(2) WD1500ADFD 10k 150gb in RAID 0, this look right? *PICS*

[NVetro]

What do you guys think about this? Is is a bench from my main gaming rig which is in the sig, I am having slow zone times in the game everquest i play. About 1:15-1:30 min to zone! This look right for (2) 150gb 10k Raptors ina raid 0 running off the intel onboard raid controller?:

http://angelorserver.homelinux.com/rigs/benches/wd1500adfd.JPG

I was reading alot of posts and it said to disable cache queing or something along those lines, i cannot find it ANYWHER in device manager. I looked in properties for the disk drive volume and the raid array...is this an nvidia chipset thing only?

[tuskenraider]

Drives are performing just fine. Not exactly sure where your Write Cache Enable selection is, but it's gotta be in the Device Manager under the drives or controllers, or within some Intel storage manager software I believe. You usually want it enabled, and that is usually default. Whatever it's at, you won't get more performance than what your graph shows. :beer:

[NVetro]

I wonder what is up with my slow zone times in game, its not my net connection, i am in the 90-100ms pings with 3-4mb cable....so the drives look good?

[Airbornederekc]

dude looking at your rig there should be no issues. maby you need to defrag

[greenmaji]

It looks fine for a standard raid0 array..
Your motherboard supports matrix raid if you want to try that.

[NVetro]

Will matrix raid be a big diffrence? The system has had slow zone times from day 1, so I cant need a defrag after a month.

[IAmMoen]

my computer defrags every morning at about 5am along with virus and adware scans at 6am.

[tuskenraider]

Will matrix raid be a big diffrence? The system has had slow zone times from day 1, so I cant need a defrag after a month.Won't make any if you use a good defragmenter.

[inkfx]

The performance looks fine to me. Intel Matrix RAID may give you slightly better speeds. Although do you really notice the supposed performance loss you're getting?

[IAmMoen]

intel raid would be good if you wanted some redundancy for some files but speed for the others all on two disks. Matrix raid wont make anything faster but it allows you to be more versatile.

[jtjuska]

The setting for write cache should be in Intel Matrix Storage Manager. If you don't have it you can download it here (http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101&lang=eng). Once it is installed at the top there should be a setting for basic or advanced, change it to advanced and you will see your raid. Right-click on the raid and select Enable Write Cache and you will see a nice improvement in burst speed. I am not sure your sustained will improve all that much but your bursts will.

Lastly the other possibility is that the zone transfers are happening when their servers are getting hit the hardest and so its not anything limited on your end but rather they are limited in that they can only dish out so much information at a time.

~jtjuska

[bing]

Two alternatives :

1. Maintain whole Raid 0 as current, but make 2 partitions (aka C & D drive), then the C will be faster since it will be using the faster region in front as your HDTach shows. Put OS & Page file and your games there, while others on D drive.

or..

2. Make it Matrix Raid, chopped out Raid 0 (approx. 80 GB) for OS, Pagefile & games if it is enough and then the left over with Raid 1 if you need protection or .... again Raid 0. If you choose both Raid 0, trust me, a lot of eyes will be watching your result here. :)

then..

If you're willing to go through some hassle like imaging and restoring, try both combinations above and do benchmark on both to see which one is the best for you. Again, a lot of others especially non ICHxR owner will be interested with your result. :D

Other than HDTach, I suggest you do PCMark since it might tell you almost close to real world difference.

Side note : Deffragger can not move "all your favourite" files for performance to the front of the disk perfectly, the only way is to sort of block them from leaking into the slowest part at the end of drive. Only partition or raiding them are the most easiest method to maintain those high performance files to stay on the fastest region "permanently".

[NVetro]

Bing: I am doing what you mentioned in option 1)....

jtjuska: I'll download the Intel Storage Manager and see if that helps me.

Just so you know, the (2) 150gb WD 10k Raptors are in a raid 0 with c: being 80gb and d: being the remaining. I have the OS on the C: obviously, and the games on D:

[bing]

Just move the games and pagefile to C as well. Leave all rarely used stuffs or programs on D if your C is filling up.

Don't forget to enable the write back cache as jtjuska mentioned, since it will contribute an improvement for avg. transfer speed as well.

[tuskenraider]

Side note : Deffragger can not move "all your favourite" files for performance to the front of the disk perfectly, the only way is to sort of block them from leaking into the slowest part at the end of drive. Only partition or raiding them are the most easiest method to maintain those high performance files to stay on the fastest region "permanently".Actually, almost any defragmenter besides Windows can do exactly this, which is superior than just letting Windows scatter your files within a small array or partition. If you do both, you'll have the same result of having your files reoriented upon importance and use, which negates the performance aspect of creating such an array or partition in the first place. Of course, if you can't get a third party defragmenter, a small array or partition would be the poor man's way of keeping files to the outside of the disk platters. But if your so concerned with performance to be doing this, I would hope you have a defragmenter to begin with. :beer:

Here's a shot (http://www.wowway.com/~vacationdave/FastRaidvSingleRaid.jpg) of standard RAID0 vs. Matrix RAID0 array. When comparing the two, you see nothing changes in performance of the disks except for the seek, which can't be fairly compared since HD Tach can't limit seeks to just the area where data resides on a disk of a full RAID0 array.

[NVetro]

ok I enabled it, the burst speed went up ALOT, ill test zone times im game tonight, not sure if this is going to help. I think its just server lag since its populated at night alot more then during the day:

http://angelorserver.homelinux.com/rigs/benches/wd1500adfdwritecache.JPG

[voodoomelon]

2x 250GB WDs in RAID 0:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/voodoomelon/OCForums/hdtach.jpg

Yours looks fine.

[NVetro]

Veedoomelon: It looks like you need to enable write caching also, i had those smae benches before.