Slow RAID Array..Please Help

[2ntense]

I have a Highpoint RocketRaid 133. Two Maxtor 40GB ATA133 7200 rpm HD's. I am now running Win Xp Pro. I am running a RAID 0 Array with a 4k stripe.

I ran SiSoft Sandra 2002.1.8.59. The score was very low, about 19MB sec. The reference ata100 7200rpm raid 0 config is like 37MB sec. What is wrong with my setup? Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

[Dissolved]

well i dunno much about raid, but i heard you should have a 16k cluster.. thats what ive seen the most..

[2ntense]

I do have a 16k not a 4k. Just checked to make sure, sorry.

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by 2ntense
I do have a 16k not a 4k. Just checked to make sure, sorry.

well you got me.. but give the thread a a few hours, im sure ull get a reply that will help.. yea..
Bump!

[zPacKRat]

I have the same issue with a promise ultra 66 raid card with 2 10 gig maxtor 7200 rpm drives. I think it has to do with XP and 2K (I'm using 2k pro, also tried XP with the same results.) I think it chokes the pci bus some how. Under win 98 the array was kick ass, I could get upwards of 35000 in sandra on a fresh boot. However my burst speeds under HD Tach 2.61 is good. So you may want to check that out as well.

Keep us updated!

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by zPacKRat
I have the same issue with a promise ultra 66 raid card with 2 10 gig maxtor 7200 rpm drives. I think it has to do with XP and 2K (I'm using 2k pro, also tried XP with the same results.) I think it chokes the pci bus some how. Under win 98 the array was kick ass, I could get upwards of 35000 in sandra on a fresh boot. However my burst speeds under HD Tach 2.61 is good. So you may want to check that out as well.

Keep us updated!

well u need an ultra ata100 to work with 7200 rpm drives, 7200rpm are ata100, so running them off a ata66 card would of corse slow them down

[zPacKRat]

Originally posted by Dissolved


well u need an ultra ata100 to work with 7200 rpm drives, 7200rpm are ata100, so running them off a ata66 card would of corse slow them down

No disrespect Dissolved,
But there were even 7200 rpm ata 33 hd's, so for you to say that I need a new raid card to get better performance is a rather uninformed statement due to the FACT that my 2 10 gig maxtors are indeed ata 66 hd's. You could if you want go HERE (http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/DiamondMaxPlus/QuickSpecs/42071.htm) and take a look for yourself.

[jazztrumpet216]

I know this is a dumb question since we've already established that XP sucks for RAID arrays, but they are on seperate channels, right???

[Kingslayer]

Ok. Your first mistake is using SiSoft Sandra to bench your array. Sandra for some reason cant handle RAID array's. It does the same on mine.

Get HDTach, but you have to register it in order for it to work under an NT kernel.

[2ntense]

I'll try HD TAch and let you know.

[2ntense]

The hell with that! $50 to "see" how fast my drives are? Thats crazy.

There has to be a baseline in Sandra to follow. I mean it has to give you some sort of idea right?

[zPacKRat]

Originally posted by Kingslayer
Ok. Your first mistake is using SiSoft Sandra to bench your array. Sandra for some reason cant handle RAID array's. It does the same on mine.

Get HDTach, but you have to register it in order for it to work under an NT kernel.

Kingslayer,
it doesn't matter if you use hd tach or sandra. raid sux under xp.
this is my array that used to rock under 98. would bench in the 35000 range in sandra.
This pic is under xp pro. with 2 10 gig maxtor ata 66 7200 rpm drives on a promise ultra 66. Now this sucks ass.
http://64.81.175.223/raidpic/hdtach.jpg
however if I lower the pci utilization, disable s.m.a.r.t. like this.
http://64.81.175.223/raidpic/fastcheck.jpg
you wind up with something like this
http://64.81.175.223/raidpic/hdtach2.jpg
Also, it's not much better under 2k pro.
however, you can see my burst speed is pretty good under hd tach, it's just that it can't keep up. I'm sure it's a nt issue.

[2ntense]

Put Win 98 back in last night, got it all going and stuff. I put HD Tach on it and the RAID now flys! 88MB Burst 54MB average! This is what I want under XP. Why the hell did I buy it anyway?

Thanks

[Henry Rollins II]

I have a RAID setup and WIndows XP, and it works great. It shouldn´t really matter what OS you are usin, the OS thinks that the raid array is a single drive anyway.

regards,
Henry.

[Henry Rollins II]

Originally posted by 2ntense
Put Win 98 back in last night, got it all going and stuff. I put HD Tach on it and the RAID now flys! 88MB Burst 54MB average! This is what I want under XP. Why the hell did I buy it anyway?

Thanks

Are you kidding do you think that is _good_?!? Twice them number would be ok.

regards,
Henry.

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by Henry Rollins II
I have a RAID setup and WIndows XP, and it works great. It shouldn´t really matter what OS you are usin, the OS thinks that the raid array is a single drive anyway.

regards,
Henry.

That's what I thought. Why would it be slow under a NT kernel when NT has been used with RAID for years?

[2ntense]

Well how fast should it be then? Something must really be wrong if 54MB sec is slow.

[Kingslayer]

Originally posted by zPacKRat


Kingslayer,
it doesn't matter if you use hd tach or sandra. raid sux under xp.
this is my array that used to rock under 98. would bench in the 35000 range in sandra.

Also, it's not much better under 2k pro.
however, you can see my burst speed is pretty good under hd tach, it's just that it can't keep up. I'm sure it's a nt issue.

I have had 0 problems running RAID under 2000 or XP. It's faster under XP than it is 2000. If you have that kind of problems maybe you should look at drivers and bios of the controller.

[2ntense]

i have the latest drivers and bios for the RocketRAID 133. What is the proper way to setup it up Kingslayer? I would like to go back to XP.

[zPacKRat]

Kingslayer,

What kind of raid controller are you using? and what kind of scores are you getting with hd tach?

So you know, i'm using the latest bios and drivers from promise.
I have read in several forums that raid perf is lackluster under 2k and xp. So if you can enlighten me as to how to gain some performance that would be COOL!:cool:

[touser]

i dont know why everyone says that raid sucks under XP, here are my XP Pro HDtach results with 2 ata100 40gb crapstors in a raid-0.http://members.home.net/touser3/hdtach3.gif

[Henry Rollins II]

It shouldn´t matter what OS you are using! What possibly may be slowing down them are different kinds of disc tools that are really ment for single drives. You don´t really need a physical raid-controller, it is possible to make a raid setup in software only. This works at least for Windows2000 and XP, but it should also be possible with any other OS. The point of having a raid controller(apart for security reasons), is to relive the OS from this task. The mesh-up of drives are controlled and summoned up in the controller. This makes the raid setup the same for the OS as any other source drive.

I could also imagine that setup/IRC resons may cause raid controllers to not function properly. After all they are PCI cards(also the onboard ones I think?) which can misfunction like any other PCI card. How these cards react to altered PCI speeds, I don´t know.

regards,
Henry.

[Henry Rollins II]

Originally posted by 2ntense
Well how fast should it be then? Something must really be wrong if 54MB sec is slow.

An Ultra/ATA100 drive supports in theory a transfer of 100 Mb/s. The idea of RAID 0 is to significantly increase that transfer speed by splitting the data onto two identical drives(but that you already know). This gives a theoretical speed of 200 Mb/s. I haven´t seen that, but close to 160 Mb/s.

regards,
Henry.

[2ntense]

Are the RAID Controllers faster when onboard or PCI? Does it even matter?

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by 2ntense
Are the RAID Controllers faster when onboard or PCI? Does it even matter?

Nope, the onboard controllers use a PCI channel so it's just like having it on a card anyway. It just saves space.

I have onboard on an Abit KR7A-RAID and a Promise ATA100 Fastrak PCI card on an Abit KG7...the cards are better if you upgrade or change your mobo a lot cuz you can move them.

[2ntense]

This is what HD Tach says I get in XP Pro. This is with the HighPoint RocketRaid 133 on a TH7-II with 2 Maxtor D740X 40GB hd's. RAID 0 config w/16k stripe.

What do you think?

[zPacKRat]

It makes me wonder if the problems I'm having are due to the type of controller??? Anyway, I broke my array and am going to use my d740x 40 for xp and the 2 10's for red hat and the like.

[arhines]

My suggestion: Update the card bios if possible - I don't know about this particular controller, but I have used others in the past, which have just completely borked performance under certain os'es, but when I updated the bios, all was well again.

[jbell]

ok guys i saw this and I need help!
I have an EPOX kta3+ mobo with onboard highpoint

I have 3 hd's

1 quantum fireball running on ide channel one

2 seagate barracuda IV on raid0 utilizing BOTH channels on 16K

my speeds are as such

raid setup is
read burst 37.7Mbps
random acces 12.8ms
read max is 24385Kbps
min is 10067Kbps
average is 17833.9Kbps

Quantum is

read burst 60.3Mbps
random access 14.9ms
read max 37075Kbps
min 2012Kbps
average 29655.4Kbps


what is making me sooo slow?

[Kingslayer]

I don't know, I use 64k clusters. It could be possible that your drives aren't supported by that controller.