer out there somewhere?

Sorry for the newbie Q's. 🙂

I'll be checking out AMDMB.com to see if I can answer some of these Q's on my own.
Click to expand...

As to the "sticky archive" question, it is a collection of threads that were deemed to be important enough to have them stay at the top of a forum for all to read, instead of having them be "pushed" further down the pages of the forum as normal threads are. The Sticky Archive is just a collection of those that were eventually taken off of the top but are still full of good info. They place the links to the past stickies in one convenient location.

A PM is a "personal message". That is a private way of communicating between forum users. You would have to go into your profile (link/box near the top right side of page), scroll down the list and put a check (dot) in the selection to allow private messages. When you get a PM, you are "notified" just like when a post is made to a thread you have subscribed to. The reason for private messages are many. Sometimes, as in this case, they are used to discuss information that is on other forums. Some feel that discussing other forums is a bit of a slap in the face of our host. There are also times when PM's are used to request info from another user. Basically it is a kind of instant messenger service but not intrusive. It also helps keep the threads on subject, without a lot of misc. BS being passed back and forth. I suggested it as a way in which I could possibly assist you with info from another forum and give you a more direct route to do so.

The Lumberjack BIOS files are modified BIOS's (there are different versions) to take advantage of certain functionalities that are not used in the ASUS BIOS files. That is a simplistic description as I am no expert on them. I do know that they work though and can point you to more info on them if you wish.

There are ways to check performance but I would have to go back and check out what they were using. Perhaps there is someone here that can also point you to some.

I hope that helps. Again, you might want to enable PM's but that is your choice. Make sure you go to the link I provided in the previous response. From what I have seen, that patch does help performance with the RAID. Will it completely solve the speed problem? I don't know. But the posts I read said it did help.
 
Thanks folks - now I know why you have Elite and Diamond member status.

I think the problem is solved. Here's what I did:

Problem: My A7V333 motherboard with BIOS version 1017 has slow RAID performance with two WD 120GB drives.

Solution:
1. Went back to BIOS 1016 (seems to be what everyone thinks is the most stable)
2. Disabled USB 2.0
3. Set my PCI Latency to 64

Seems to work great now. My RAID drive is now consistently faster than my C: drive. As an additional fine tuning, I'll probably go and reformat the RAID with a 64k block size.

With the many patches and things I did, I'll probably re-format my system too. I had just done this a few days ago. I do it about once a quarter, kinda like an oil change. I've got good reason to do this now - new Catalyst drivers, new patch to Studio 8, new BIOS in my MB(1016), etc. I've found this keeps my machine humming along quite well - I get a noticeable improvement each time I do this.

Thanks again for all of your help everyone.
🙂
 
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