Dedicated drives vs raid 0 setup???

[specialk90]

Hey Rob, why didn't you stop me earlier with the double posting. I feel like an idiot now since I didn't notice who I was talking to.

Ok, lets start with the 1 task, 100%, 4 tasks.... The way I see it, about 95% of the time, only 1 task is accessing the drives. For example in Photoshop, you are working on an image, the OS & page file don't need to access anything while the scratch disk can. I see about 5% of the time(not including virus scan) when the overall system speed might slow down to less than a single drive's max speed in Raid 10. However, for 95% of the time, Raid 10 is able to give you substantial speed & performance gains all the while protecting your data.

--"are you saying that you can take 4 disks , select 100 gb in Raid 0, then raid 10 on the rest???"

YES! This is why I LOVE Intel's Matrix Raid. No hardware raid controller that I've ever read about can do this.

--"Another question, are you using a hardware controler for this raid 10, from what i have read it is not recomendable to do raid 10 just by software."

Technically, this isn't software Raid since you are using the onboard Intel ICH10R which is part of the Southbridge. Over at Mac-land, they like software Raid for some reason. Software Raid 10 would be going into the OS with 2 sets of Raid 1 already created and "stripe" them by creating a Raid 0. This is not good for performance and reliability. One way for you to know that this isn't software Raid is because it is not created thru any software or OS.
However, Intel does provide a very handy program to install that allows you to monitor the drives within Windows as well as modify them. In the lower right of my screen, I have 2 little cylinders blinking at me non-stop due to the dead drive I still haven't replaced. Now, with my hardware Raid controller, I must log into its console to check the status of my drives.

Another important aspect is what if the raid controller dies or the motherboard dies. This question has me extremely worried as I have over 1TB on my 3ware Raid 5 (hardware) and if my controller dies, I will have to spend $350-550 for a controller to get my drives back up. On the other hand, if my motherboard dies(it has the ICH8R), I can get any motherboard with the same Southbridge or newer. So, I can get a motherboard with ICH8R/9R/10R/future 11R/!2R.... For you, you can get a ICH10R or future 11R/12R and so on and just plug them in and go to the first BIOS page and change it to Raid, and voila, its done. I have switched a Raid 10/Raid 0 setup between motherboards without any problem.

Hope this helps.


PS I should clarify something that was said earlier about Raid 10 read speeds: read speeds are not equal to a 4-drive Raid 0. They are slightly faster the a 2-drive Raid 0. Writes are certainly equal to a 2-drive Raid 0. For the specifics on Raid 1/10 read speeds, I will look into that so I can better explain it.

 

[specialk90]

I'm back with the Raid 1 info. Remember that Raid 1 is part of Raid 10. So, Raid 1 offers something called "split seeks" where the OS can read from multiple disks simultaneously, therefore, increasing Read speeds. Also, not ALL Raid controllers support this so if you find some benchmarks, try to see whether that controller supports "split seeks". Btw, the Intel ICH*R since at least 7 have supported this.

Rob, very nice work figuring out that Raid 0+1 has fault tolerance for only 1 drive loss.

 

[rob25]

specialk

Hey Rob, why didn't you stop me earlier with the double posting.

I did, i mentioned it in the other post....

I have the ICH8M Sata, ahci controler on my laptop, I guess with 2 drives I will have the option to either do a raid 0 or a raid 1 setup?

or do you think there is any chance of doing a raid 0 for os& apps & then a raid 1 for photos with only 2 disks ?
If so how?

Its good to know that, I will take it in consideration when i buy a new rig, so I will have a look at some intel mobos, I guess I will have to buy an intel processor too? mmmm, maybe ......

When you say intel, do you mean that the mobo is intel tm. or could it be an asus for intel for eg.?

NO, O.K. , I just found the answer to that, so for eg the asus pq5 pro would have it.
So Amd do not have anything simmilar then?

I suppose that there are other things I also did not consider, such as:
- buying a tower that fits 4 hard drives+ dvd/rw.
- That the mobo also has conexions for 4 hard drives + dvd/rw
-The power watt calculators have me somewhat confused, each one gives a different result, but I guess I will be looking at about min 550w to 650w.

anything else I should be looking at?

This is the first pc I am going to actualy build (well, have built to my specifications.) so I am glad to have run into this forum & S.K., conejito & others that have helped me.:thumbsup:

 

[specialk90]

According to Intel, your laptop's ICH8M chipset does support Matrix Raid, so, Yes you can setup a Raid 0 & Raid 1. With windows started up, look for a program called "Intel Matrix Storage". It should be there unless you reinstalled the OS. If its not there, go to Intel's site and do a search for that program. Download, install and you are in business.

1) Open the program, and select "Advanced View"
2) At the top, Click on "Actions" and select "Create Raid Volume from Existing Hard Drives" this is key so you shouldn't need to reinstall.
3) It will ask to add the drives you want to use(it should have added them automatically), hit Next.
4) It asks which Raid you want. Select Raid 0 since you want the OS/apps on the Raid 0
5) Select "Stripe Size" 64KB should be optimal
7) Select size you want allocated, and then you should be ready to select Next or Create
8) This process should take some time. To make it go quicker, you should remove as much data as you can beforehand and defrag after you have removed the files.

Disclaimer: I don't have experience migrating an existing Non-Raid to Raid but I have used thie Intel Matrix program to create and modify Raid arrays. With that said, I'm not 100% sure that you will be able to create the Raid 1 array after the Raid 0. Why? Because I don't know if the Intel program will allow less than the full amount of space to be used in the first Raid you create. I'm sure you can google this and find some info.

No matter what, you should be able to get the Raid 0 & Raid 1 if you reinstall the OS. If you are using Vista, you shouldn't need drivers during install(I didn't when I installed Vista x64 just a few weeks ago).

Yes, the ASUS P5Q Pro does have the Intel Matrix Raid(ICH10R).

AMD and Nvidia both offer Raid but they do not have the capability to create 2 different Raid arrays and their Raid controllers are inferior to Intel's. So, with AMD/Nvidia, you can only create a Raid 0. Or you can only create a Raid 1. Intel is the only company that offers 2 different Raid volumes using 1 set of drives.

 

[elconejito]

Originally posted by: rob25
Its good to know that, I will take it in consideration when i buy a new rig, so I will have a look at some intel mobos, I guess I will have to buy an intel processor too? mmmm, maybe ......

...snip...

I suppose that there are other things I also did not consider, such as:
- buying a tower that fits 4 hard drives+ dvd/rw.
- That the mobo also has conexions for 4 hard drives + dvd/rw
-The power watt calculators have me somewhat confused, each one gives a different result, but I guess I will be looking at about min 550w to 650w.

anything else I should be looking at?

This is the first pc I am going to actualy build (well, have built to my specifications.) so I am glad to have run into this forum & S.K., conejito & others that have helped me.:thumbsup:

I think you might want to go Intel anyway.

CS3 definitely got more of an advantage from more GHz than it did more cores (unless the plugin was specifically multi-threaded). I'm pretty sure that CS4 is more multi-threaded. I found some benchmarks...

This is CS3, via Tom's Hardware. The Core 2 Duos more than hold their own against the Core 2 Quads. AMD is all the way at the bottom.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/K...inal/025_photoshop.png

This (I think) is supposed to be CS4, even though the image says CS3. The page I got it from here at AnandTech say CS4 in the text of the article. The entire top half of the chart is Quads by both AMD and Intel. I'm actually very surprised to see the Q8200 with it's smaller cache place as high as it did. Intel still leads, but the AMD options are competitive and cost factors in here as well.
http://images.anandtech.com/gr...020809180918/18170.png

This benchmark at Ars Technica is kinda interesting. They are using a MacBook Pro with OSX and Vista to compare 32-bit vs 64-bit performance with small files (50mb) vs large files (900mb).

A tower that holds 4 drives is an easy find.

A quick look at mobos with ICH9R (eg P35 chipset) or ICH10R (eg P45 chipset) show they have 6 SATA connections. Some of the upper end mobos add an additional SATA controller with extra connections (usually 2 more SATA ports). So almost any of them should work. Make sure it's a good brand, with good reviews, and then judge by features & price. If you go with a non-i7 setup a good board will run between $100-$150. An i7 board (if you need more RAM, for example) will run you over $200. (US dollars)

Maybe specialk90 can weigh in on the power requirements, but 4 drives in and of itself doesn't sound extraordinary (maybe startup power?). Checking with Kill-A-Watt, my computer (in my sig) with a 4Ghz quad, 3 HDDs and 1 DVD at full load with Prime95 only pulls ~250W from the wall. I've got it all running on a decent OCZ 600W PSU. I also have a fileserver I just finished building with 5 drives in it that pulls a max of 90W running on an Antec EarthWatts 380W. I think if you get a high quality PSU running 500-600W you should be good to go. The key is a *quality* power supply.

 

[rob25]

Well guys, I am overwhelmed with the amount of information I have learned from You two & an ocasional inicision from I.D.C.:thumbsup:

I hope that some of my mental squigles also have enlightened you some.

...and just when you think youre done, some great graphs with cs4 & cpu performance.

Photo build PC is an interest that ive seen grow enourmously in the last couple of months, & I think now it is becoming so important because of PS cs4 , & the avalanche of pano & hdr enthusiasts.

weekend is here & time to give the familly some attention, I will be keeping an eye out for your posts in the future & when I create the monster I will post on that subject.
Do you guys have a photo website, if so post it, I would love to see your photos.

This is not a full stop, If you want to continue with amaizing knowledge I will definitely be around to read it & ask moooooreee questions.

 

[JASTECH]

I too am interested in this RAID 10. I have CS3, ACDSee Pro2, Fotoslate, Macromedia (old), Ulead ect. I think my MB can do RAID and I also ordered a MegaRAID SAS 8408E with 256 RAM. So I want to do the best setup I can. Can different size drives be used in any type of RAID? I think not but wanted to be sure.

Thanks, JASTECH

 

[specialk90]

Jastech, different size drives can be used but the available space will only be as big as the smallest drive multiplies by the number of drives. Also, different sizes and types of drives cause a significant performance hit. It can be done but with poor results.

On a side note: for those that use Photomerge within Photoshop, I used it today for an 8 (10mp) photo pano and also a 12 (10mp) photo pano. I did this on my 2nd PC with Vista x64, CS4, 4GB Ram with 3200MB allowed to Photoshop and 4-74GB Raptors in Raid 10 for OS/Apps and a Raid 0 with scratch disk on it. The photos were stored on the Raid 0 for max speed and the page file was also stored on the Raid 0. The 8 photo pano, I used "Auto" and checked the Geometric Distortion and one other box(I can't remember right now). It took just over 2 minutes to complete. The 12 photo pano, I used "Auto" and checked all 3 boxes. This took far longer, some where between 5-6 minutes. If I had time, I would take 4GB from my main PC and add it to see how much quicker it would be. I listened for heavy drive access/seeking, and even with my 4 Raptors, I did not hear much so I know it wasn't slowed due to page file & scratch disk usage. Now that I think about it, the Photomerge seemed to be single-threaded. During the first step, it always used just 25% of the first core.

What is your guys' normal times for stitching/pano work?

 

[JASTECH]

specialk90, Thanks. I will only have 2 x Seagate 146GB 15k.6 HDD's, 1 x 73GB, 1 x 146GB Seagate (Not same as first) and am trying to get a 300GB I thought for OS. But now after reading this maybe I should do something different. Normally I use 6 HHD's, OS, Downloads, Graphics, Games, Burns and 1 for whatever. So should I rethink my setup? My MB can only do SATA II RAID so that is no help with SAS of course.

Thanks, JASTECH