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Adaptec 1200A RAID issues

D

daveshel

Diamond Member
1.1GHz Athlon, 640MB RAM, 2 80GB drives. OS is WinME (I know, I know).

The addition of the Adaptec 1200A RAID controller has caused performance issues. At idle the system resources are at 49%.

The hard drives are divided into 8 or 9 partitions. (The user specifically requested this arrangement.) My suspicion is that the number of partitions is causing a lot more of a performance hit than we would get with just one or 2 partitions. Does anybody have theory or experinece to confirm or deny?
 
Partitioning should have no effect on CPU usage. One or another partition may not perform quite as well as others but it won't show in CPU overhead. I'd be looking to remove as much background software as possible - like Norton protected recycle bins - almost any Norton software as it almost always has more CPU/RAM overhead than other equally good solutions, etc. Karenware.com has a free utility (Window Watcher) that will show what's running in the background that other tools (like MSConfig or TaskMgr) might not. Be sure to install the VB (M$ Visual Basic) runtime available there as well if it isn't already installed.
..bh.

Where's the :sun: ?
 
We have paid some attention to background programs, etc, and have eliminated anything we can. So, actually, there are fewer background processes running now than before the addition of the RAID card. We used to run in up arounf 68-70% free at idle. It really does appear that the RAID card is what is making the difference. We would not be averse to upgrading the hardware or even the OS if we could be sure that woild make things better. In the other hand, the user is comfortable with the OS and if we could find a workaround it would be preferable.
 
I just looked at tests of some IDE RAID controllers around the web and saw that on some tests using Winbench 99, the CPU utilization ran up to 88%. And that was on RAID-5 hardware-based controllers like the adaptec 2400A. The testers decided it was an artifact of Winbench as most other tests never reached 3% - about what you would expect from a hardware controller.
. Is your system actually bogging down or BSODing from this. If not, fageddabout it...
. But if you decide you want to try a different card, I would suggest a SiliconImage based card, e.g. the Syba at http://www.dealsonic.com (< $25. shipped). Or if you need the security blanket of a top name, you can get about the same thing with the LSI name on it for about $50. I've seen it on Newegg but it was OOS the last I checked (was a good while ago).
.b..h.

.bh.
 
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