abit KT7-RAID owners in here please

[Lowen]

Ogn,
Not that I am aware of, hopefully someone else has the answer to that question.

Lowen

 

[ogn]

Ok...I found what I was looking for. I am using the 1.0.062 bios with the 1.0.062 drivers. My performance has improved to 30000. I think I'm using the 64K stripe (whatever was the default). Those who are getting much higher, what is your stripe?
Unforunately, I would lose everything on the drive if I wanted to resize it.

 

[zboss]

If you ghost your striped drives then destroy the RAID and set it back up again in 16K clusters, then reghost back onto the drive you can preserve you data.

Good Luck

 

[progiciel]

There's a UL102 beta version if I remember correctly, has anyone compared the performance with the UL version?

 

[SmackdownHotel]

Dude, I solved it, well at least my problems. It turns out that one of my drives was a dud, totally screwed. I got it replaced, and now it is SOOO much smoother. My Sandra HDD scores confirm this, a whoping 42,000! OGN, or anybody else for that matter, if you want to know exactly what I did, drop me an email and I will gladly do what I can to help. BTW, my cluster size was set to 16K.

 

[zboss]

This brings up an interesting question. Intuition tells me that if I am running in a striped configuration that I should run each drive on different channels, but is this the case? Should I be running my Maxtor drives on the same channel?

 

[progiciel]

So, can you have a newer bios with older drivers? That is, bios 1.02 with drivers 1.0.06?

 

[Lowen]

That is the way my PC is setup.

Lowen

 

[progiciel]

Abit just posted a new beta version (103) for bios and drivers, go to ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/beta/kt7/ and grab both. Then let's compare notes...

 

[stuman74]

I think I read somewhere that Highpoint also has a beta 1.03 driver as well. I am guessing that would match up with the 1.03 beta BIOS on the Abit site.

 

[ogn]

This is what the Readme states:

v.1.0.3 05Sept2000
o Tune up system performance
o Fix files copy failue between RAID and non-RAID disks

 

[stuman74]

Anyone tried the 1.03 drivers/BIOS yet?

 

[SmackdownHotel]

No, but I think that I will now. I'm sorta afraid to do it, everything is running so damn fine right now. Oh well, I can always switch back I suppose. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

 

[Lowen]

Good news all? the new 103 BIOS/Drivers work as advertised. My sustained throughput is at about the same speed as before, 43000 with HDTach and 40335 with Sandra. I will keep everyone informed about the stability of the new combination.

Lowen

 

[Lowen]

More good news folks? I was finally able to run the extra hard drive, BTW it?s a Maxtor, on the Highpoint controller. This is the first time that I have been able to move information from the raided drive(s) to the stand-alone drive. The drivers seem stable so far so good.

Lowen

 

[bryan2010]

I have 2 IBM 75GXP's 15gig on a FastTrak 66. I usually get around 32000; thats my first partition (3 gigs). It slowly drops to 29000 has I get to the outer sections. I have my role to "Desktop", Ill change it to "Network Sever" and see if I get any better performnace.
Bryan

 

[SmackdownHotel]

I too tried the drivers, and my Sandra scores remained unchanged in the area of 42,000. If you decide to use these drivers, make sure you also use the beta Abit BIOS 1.03 as well since it updates the Highpoint BIOS too. They are also stable for me, no lockups or anything of the sort. The date on the drivers still reads 8-3-2000 when it should say 9-5-2000 but they ARE the 1.03 version.

 

[DOCSargent]

Well, I guess I'm trying something a little different.
I've currently got a Quantum 7200 rpm 20 gig and a Maxtor 7200 rpm 30 gig on RAID 0 and it works, kinda.
The problem is this. The system seems stable enough, as long as you don't stress the hard drive system.
Example: If I run Sandras Hard Drive analyzer or try to do a defrag the everything freezes.
INFO: I'm running a fresh install of Win2k SP1. The latest BIOS and the bet ?1.03? drivers for the hotpoint controller.
What I've decided to do is this.
I'm going to take the Maxtor back to Office Depot (I just got it) and purchase 2 IBM 30 gig Deskstar drives off the web. It looks as though most people are getting satisfactory results with these drives. I'll probably just put the other 20 gig drive in my other computer.

Besides that I've had excellent results with the system. I've got a Thunderbird 900 overclocked to 1 gig. I know it will go higher but I'm letting it burn in now. I ran it at 1050 for a while but cut it back to 1 gig while I try to sort out the HD lockups.

 

[zboss]

DOCSargent,

I have the same exact symptoms. Although I am using two maxtor 15 gig drives, I to have the same problem with Sandra and Defrag, although I am using Windows ME.

zboss

 

[ToBeMe]

Hey, I'm back up.....storm knocked me out for a few days! Smackdown....see that your drive was bad....had a feeling! I have the same problem as you....I D/L'ed the 1.03 but my bios is still showing 8/25/00 as the bios date?? I also KNOW it's the 1.03 but what's up with this?

 

[stuman74]

I think the ABIT bios is dated as 8/25/00, but the RAID bios is newer.

 

[SmackdownHotel]

As long as your Highpoint BIOS reads 1.03, then you're fine.

 

[ToBeMe]

I just did something to check it out.......I KNOW my Abit BIOS is updated to 1.03.....my Highpoint is still reading 1.00.06! Am I alone on this? Has anyone else checked?

 

[SmackdownHotel]

So when the Highpoint initialization screen comes up, it reads "1.0.06" in the upper right hand corner? Not to insult your intelligence, but are you SURE you installed the right bios?

 

[ToBeMe]

Yeah...I had the same thought....so I checked my Floppy I had it on....yes, 1.03! How the heck did I get the Abit bios update but not the Highpoint?????? Can I "reflash" it???? It probably won't find any updates though because the way I understand it, it checks for the Abit update first and if no update is found, it won't flash! Am I wrong????