abit KT7-RAID owners in here please

[SmackdownHotel]

hey, I'm running 2 IBM 75gxp ata100 7200rpm deskstars in RAID 0 and i want to see if you guys think my numbers sound right. I'm getting about 33,000 in sandra's HDD test and about 71mbps in HDTach. anyone else with a similar setup?

 

[ogn]

I'm not even getting that much in Sandra. My Raid0 with 75GXP 15GBs only get about 24000. I need help too.

 

[SmackdownHotel]

OGN, I have the same HDDs as you. Explain to me exactly how you setup your array and went about installing your drivers and such. this is what I did:

The drives were both new, and thus without a partition or format. So I first went ahead and setup the array for RAID 0, and set the cluster size to 64k. After that was done, I partitioned and it said I had 30gigs of space so I assumed the array had been set up properly (15 + 15). I then formatted and installed Win98se and installed the Highpoint drivers off the CD. I later found that there was an updated driver, but when I installed it, it literally cut my performance in half. Hey OGN, do your drives sometimes beep whenever you install or load a really heavy program? Well, how did you setup your array?

 

[SmackdownHotel]

hey OGN, get in touch with me, let's try to figure this out. I've also learned that Highpoint should be releasing new drivers that significantly improve performance. We'll see.

 

[Insane3D]

Hey guys, I think I can help. I have the KA7-100 that has the same highpoint chip. I have two 75GXP in a RAID 0 array and I get like 46000. There are two things that I am doing different from you guys. First, when I set up the array in the highpoint bios, I choose the samllest block size..4K I believe. I orginally tried 64K and my performance sucked as well. I was clued into the block size issue by Sandra. It said larger block sizes hurt performance. I re-set it up with the 4K block size and got 39000 or so. I then switched Win98SE to run the drive in "network server" mode, and it jumped to 46000. Also, there are two drivers on highpoint's site...one dated June 2000, and one dated August 2000. The August driver dropped me back to 26000 something, I switched back to the June drivers and all is well. Now that I have a bunch of stuff installed, it has gone down to 43000 or so, but that is still good. I hope this helps..

 

[ToBeMe]

Actually the new Highpoint drivers ARE out.....I have them and can't even remember where I got them! it also needs the *newest* beta bios....UL102!

 

[AMDfreak]

I have two 30GB 75GXP's coming in tomorrow, I'll post what happens soon as I get it set up.

 

[SmackdownHotel]

Strange, my HDTach scores are now off the chart but my Sandra scores are in the 15,000s!!!! what the heck is going on???? I remember reading somewhere that setting your block size to 16K is actually best for performance.

 

[ToBeMe]

One thing to remember....Sandra scores "can" be all over the place each time you run them! Almost to the point where one needs to run each test several times and use an average! Also make sure to run after a clean boot with no progs. open!

 

[SmackdownHotel]

Well I updated the BIOS which updates the Highpoint BIOS to 1.02 and I also installed the 1.02 drivers. Performance = crap. I remember seeing someone who had the 1.05 drivers...if only I could find him/her....

 

[KuSang]

I couldn't even get my 2 IBM 30 gig 75 gxp's (dtla-307030) to format on the raid. took forever to partition them (one large dos partition), then the format just wouldn't go. 0% after 5 hours. My block size was set to 16k per Paul's FAQ. I don't know what's wrong. I haven't tried the beta UL yet. prolly going to do that. Anyone have any ideas what's wrong?

Kusang

 

[Lowen]

I also have a pair of IBM drives in raid 0; average Sandra drive benchmark is around 40300. You should defiantly not use the new highpoint drivers, when I installed them I saw a 50% reduction in speed. My block size is 64K; a smaller block size should only improve your drive usage not speed. When small files, those under 64K in size, are written to disk the unused portion goes to waste. Same thing holds true for larger files that cover multiple blocks, the last 64K block written to will have some unused space in it.

Lowen

 

[ogn]

Sorry for the delayed response...I've got 4 partitions (5,5,10,10) instead of your 30.
I'm using the 1.02 drivers since their driver numbers usually coincide with the bios you're supposed to use it with. my scores are horrible. my drives don't make any sort of beep noise at all...never heard anything except wind up. can i get these drives to go to sleep? I want to have them stop spinning when I'm not using my computer since it's on all day.

Thanks

I would try the older drivers but I would much rather have stability. Are the older drivers more stable?

 

[Lowen]

The only problem with the older Highpoint drivers is that there is a known issue with them and certain Maxtor drives. Unfortunately I use a Maxtor drive for storing ghost image files from my systems. I?ve had to switch the Maxtor to the ATA66 channel on the mobo. The 1.02 drivers were supposed to correct this problem.

Lowen

 

[ogn]

I tried the older drivers and went from 24000 to 28000. I'm still expecting more out of Raid and IBM GXP. That performance isn't that much better than a single GXP. How can I tell the raid stripe and is there any way to change it without destroying the information on the drives?

 

[SmackdownHotel]

I'm back to the 1.0.06 drivers and 1.0.06 bios for the Highpoint controller. HDTach scores are off the scale and Sandra reports about 34000. All in all, it's pretty damn fast. I know that 1.05 should be out soon, and that should improve on the performance. DO NOT install the 1.02 drivers as they will literally cut performance in half. I'm still having periodic beeping from my HDD, almost like it's stopping to load something - normal?

 

[ogn]

Does that mean you are running an older Abit Bios? The new UL updates it to 1.02. My scores aren't that great with BIOS 1.02 and driver 1.0.06. I like the new Bios options of UL. Is there anyway to get Bios UL with Highpoint 1.0.06? Otherwise I guess I'll wait for 1.05. Now are your benchmarks just faster or is your system really faster?

 

[SmackdownHotel]

OGN, go get the UL bios from Abit's site, it is official and not a beta and will still give you the new bios options, but it will leave the Highpoint controller BIOS at 1.0.06 instead of the newer yet slower 1.02. I'm told that if you use the 1.02 bios, then you MUST use the 1.02 drivers in order to get maximum performance. I did, and my performance still sucked. My benchmarks are faster but more importantly, my system is running noticeably faster. Hey OGN, you have the 15 gig IBM deskstars right? Sometimes, especially during heavy disk usage, one or possibly both drives give off these two beeps, the first one a bit longer than the second. Like "beeeeeeeeeep, beep." The whole thing lasts like maybe 1 , 1.5 seconds, but it slows down or momentarily freezes what I'm doing. Now is this normal for drives in RAID or is there something wrong with the drives (they are both 2 days old). It's getting quite annoying, can someone please help!!

 

[Lowen]

Ogn,

You can verify which mode you are in during boot. After the screen, which you can access, your bios the highpoint bios screen will come up. You access the bios by holding down the <Ctl> and <H> keys at the same time. One of the options is to check drive status; unfortunately I am at work so I am not exactly sure which number it is. Make sure that your drives are set to UDMA 5. Try these steps, if they don?t help let me know and I will take a closer look at my set-up.

Lowen

 

[tcast305]

Driver/Bios 1.0622 will give you the best performance with the IBM 75GXP (RAID 0). But only two not 3 or more (still waiting for a bios/driver fix for that).
Driver/Bios 1.02 will give you better performance with maxtor drives.

Driver/Bios 1.0622 with 2 IBM 75GXP(30gig, master/slave same channel) Raid 0 64k, HD Tach reports 44-45mb/sec, with 3 or 4 IBM 75GXP(30gig), HD Tach reports 25-30mb/sec (crap!).

Driver/Bios 1.02 performance is about half.

 

[ogn]

Lowen,

I couldn't find any such option, but I know it's set to UDMA5. Is there a UL BIOS with the older highpoint bios available? Otherwise I guess I'll have to go back to the TL BIOS.

 

[Lowen]

ogn,

FTP to the following site for the 100622 drivers.

Hr100pro 100622 drivers

Lowen

 

[ogn]

Lowen,

I know where to find the drivers I need, already have them in fact. It's the bios I can't seem to find. There is one of the abit-usa site. Is this the correct one? I can't remember where I downloaded the one I used, but I am currently using a UL bios with 1.02 Highpoint bios...
I need the 1.0.062 bios if I want to get the best performance.

 

[Lowen]

Oh...well then you could do the same thing that I am doing, which is to run the UL bios with the 1.02 Highpoint built-in and run it wit the older 10062 driver.

Lowen

 

[ogn]

I tried that and I'm still only getting 28000. Not quite the 40000+, others are posting with 1.0.062 bios/driver combo. Is there a UL + older HP bios around? Was there ever one?