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Boot performance issues with SSD

J

jstern01

Senior member
I have a question for the SSD gurus.

I originally setup my two Crucial m4 64GB drives in a RAID 0 configuration and while the normal daily operations screamed, the boot time was generally no better than standard HDD.

So with time on my hands and a curiosity, I decide to redo the SSD's into a RAID 1 configuration. The boot time was still roughly the same as if my HDD was the boot time. Well, few days in, one of my SSD went bad, so being RAID 1 I simply pulled the drive for RMA, and then my boot times were in the range that people report for booting off an SSD, around 10 seconds from power up to desktop. Any thoughts on why?

Jim
 
Seems to suggest that your RAID controller is not as good as it could be since all the problems appear to be RAID related.
 
If boots was the only time the SSD RAID didn't perform, it's probably due to the RAID BIOS. As a computer boots in BIOS, it may execute code contained on a devices option ROM telling the BIOS how to read/write to a device. Think of the option ROMs as a crappy form of an OS driver - most of them are quite bad since performance isn't really required before you boot into your OS.
 
What motherboard are you using and on what controller? Turning all of the "BS" in the bios that you do not need loading will make a big difference.
 
NP Complete said:
If boots was the only time the SSD RAID didn't perform, it's probably due to the RAID BIOS. As a computer boots in BIOS, it may execute code contained on a devices option ROM telling the BIOS how to read/write to a device. Think of the option ROMs as a crappy form of an OS driver - most of them are quite bad since performance isn't really required before you boot into your OS.
Click to expand...

There ya have it!

Boot times in RAID are slower than single drives.

This is nothing new and well known to RAID users. 🙂
 
Yes, my computer boots so fast that I can't read more than a couple of words in any single screen...then the raid initialization starts, and things slow down to a crawl for a little while. If all you care about is lightning-fast boot times then don't use raid.
 
I boot my RAID 0 in under 20 sec. Usually in 18. . . 3 Intel 320's. I have the Marvell controller off, the JMicron controller off.
I see no problems with boot times. You need to turn off all of the "BS' controllers and what-not. How much faster than that do you need?
 
Last edited:
It is probably 30 seconds just for my raid 0 to initialize. I was unaware that the extraneous controllers had any impact upon that at all. Or is it just that your 3 x intel 320's in raid 0 is much much faster than my 1 x x25m g2 in raid 0 SRT/boot disk config?
 
I just ran "Boot Racer" and got 17.487 seconds from power to full boot.
You need to shut down everything in you bios you are not using.....Bluetooth, splash screen, ect.
Load your bios (the one your going to use) in "profile" option and set bios to load that profile.
That's it. Should be under 20 seconds. HAS NOTHING to do with RAID. well maybe a few more seconds, but that's all.
 
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