Reset RAID volume or Delete RAID volume

[xtrmpro66]

I am going from a 2 drive RAID 0 to a 4 drive RAID 0/5 matrix array. I would like to just wipe the original 2 drives and start over clean. I have built my system and installed all drives and have entered the "Intel Matrix Storage Mgr" option ROM.

All 4 drives are recognised, the 2 newer ones are "non-member disks", whereas the 2 orig are seen as the RAID 0 volume.

Here is the question: Do I reset the RAID volume, or do I delete it, so that I have 4 non-member disks, and then I can start to build my desired RAID matrix?

I know I could use Dban, but I think a quick format will suffice, besides Dban takes sooooooooo long.

Thanks!

[fritzman]

Last time (I had 3 & went to 4) I just deleted the raid volume and then created the new one and all worked fine

[xtrmpro66]

Thanks Fritzman. I just reset them and set up my "slice", and now am loading the OS. By the way, I have been following the sticky that Bing started, and I have appreciated your comments especially. I am only a third of the way through, so last time I checked, you were running what I am setting up, RAID matrix 0/5. But now it looks like 0/10?? Anyway, still reading through, I am stuck in April of last year so far.

I have initially set up RAID 0, and now am loading my OS. I am going to find the "sweet spot" and then do the RAID 5 on the remaining terabyte or so.

Thanks for the reply.
Dave

[noegruts]

I have initially set up RAID 0, and now am loading my OS. I am going to find the "sweet spot" and then do the RAID 5 on the remaining terabyte or so.

I'm running a five-drive RAID 5 array on ICH9R if you have any questions on that configuration. I think fritz now runs RAID 10.

Note that if you choose to go with RAID 5, experiment with your stripe size, don't just go with the default or the "common wisdom" that 64KB is always best. Measure for yourself, *especially* the write speed, and select what works best for you. Remember that once you've got data on the volume you really don't want to decide later on that you need to change the stripe size.

[fritzman]

Good work...

Yes, I was on Raid5 but have more recently opted for Raid10.

I can handle the slightly smaller D-Drive size, as I think there is better performance with R10.

To be brutally honest, I don't need the extra performance, so might actually revert to 3x drive Raid5 with the 4th as a hot spare. I am running a server up at Church with a 5 x drive Raid5 with 2 x hot spares (admittedly they are all on a 3ware card) and I just lover the thought of all that redundancy.

Having said that though, it still doesn't really meet the test for redundancy... there was a guy who had ants get into his system, and he lost the lot. Gotta buy some more external storage and probably leave the drives as they are. Hell, 1Tb drives are cheap enough now, and one of them would do, aspecially in a NAS case. I'm rambling...

Yeah... if you do go Raid5... test your rig for speed... mine was best at default, but they can vary.

[xtrmpro66]

Thanks noegruts for the reply. I am not exactly sure how to determine the best strip size, so I just went with the default when I set up the RAID 5. I took 40 gigs from each 320 gig HDD, and created my RAID 0, (seek times were like 140/ms? sound right? and burst around 320mb/s). So I have a RAID 0 array of 148.99GB. I then went back into the Matrix option Rom and made the rest RAID 5. I thought at that time it would ask me to format, but it did not.

After Windows boots up, I am supposed to format that, right?? Anyway, that is where I am. Disk mgmt show the two volumes as disk 0 (148.99GB) and disk 1 (782.51GB), but disk 1 still needs to be formatted. Where do I go to do that?

Thanks for any help!
Dave

ps-- or do I just partition disk 1 into the 3 or 4 partitions that I want to set up (music, video, photos, etc.)?

[noegruts]

I am not exactly sure how to determine the best strip size, so I just went with the default when I set up the RAID 5.

The simplest way is to use some kind of benchmarking program. The best way is to create some kind of test for yourself that simulates your real-world usage, whatever that is. Of course, the latter isn't always simple, especially when you want to test several different combinations.

Because of the way RAID 5 works, it is essential that you test write speed and not just read speed. Different combinations of number of disks and stripe size can produce dramatically different results in write speed. I suggest you use ATTO, since it is the only easily available program that can test write speed.

I took 40 gigs from each 320 gig HDD, and created my RAID 0, (seek times were like 140/ms? sound right? and burst around 320mb/s).

Hopefully you meant 14ms and 3200MB/sec.

So I have a RAID 0 array of 148.99GB. I then went back into the Matrix option Rom and made the rest RAID 5. I thought at that time it would ask me to format, but it did not.

Note that after you have Windows installed you can do all your array management from Intel's Matrix Storage Console. You should also consider enabling write-back caching (right-click on your array in the storage console), since that also enables read-ahead caching on Intel's controller.

After Windows boots up, I am supposed to format that, right?? Anyway, that is where I am. Disk mgmt show the two volumes as disk 0 (148.99GB) and disk 1 (782.51GB), but disk 1 still needs to be formatted. Where do I go to do that?

You do it right there in Disk Management. Just right-click on volume and select format.

ps-- or do I just partition disk 1 into the 3 or 4 partitions that I want to set up (music, video, photos, etc.)?

You can partition each volume into smaller logical drives if you want, but I think it is simpler just to keep two volumes - one for Windows and your programs, the other for your data.

Make sure you have a backup plan. No level of RAID is a backup strategy.

[noegruts]

By the way, don't worry too much about trying different stripe sizes, Intel's default of 64KB for a RAID 5 array is good for your configuration of four drives, from my testing.

If you decide to go with more than four drives in a RAID 5 array later, then definitely test different stripe sizes.

[xtrmpro66]

Hopefully you meant 14ms and 3200MB/sec..

Well..... actually I am not too sure. I did download HDtach and ran it once or twice on the RAID 0, but I really don't know how to decipher it, even half way into Bing's thread. LOL! If you tell me how to take a screenshot of the results, I can post them here.

You do it right there in Disk Management. Just right-click on volume and select format..

When I am in disk mgmt, the disk 1 (RAID 5 volume) originally showed as uninitialized, so I initialized it. However, when I right click on the actual volume, it just says "New partition", no option to format. That kind of threw me off. Any ideas? Was hoping to format before I went to sleep cause I know it will take a bit.

Thanks, Dave

[noegruts]

Well..... actually I am not too sure. I did download HDtach and ran it once or twice on the RAID 0, but I really don't know how to decipher it, even half way into Bing's thread. LOL! If you tell me how to take a screenshot of the results, I can post them here.

Press ALT-PrintScreen, then go to Paint and select edit-paste. Then save it to a file and upload the file to somewhere like imageshack.us. Does that help?

When I am in disk mgmt, the disk 1 (RAID 5 volume) originally showed as uninitialized, so I initialized it. However, when I right click on the actual volume, it just says "New partition", no option to format. That kind of threw me off. Any ideas? Was hoping to format before I went to sleep cause I know it will take a bit.

Thanks, Dave

Sorry, I was assuming a bit too much. Yes, you need to create at least one partition, then format it. If you want multiple drives in that volume, create multiple partitions and format them each, but I recommend just one partition per volume for your setup.

[xtrmpro66]

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It does look a bit better after enabling write back cache!

Ok, as far as formatting:

63833

On disk 1, partition the whole thing as one partition, and then format, right? It will become my E: drive?

[fritzman]

yep... just right-click it and select new partition, then format

[xtrmpro66]

Thanks Fritzman. Will do and then I'll try the HDtach on the RAID 5 array. How does the RAID 0 results look to you?

[xtrmpro66]

63834

Here is the HD tune on that same RAID 0. Does the CPU usage seem high? Or is that just because it is a large RAID 0?

[theELVISCERATOR]

cpu usage is out the roof...say normally one drive takes 2% that would be say 10 with overhead....hmmm

[xtrmpro66]

Yeah, it looked ok with the hdtach, but this looks high. I am formatting RAID 5 now, so when that is done, I will redo.

By the way, it should be ok for me to rename my drives after the format, right? My RAID 0 is C:, my DVD burner is D: and this RAID 5 is E:, but I would like for the DVD to be E: and the RAID 5 to be D:. So, for D: to be E:, or not to be E:, that is the question (I really could not resist-LOL).

Thanks, DAve

[fritzman]

No problem renaming them at all.

[noegruts]

No problem renaming them at all.

Just make sure you don't change the drive letter for a drive that you already have Windows or Program Files on...you'll get a warning if you try it, but don't do it.

Changing drive letters on an empty drive or a drive that just contains a bunch of data files is fine.

[fritzman]

Thanks Fritzman. Will do and then I'll try the HDtach on the RAID 5 array. How does the RAID 0 results look to you?

Both HDTach & HDTune look to be right where I would expect them.

Did you say you were initialising your large drive when you ran the test that gave you the 59%cpu usage? That would explain the result, because that sort of usage is way too high.

Try running it again when nothing else is going on, and it should be <10%

[xtrmpro66]

Did you say you were initialising your large drive when you ran the test that gave you the 59%cpu usage? That would explain the result, because that sort of usage is way too high.


I don't think so, but I will try again tonight when I get home. I think I ran it a couple of times after noegruts mentioned it was out of line and still got a high usage %age. Why would hdtach show <10% and hdtune show such a discrepancy?

I am also having difficulty enabling the write-back cache. In Matrix console I can right click and enable, but when I go to "Performance" option (you know, after r-click "My computer", then l-click "properties", then l-click "advanced"), the option to enable write-back is grayed-out and de-selected. So Matrix mgr console says it is enabled, but is it??

Also just installed Ultimate Defrag, so I am going to try and place the page file like Bing was describing, with the "offline" defrag. Fritzman, you did that, right? I will let you know how that goes.

Again, thanks for all the help.

Dave

[xtrmpro66]

I am also having difficulty enabling the write-back cache. In Matrix console I can right click and enable, but when I go to "Performance" option (you know, after r-click "My computer", then l-click "properties", then l-click "advanced"), the option to enable write-back is grayed-out and de-selected. So Matrix mgr console says it is enabled, but is it??

What I meant to say, was when I left-click on "My Computer", then right-click on my RAID 0, C: drive, then left-click on "properties", then click "Hardware" tab:

63868

then I click on "properties" and get this:

63869

But Intel Matrix Storage Manager shows:

63870

for the RAID 0, and:

63871

for the RAID 5.

Which do I believe?

[noegruts]

Two different things. Benchmark with and without Matrix write-back caching enabled and you will see the difference.

You are all set :-)

[xtrmpro66]

Gotcha! I am defragging now and setting up pagefile. As soon as that is done, will do the benching. ;)

[fritzman]

Good job!

Looking forward to some more results.

[xtrmpro66]

OK, apparently write-back is enabled!

6387663877

6387863879

I have yet to attempt overclocking! MUhaahaahaa!!:D

[xtrmpro66]

By the way, here is what my RAID 0 looks like on Ultimate Defrag:

63880

Thanks again for the guidance!
Dave

[noegruts]

Try running the "long" benchmark on HD Tach - it gives much better resolution on the resulting graph and doesn't really take much more time.

How is the system working for the tasks you want to perform on it?

[fritzman]

That's a very good result mate.

I love the representation given by Ultimate Defrag... hadn't seen it before. I use PerfectDisk... seems okay.

[xtrmpro66]

Again, thanks for the help guys! I am still in the process of loading my progs and whatnot onto the new setup (I installed a new mobo--so I figured "why not more HDD's?"),so everything so far is good.

I will let you know how things are going in a few days, once I start doing some vid/photo editing and gaming.

Cheers!
DAve