Help ! HD Disk Scores REAL Low !

[zagurim]

My setup is . . .

Epox 8KHA+ motherboard
Athlon XP 1800+ CPU
256MB Corsair PC2400 memory
Promise Fast Trak TX2 RAID Controller
2 IBM 20GB Deskstar 60GXP hard drives
Windows XP Professional
NTFS File Format
Drives configured in a striped RAID 0 array

With the above setup I am getting vary inconsistent, and overall very low hard disk scores using Sandra. My scores range between 12K and 22K with the average score of about 15K. I must be missing something real basic.

Anyone have any thoughts on what the problem could be ?

 

[DaveK]

Make sure you have DMA enabled.
Check and doublecheck your cables.
Try the latest RAID Drivers.

DaveK

 

[bacillus]

are both your hdds masters?

 

[zagurim]

- Both hard drives are setup as masters running off seperate channels on the Fast Trak RAID card.
- I have the most recent RAID drivers from Promise
- I have used different cables to rule out cable issues.

I could NEVER find where to enable or disable DMA under Windows XP, so I just assumed it was no longer a settable option with the OS taking care of it. Am I mistaken and it is still a parameter you need to flag under XP ?

Thanks for any help !

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

aye i had same problem. fixed it by using fat32 and when i formated do this. format c: /z:64(dont format with windows xp installation format in dos if u can cause u can do that command

with my ntfs partition my score in sandra was 24000 with my raid config

with fat32 its now 45900

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

ohh ya winbench scores went up ALOT also

 

[winterlude]

Are your harddrives almost full? Have you defragged? Scandisk surface area?

 

[zagurim]

Brand new install. Put the OS on it, some benchmarking tools (3DMark2001 and Sandra), and a couple of games. Then defragged the drive. Then ran the benchmark and got the low scores.

Looks like I might try Fat32 . . . .

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

zagurim make sure when u format in dos to use format c: /z:64 command

will speed up your performance over regular format. also remember u cannot have a partition over 32gb in windows xp. so if u have a hd bigger than 40gb (probably do since u raiding) make 2 partitions

(or more

 

[zagurim]

Stupid Question: What driver do I load to get DOS to recognize the RAID array on the Promise controller ? I have seen the drivers for Win95/98/ME/2000/XP but nothing that relates to DOS.

Curious Question: What does the /Z:64 option do ?

Thanks for your help

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

dont need rdivers for dos but since u have a ntfs partition (which dos cant read) you have to fdisk :\

that command makes cluster size to 32k. u dont need to know what this does really but it increases performance but u loose like 200mb of space per 40gb.

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

btw whats your stripe size? when u made your raid config u had a option for stripe size unless u used automatic configuration. if u did that then its good. but best overall stripe size is 64k (A/V people might get better performance with hgiher but overall this is the best stripe size for your promise fasttrak)

 

[zagurim]

Used the default stripe size. So I assume it was 64k.

Thanks for your help. I might have time to try Fat32 tonight. If I do I will let you know if it helped =)

Thanks

 

[zagurim]

Just wanted to say thanks. Rebuilt PC using FAT32 instead of NTFS and my HD benchmark in Sandra is up to 45K. Thanks !