Hard drives are slower than they should be...any ideas?

[Digigod]

I just put together a new sysem with an ABIT K7A-RAID motherboard and am having a problem with the non-raid drives being really slow. They put out about 2MB/sec read/write in DVexpert, while the RAID drives do about 30MB/sec. On the old system I just moved the drives from they were doing about 20MB/sec...any ideas?

The drives are both new Maxtors 7200RPM, 52049H3/53073UB. They are connected to the IDE1 channel on the motherboard with 80 pin cables...

Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch!

PS

PC: ABIT K7ARAID, Athlon 1.2GHZ, 512MB RAM, 20GB Programs, 30GB Data, 90GB RAID Striped, Hercules GTS 64MB, Soundblaster 5.1, Plextor CDR, Pioneer DVD

 

[bacillus]

have you installed the via 4 in 1 drivers?

 

[Wuming]

do you have dma enabled? and are you hearing noises from your hdd already? putting drives on separate ide channels help as well.

 

[dcdomain]

Running Win2K?
The drives ATA100?
Then you need the Hotfix, search the operating system forum for 'hotfix' you should find the right link.

 

[Digigod]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Well, I hadn't installed the VIA DMA drivers and that resulted in an increase of the 20 GB ATA100 Maxtor from 2MB/S to 30MB/SEC (as fast as the raid...), but the 30GB ATA66 drive is only 3GB/sec where on my old system it ws 20 GB/SEC.

Is this normal when you mix ATA100 and ATA66 drives?

Also, I don't have a DMA option available to turn on in Device Manager as far as I can see...

Thanks for the help so far...we are making progress!

PS