4x 750GB 7200.11 in RAID-5: Some Benches

[Randyman...]

I finally got my RAID-5 array upgraded with 4x 750GB Seagate 7200.11 HD's on it. My card is an Areca ARC-1210 PCIe 8x card (running at 4x) with a 500MHz Intel CPU and 256MB of DDR-333 RAM. Here are a few benches:

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1516/arecaraid54x750gb1nt1.png

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/4644/hdtacharecaraid54x750gbza1.png



For comparison, here is the same card but with 4x 320GB 7200.10 HD's on it (my old configuration):

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3692/arecaraid5143firmwarern6.png


The 7200.11's are definitely faster :) .

Rock and roll :attn:

[Sam__]

aweshum STR speeds dude!

[Randyman...]

Thanks :) The Writes are pretty impressive to ;)

The weird thing is I bought 3 of them from one place, and the last one from somewhere else. The first 3 drives' Firmware comes up correctly on my card (ST3750330AS), but the 4th one's Firmware version is not displayed correctly (says: "ST3_INVALID_PFM"). But it works fine. Go figure...

I'm looking into building a NAS with my old drives (4x 320GB 7200.10). I'll probably use a P5B-E in Matrix RAID-5 or somethin' as an online backup...

:cool:

[JustChill]

I could be wrong but doesnt those "smart" raid cards give false readings in bench test because most tests use 256mb to bench with and its all held in the mem of the raid card. Thats just what I was told so not sure on that.

[Randyman...]

No - these should be accurate transfers as verified by a quick STR Calculation (timing a large file transfer). Also, look at the differences between the benches on the "old" drives (4x 320 7200.10's) versus the "New" drives (4x 750 7200.11's). The increase in STR would not be evident if this was strictly testing the RAM/Cache.

You should see these tests when I run them at the "Standard" 32MB Total Length :drool: - Now THAT is strictly using the card's RAM, and returns impossible HD Speeds. 250MB/s Writes and 300MB/s Reads are still well within 4x 7200.11's capabilities.

Considering that a good "Software" Matrix RAID-5 will still hit around 100MB/s on the writes, I'd say this is right in line with what I would expect. It is WAY faster than my 2x 74GB Raptor (16MB) RAID-0 OS Array! The access times aren't too far off either (the RAID-5 is still 8.3ms access time :eek: ).

I went ahead and transformed my Extra P5B-E/C2D system (PC#3 in my Sig) into a NAS with the left-over 4x 320GB Drives I had from the old array. I made a 20GB OS RAID-0 partition for XP, and a ~900GB Matrix RAID-5 for the storage/NAS Partition (Mapped to all networked PC's). I turn it on, back-up my data, and power it back off. Pretty cool having a RAID-5 backup of a RAID-5 array :p (plus sensitive stuff backed up on single "offline" HD's and DVD's when needed). I'm a bit fanatic with my backups, but there is no reason not to be!

:cool:

[jmorgan]

Is the acrea all hardware raid? My matrix raid is making me a little mad lately

newegg has the 1210 for $309 right now

[Randyman...]

Yup - XoR parity calculations are all done on-card :) . Intel IOP332 (IIRC) at 500MHz and 256MB of DDR333 RAM onboard. It's fast :p

I just set up Matrix RAID-5 for the first time on my NAS (see above post for deets), and it is benching rather quick for "Software RAID-5". IIRC, my writes were around 100MB/s sustained, and copying a whole mess of files (like 600GB Worth) over Gig-E was incredibly fast. I did notice if I built the Matrix RAID from the Intel "CTRL + I" BIOS Screen - it seemed rather slow (Writes in the 15MB/s range :sad: ). I killed that array from BIOS, and re-created a new RAID-5 array from within Windows using the Intel Storage Manager software, and then I started seeing pretty fast Matrix RAID-5 writes. I dunno why that makes a difference, but apparently it does. Go figure...

:cool:

[jmorgan]

if you install through ctrl I you just set it up, then in windows you install intels matrix raid software, it does make a big difference.

My raid 5 has been rebuilding it self alot lately, not sure why, in xp it was BSOD iastor.exe related which I think is intels matrix raid software. I have to admit i was hard on it writing to and from both partitions one raid 0 and the other raid 5, so it messed up and had to rebuild itself a few times. Last time it said 2 drives failed, thought I lost everything but did crtl I and told it to rebuild now im rebuilding it. But I figure if intels matrix raid wont keep up with what I want I might go with a complete hardware solution. It works and I have not lost anything yet so I am not ****ed at it but if it keeps rebuilding every day, I cant stand not doing anything for 12 hours while it rebuilds.

[Randyman...]

Wow. Rebuilding every day :eek: ? Is that common with Matrix RAID-5? I might have to re-think my Matrix RAID-5 NAS then, huh? :cry: My first Matrix RAID Array has only been alive for like 20 hours now...

Do you think it would be any more stable with a seperate HD for the OS (Non-Raid), and then just have one single RAID-5 array (opposed to multiple arrays from the same drive pool)? Maybe the RAID-0 is corrupting the OS somehow, causing Software Matrix issues? Is your PCI bus locked to 33MHz and all?

EDIT - Are you running the latest intel Storage Software 7.8? Just curious what version you are using. Maybe the Array would be more reliable w/o the Matrix software running (but then you are back to 15MB/s Writes from 4 Drives :mad: )

:cool:

[jmorgan]

I use to run 3x320 0/5 raid OS on raid 0 had no problems at all for months never rebuilt. Now with 4x320 0/5 with os on raid 0 and not (right now I have the OS on a raptor) and it still went to rebuild 2 times in the past 2 days, the drives are less then 6 months old 1 is only a month old so I dont think the drives are going, my raid 0 never has a problem, not sure if it was xp (just went back to vista so I will see) I was getting BSOD though in xp, maybe one of the drivers was not working right or something. Ill see if it gets better, the chipset might not like controlling 6 hard drives though 1 raptor 4x320 in 2 different raids and another drive which I switch out all the time.

Although so far im happy I have not lost my data, I thought I had when it said 2 drives failed, and the crappy thing was I put everything I had on the raid 5 thinking 2 drives could not go down, they dont really go down but I think the software can screw up under intense load and cause a blue screen which then it thinks the drive has failed so it rebuilds.

once it rebuilds im going to try raid 5 all of them, take out the raid 0, see if it has problems, if it does might just go raid 10 or get an acrea 1210