A8N-SLI Nvidia raid vs silicon image raid

[F4810]

Does anyone have any experince of using both of these RAID devices?

I have 2 x 74gb Raptors that I use in RAID 0 and a Diamond Max 10 for backup and was wondering which one is better to use bearing in mind that I plan to overclock my system. I have heard reports that the Nvidia Raid drivers are not too stable but also that the silicon image raid takes more of the processors time.

 

[Thorsson]

I saw a review that showed the NVidia to be quicker, although there wasn't a huge amount in it.

 

[meolsen]

I think if you turn the NVIDA raid on then you will have 4 SIIG raid and 4 nvidia raid -- e.g., no non-raid drives. If that works for you (e.g., 4 or 2 drives) that's ok, but your note about the diamond max suggest that it needs to be on a non-raid SATA slot.

 

[penelopeb]

i can't get my 74GB raptors to work on NVIDIA'S RAID no matter how hard I try on my a8n-sli. followed every direction to a T. if you get it working, let me know how... :

 

[F4810]

Originally posted by: penelopeb
i can't get my 74GB raptors to work on NVIDIA'S RAID no matter how hard I try on my a8n-sli. followed every direction to a T. if you get it working, let me know how... :

Mine are on Nvidia raid and work fine, I might swap them as there may be stability issues.

To get the nvidia raid to work you have to enable raid in Nvraid in the bios. then set up your raid array. then when you set up xp have a floppy with the drivers on it.

 

[penelopeb]

did all of that. repeatedly. are you using raid 0 or raid 1?

the drives are fine. if i don't use raid, i can get windows up, running, and happily accessing both drives...

 

[F4810]

Originally posted by: penelopeb
did all of that. repeatedly. are you using raid 0 or raid 1?

the drives are fine. if i don't use raid, i can get windows up, running, and happily accessing both drives...

raid 0.

 

[penelopeb]

see..that's the thing that's different amongst everyone as far as i can tell. i'm trying raid 1. i haven't seen anyone running raid 1 with my similar config successfully. not a single soul...you?

 

[F4810]

Originally posted by: penelopeb
see..that's the thing that's different amongst everyone as far as i can tell. i'm trying raid 1. i haven't seen anyone running raid 1 with my similar config successfully. not a single soul...you?

Do you really need raid 1. I have a 3rd sata drive that I use to backup my raid array. i do this once a week. But the thing is, I like to overclock, and if i get a corrupt file on the hard disk through overclocking, raid 1 will just duplicate the error across both drives and would be pointless for me.

I didnt know there were problems with raid 1 though.

 

[Slaimus]

The Sil RAID is on the PCI bus, so as long as you have your PCI locked at 33mhz, it will always run fine. The benefit of the NV RAID is that it is not connected to the PCI bus, so it will not have to contend with other PCI devices for usage.

 

[F4810]

Originally posted by: Slaimus
The Sil RAID is on the PCI bus, so as long as you have your PCI locked at 33mhz, it will always run fine. The benefit of the NV RAID is that it is not connected to the PCI bus, so it will not have to contend with other PCI devices for usage.

Sounds good to stick with nvidia then. But I also heard that the unapproved nvidia drivers for this caused problems with stability. I didnt think i needed them as it says nvidia 'ide drivers' but I am sure I saw somewhere that you needed these for the nvidia raid.

 

[meolsen]

Am I right that if you enable NVIDA raid on this MOBO then ALL of your drives are going to be raid? e.g., both the SIIG four SATA slots AND the red SATA slots?

If you enable NVIDia raid on a running system, is that a reformat... that is to say, I'm happily using siig now, and if it means a washout I may not bother trying nvidia.

Mike

 

[penelopeb]

no that is not correct. i finally gave up and used the silicon image controller. i tried every suggestion given here and then some, and my system just WILL NOT WORK with the nvidia controller. i think there's a conflict with my video card honestly, but i've no idea how to resolve it. i'd prefer to use the nvidia one... :\

 

[vlad4]

penelopeb- Not sure if this will help you or not, but I just checked the IRQs for my fresh install of XP. I'm running dual eVGA 6800 ultras and an Audigy 2ZS Platinum. The IRQs between the ultras, the Audigy and the nVidia RAID are being shared, (IRQs 18 and 19). Disabling the sound card in device manager got my vid cards stable, so I am imagining that the IRQ beastie may be messing with your nVidia RAID.

Currently, wiping my hard drives and I'm going to try disabling ACPI in my next XP install to see if I can alleviate these conflicts. Anyone have other suggestions? All of this IRQ stuff in XP is rather new to me.

 

[scruffles]

hello, anybody help me with my sata raptor 74 gig. i can run my asus sli, no problem, with another hard drive, but it won't recognize the raptor. The raid software see's it, but windows itself won't recognize it as a drive. Anything simple i might be doing wrong?

pls help, it's much appreciated, thanks

 

[vlad4]

Well, !@#$%^!
Forget disabling ACPI with the A8N. It appears that Ai Booster will not install with XP installed as a "simple PC".

 

[penelopeb]

i had all the onboard stuff i could disable disabled...even the parallel and serial ports. it's ucky. at any rate, i'm up and runnin

 

[scruffles]

nvm, didn't realize that there wer 2 sata 1 slots, need to put single sata in black sata 1 slot, NOT RED!!!

 

[Redmasc]

Hey I know what you're going through. I'm trying to setup my raid 0 on my 36 GB raptors on the nvidia raid and it wouldn't let me. After I load the drivers, it says windows setup will being or something like that and it just sits there. After about 3 mins, I get a blue screen. I know you're using the silicon image raid but did you find out how to use the nvidia raid?

 

[Alostdog]

I wanted to compare the raid controllers on my A8N-SLI Deluxe.
I did some tests using 1 to 4 Maxtor 200GB 6B200M0 drives in Raid 0.
I used HD Tach 3.0.1.0 to benchmark.

Controller ** drv cnt *** burst read *** seq read **** Access **** CPU
*************************** MBs ******* avg MBs ******ms ******* %
Sil3114 ******* 1 ******* 102.6 ******** 51.2 ********* 17 ******** 5
Sil3114 ******* 2 ******* 120.4 ******** 99.7 ********* 17.3 ******* 5
Sil3114 ******* 4 ******* 119 ********* 103 ********** 15.8 ******* 4
nForce4 ******* 1 ******* 137.7 ******** 52.9 ******** 17 ********* 0
nForce4 ******* 2 ******* 225.3 ******* 106.9 ******** 16.9 ******* 11
nForce4 ******* 4 ******* 231.4 ******* 125.5 ******** 16.1 ******* 13

Sil3114 driver was 1.1.0.0 dated 7/21/2004
nForce4 driver was 5.10.2600.507 dated 1/20/2005
Using xp32 servicepack 1
ASUS Bios 1003

I wish I had checked the Sill3114 drivers before I started.

If I where to repeat this test with better benchmark software
What software would you recomend?

 

[gorman70]

I'm using the Sil controller for RAID 1 with two 74GB Raptors. Is it normal behaviour for the hard drives to be constantly accessed, for very brief periods? Even when at the logon screen in XP, with no actions being taken, mouse not even touched. Nothing happening and the hard drives get accessed.

I used to have RAID0, but decided I preferred safety over raw performance. I ghosted the C: partition, deleted the array, rebuilt it as RAID1 and transferred the ghost back to C:.

For everything else the system seems ok.

 

[gorman70]

Anybody that could help me
?

 

[MalfurionStormrage]

More than likely, you are experiencing Windows XP's <sarcastic>wonderful</sarcastic> fastfind utility.