RAID 0 - running Verrry Slooow

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OTTOMAN

Junior Member
Jan 21, 2002
4
0
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I just built a new PC! :)
SOYO SY-K7V Dragon Plus mobo/
with onboard Promise ?FasTrak100 lite? RAID controller.
Athlon XP 1900+
768 Mb Crucial DDR
IDE 1 ? DVD / CD-RW
IDE 2 ? 30Gb WD 7200 ATA100 / ZIP
IDE 3 ? 60Gb IBM 7200 ATA100
IDE 4 ? 60Gb IBM 7200 ATA100

Windows XP

This is my first RAID attempt. The installation went fine.
I was surprised to find that my program installation, Office XP, PhotoDraw, Picture IT!, are VERRRRY SLOW, like 10 times longer than before RAID.
After reading the IDE RAID FAQ on the DA LAN TECH site, http://www.dalantech.com/ide-raid.shtml, it seems that I should expect my installs to be screaming fast.
Did I do something wrong? or not configure something yet? :confused:

I configured the Array using Auto-config.
Block size 64 KB
Mapping 14859 cyls
255 heads
63 sectors

After I configured the Array and installed Windows I added the 30 Gb drive to IDE 2 and finished installing the rest of my software

I ran SisSoft Sandra and am getting some really low scores. For example:
Drive C: index 3170, compared tp 36300 for a comparable config. (It took a long time to run)

The 30GB ATA100 HD Sandra index was 18288 compared to 2400 for a comparable drive.

Its not just my drives that are running poorly.
The memory test in Sandra came back with a RAM Int Buffered aEMMX/aSSE Bandwidth 1101 MB/s
A comparable config in Sandra showed 1925 MB/s

There are NO conflicts in the device manager
:frown:
 
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OTTOMAN

Junior Member
Jan 21, 2002
4
0
0
I am a HAPPY CAMPER, and a very irritated one also.
It turns out there was a process running in the background. It was the 'SmartGaurdian' utility that came with the SOYO board. It is not so smart! I killed it and all my scores jumped way up.
The Sandra index for D: 36365 vs 36000 reference index.
The memory test in Sandra came back with a RAM Int Buffered aEMMX/aSSE Bandwidth 2033 MB/s vs 1925 MB/s reference number.

I suppose I should have found the culprit earlier.

One good thing is that I got all my drives configured correctly in the RAID array.
I removed the third drive from IDE 1 and added it as a slave to the first drive in the array.
I was then able to go into the fastbuild utility, automatically configure the array which created a second array with the 3hrd drive. Windows came back up and all drives were visible.

I would still like to see what would happen to those numbers with a block size of 16 KB, However, there does not seem to be any way to manually configure the array. I am assuming it is because the onboard raid uses a 'lite' utility. FastTrak100 'lite'.

For Your Info!
OTTOMAN :)
 
N

ND4SPD

Junior Member
Jan 11, 2002
8
0
0
Are you Runing FAT32 ot NTFS???
If you convert from FAT32 to NTFS you will notice an improvement.
 
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webninja

Junior Member
Feb 20, 2002
7
0
0
I too am having RAID 0 problems, but unfortunately there is not a hidden application running in the background. I've got a side raid 100 with twin ibm 75gxp 40gigs in a RAID 0 configuration. Drives are NTFS with 64k block size. I ran sisoft sandra and got about 50-60% lower scores than when i tested the drives alone. Here are my HD Tach Scores:

Random Access Time: 13.4ms
Read Burst Speed: 35.1mbps
Read Speed Max: 25918kps
Read Speed Min: 11017kps
Read Speed Ave: 19650.9kps


I really don't know what to do at this point, should I unraid the drives and forget about the RAID - Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
dave
 
SaigonK

SaigonK

Diamond Member
Aug 13, 2001
7,482
3
0
www.robertrivas.com
Wow webnija!
Those are some seriously low scores for that setup!

I have dual IBM 75gxp 45gig drives and here are my scores from HD Tach:

Random Access Time: 12.8ms
Read Burst Speed: 79mbps
Read Speed Max: 60290
Read Speed Min: 13447
Read Speed Ave: 38921 kps

If I didnt know any better I might say you have a dead drive on your Raid setup!

 
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webninja

Junior Member
Feb 20, 2002
7
0
0
SaigonK - thanks for the suggestions but I used the highpoint ATA RAID management software to check the system, and both drives showed up, all components check out. I also made sure when I installed it that both cables were ata100 (they came with the RAID card). I was expecting my scores to look like yours...any other ideas?
 
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webninja

Junior Member
Feb 20, 2002
7
0
0
hmm maybe I did, using my HighPoint ATA RAID Management Software v 2.31 :

Logical Device Information

Array Name:

Array type RAID 0

Array capacity 82.34GB

Status Available, Bootable

Block Size 64K



Model Number Location

IC35L040AVER07-0 Controller 1, Channel 1, Master

IC35L040AVER07-0 Controller 1, Channel 2, Master

Controller Information

Product HPT370 UDMA/ATA100 RAID Controller

Manufacturer: HighPoint Technologies, Inc

Channel1 ? interrupt level 9

Channel2 ? interrupt level 9
 
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webninja

Junior Member
Feb 20, 2002
7
0
0
I just ran the via 1.04 patch to see if it would give me a performance boost, but it didn't do anything and the RAID still runs too slow.

Random Access Time: 13.1ms
Read Burst Speed: 35.4mbps
Read Speed Max: 25978kps
Read Speed Min: 9017kps
Read Speed Ave: 19786.9kps

Anyone have any other ideas before I pull out that RAID card? Also I presume if I pull the RAID card I'll have to reformat the drives that were RAIDed right?

thanks,
dave
 
SaigonK

SaigonK

Diamond Member
Aug 13, 2001
7,482
3
0
www.robertrivas.com
You will need to start over if you pull them off the raid.

Try this if you plan on pulling the card and rebuilding:

Yank one drive offf the controller and run HD tach, then take it off and put the other one on and run HD Tach. The results should be fairly close.
Then take each drive and place it on the other raid controller and see what you get from them as well. Then swap out your cables to verify you dont have a bad one.


 
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