Any Good Hard Drive Benchies out there, for my RAID 0 Raptor Array? **EDIT** Found a problem help needed!

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Hey all, i made the rig below about a week ago and i never got to bench my hard disks. PCMark2002 only gave em a 900 some on harddrive partion, but my old 40Gb WD Caviar 7,200rpm scored 1,100+

I think those benchies are just wrong, looking for a HD bench prog i can use to test my RAID array out and see if there's any problems.

Thanks in advance! Some that tells ya like avg seek, cpu usage, read/write transfer speeds ect ect.

 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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If you have any directories that contain large numbers of small files, try running a virus scan with all the heuristics and detection options cranked to the max. Time the virus scan, then put the same directory on your old drive and scan it on that drive too. The quick seek times of the Raptors should make much quicker work of this task.

Volume-wise, I mean like several gigabytes of data, so it's not just a little 15-second benchmark. You could copy the contents of a game CD into a folder and then make several more copies, if you need a large amount of stuff to scan.
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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WOW!!!!!!:(

I hit a major problem. With a stripe size of 32kb... i hit only 10mb/s on write test, but 99.9mb/s on the read test.

It doesn't make any sense, what should i do? I thought two WD raptors in RAID 0 should hit like 110mb/s read and a little under half that on write.

What can be wrong?

My 80Gb WD 7,200RPM did just the opposite, 88mb/s write, only 46mb/s read
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Go into Windows Disk Management and right-click your array's disk symbol (it might be called "Disk 1" for example). From the menu, have it upgrade it to Dynamic Disk, and then you'll need two reboots and then test again. Curious to hear how it does after that...
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Where's windows disk management...? I know i've been there before, i forget how!

Is it in device manager? i found nothing like it under m array in there.

BTW compression is NOT enabled on my drive, that a bad thing?

EDIT: NVM i found it.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Yeah, leave compression disabled (at least, I would... anyone know differently?). Did it improve at all?
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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After the dynamic disk thing, it's max. is...

10.6mb/s write 73.3mb/s read

Whats goin on?
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Scums! :p Researching...

Ok, for starters, if you don't have anything important on your RAID0 yet, try this: put one on your standard native-to-the-southbridge SATA connector and see how it performs there, and then the other one on the Promise and see how it performs as a standalone one-drive "RAID1."
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Also, I see from the manual (page 2-15) that the Promise SATA-RAID controller shares its IRQ with PCI slot #3, as well as the onboard USB 2.0 controller. Your Audigy2 isn't in slot #3, is it?


Dasm, I'll be hitting the 5-digit post count before I know it at this rate... :p
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Will i lose ALL data, or just a high risk of it?

Installing windows was a hard time with the RAID, i don;t wanna do that all over again. My controller came with Drivers not fit for WinXP. Stupid Promise :(
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Ohhh, you mean you installed the OS onto the RAID0. Aaack :p I think you'd probably lose your data if you did what I was suggesting, but you know you'll never be happy until you see it working right.

edit: wait, your controller came with drivers not fit for WinXP? and this is the onboard one? :confused:
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Yep, WinXP thre a fit about decive driver signing with my RAID378 drivers supplied from the CD + the ones off the net.

It said it wasn't signed, and not ceritfied by WinXP and not guarunteed to work correctly, i had to restart from 2 failed setup installs, and finnaly the 3rd one worked.

I had installed the drivers when prompted at the beginning of the setup by hitting F6.

EDIT: my SB audicgy is in the 2nd PCI slot, i'll check IRQ conflicts thought, pretty sure there aren't any.

BTW, in windows, it sees my SATA drives as SCSI drives, is this normal?
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Starting new thread, this one is too long, can't thank ya enough viper and mechBgon!!!

Thanks a mil!
 

Tavoc

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Nov 30, 2002
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The best way to test the throughput of a RAID 0 array is actually winbench 99. If you really want info about harddrives, this is not the place to ask, go over to the forums at www.storagereview.com and read the forums there. The question you have asked is already answered.