RAID 0 Performance Really Low?

[Centurion]

I recently purchased 2x36 GB Raptors and decided to put them in RAID 0. I have an Abit IC7-Max3 with silicon image SATA support. I took the following steps.

Wired up the harddrives
Booted up the silicon image RAID config ROM
Created a RAID 0 array
Installed XP on it (after installing the RAID driver during installation)
Ran HDTACH...and here are some results.


Here is the RAID 0 array
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/365157057_b8ec5bf8a6_o.jpg

And here is my 320 Seagate w/ Perp. recording technology.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/167/365157126_1b0b9a0f4d_o.jpg


Are these results what I should expect? If not, did I do something wrong or is my hardware just becoming outdated?

[tuskenraider]

The the RAID controller PCI based it seems. Clearly some performance is being capped due to the result of the average read graph. If you drives weren't limited by the PCI bus, they would show a slow decline as your Seagate drive does. Nonetheless, your access times and CPU utilization look great.

[Centurion]

Good to hear, I guess I should have benched my old system before adding in the RAID array. :rolleyes: Thanks. :)

[prankstar008]

The the RAID controller PCI based it seems. Clearly some performance is being capped due to the result of the average read graph. If you drives weren't limited by the PCI bus, they would show a slow decline as your Seagate drive does. Nonetheless, your access times and CPU utilization look great.

ha he said "the" twice".... whats the size of the stripe? am i beating a dead horse by asking that question?

[tuskenraider]

whats the size of the stripe? am i beating a dead horse by asking that question?No, it's just not the problem. After looking the board up, the PCI based Silicon Image chip is what is capping your performance. Put it on ports ran by the ICH chip and you'll see an improvement. Of course that'll mean a reinstall.

[greenmaji]

The motherboard has the ICH5R southbridge..
Performance would be considerbly better on the Intel SATA ports.

[uOpt]

The Silicon Image 3112-3114 and similar chips sit on the 32bit/33MHz PCI bus.

Nothing good will happen there, in particular if the bus is shared with Ethernet and/or sounds, or god beware a TV card.

On top of that, these pieces of junk do not even remotely max out even that lame bus.

[Centurion]

Well, the problem is I can't run my other 2 drives if I put the RAID array on the Intel ports because the Silicon RAID ports run in RAID only (obviously). I don't really feel like shelling out another $60 or so for a PCI Sata card either.

[uOpt]

Uh?

I use the silicon image ports non-raided with no problems.

Except they suck, of course, but they don't have mandatory raid.

[greenmaji]

I would put the raid array on the intel ports (for the OS and apps) and the storage drives on the SI ports.