Promise's tips on pATA RAID 0 performance.

[Bad Dude]

I got this from Maximum PC, who got the tips from www.promise.com.

1) When using ATA drivers, configure the drives as Master drives, with one driver per channel. Very obvious here.
2) Use the RAID 0 array as a data drive and not as the boot drive.
3) Use the pagefile on the RAID 0.
4) When running Windows XP, turn off the "system restore" on the RAID 0 array.
5) Use single partitions. Using multiple partitions reduces application performance b/c you are running I/O to more than one partition on the same disk (array).

So from this, I got pATA drives in RAID 0 (two WD JB 120GB), one 200GB on board as Master single.
1) Presently, I got Windows on the RAID 0 and the page file on its own partition but on the same RAID 0 array. Then I have 3 other partitions on the same array.
Base on Promise advice, should I reduced the number of partitions on the RAID 0 array?
Should I move the Windows boot partition to the on board IDE, then put the page file on the first partition, by itself on the RAID 0 array?

So if playing games, we know that the RAID 0 load the games faster, however, where does the games load to is more important or is it more important where the games load from?
Just for sake of playing high intense graphical games, which setup is better performance? I would imagine having the Windows boot on the RAID 0 array be faster since the games load to the page file also?
Some inputs would be great.

Thanks.

 

[StraightPipe]

I've never tested the difference, but i know that paritions on RAID0 is bad, you can lose data quick, because they only read write in one place.

i keep my games on my OS and have the page file on the same drive. I think i'll try moving it tonight.

I have heard of people putting windows on RAID for faster boots, but i use mine for storage.

but then again, promise are pretty much the leaders in RAID, so they are probly right.

i'd move the os to the IDE (optional) , but definately get rid of the partions. if you want you can cut your IDE up so you can run the OS in it's on part, IDE will handle multiple writes much better than RAID.

 

[MichaelD]

I'm too tired to speculate on things...so I'll just type.

I have a RAID 0 stripe, using two 8mb cache, 120GB drives. I have four partitions on that array. My OS/boot is on the first partition, then I have games on one partition and other files on others.

I've never noticed any kind of slowdown. My boot times are a little faster than a good (8mb cache) single drive.

But loading times in games and Photochop just fly. Everything opens lickety-split. I don't care about the "risks involved" b/c everything is backed up on my server and/or CDR's. In the four+ years I've been running RAID0 arrays, I've never had one crash on me.

The benchie speaks for itself. Info on the array is in the graph.

I haven't messed with the pagefile at all. I run W2KSP4 w/all the security updates, blah, blah. I have 1Gb of ram, so I never get to the pagefile anyway.

 

[Bad Dude]

Well. I have done and I wish I did not. As adviced from Promise, I have done it and it turns out worse. The windows XP Pro bootup is so much slower. The applications are not as responsive. So I have tested it and I think I will go back to my previous setup. However, I do make a 5Gb partition just for the pagafile.
With Windows, it does not matter if you have 1Gb of RAM, the pagefile will still be used if you are running high intensive games and Photoshop.