WD3200 in RAID

Hi all.

After reading dominick32's RAID article, I thought I would try RAID once more. Before I set everything up, I thought I'll run a few tests to see what differences there would be between RAID and no RAID.

I'll base my tests off dominick32's. If there are any other tests you want me to run, shout it out now so I can do them!

Finally got the tests done.
I got some interesting results.

I'll do a write up and post graphs during the weekend.

For now, here are the tests and results I got.
The number on the left is no RAID and the right is RAID.

By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the slower file copy in RAID?

Windows Shutdown = 9.5 vs 10.5 s
Windows Startup = 33.5 vs 34.5 s

Photoshop 6 = 5.5 vs 5 s
Premiere 6 = 5.5 vs 4.5 s
Vue 5 Infinite = 5.5 vs 4.5 s
Sandra = 3 vs 3 s

FEAR Level 1 = 18 vs 15 s
Farcry Demo = 22 vs 22 s
Quake 4 Level 1 = 39 vs 38 s

BOOST Compile w/ VS2K3 = 21m19s vs 16m39s

File Copy 1 GB = 42 vs 63 s
File Copy 475 MB = 19 vs 26 s
File Copy 182 MB = 8 vs 10 s
File Copy 92 MB = 4 vs 5 s

File Intensive 5.29 GB = 9m vs 5m20s

Winrar Extract 287 MB = 21 vs 15 s

HDD Install 3dmark03 = 15 vs 11 s

PCMark05 Score = 3864 vs 4030
PCMark05 Time = 11m58s vs 11m44s

Sanda Drive Index = 55 vs 104 MB/s
Sandra Time = 5m vs 4m55s

HDTach3 Avg Read = 57.1 vs 110.8 MB/s
HDTach3 Random Access = 12.9 vs 13 ms
HDTach3 Burst Speed = 204.9 vs 293.6 MB/s

When you say Raid are you talking about Raid1 or 0?

If you are comparing a Single drive on the left to Raid 1 on the right, Raid 1 has faster read times than a single drive but slower write times. Files will copy slower to a Raid1 than a single drive but read faster.
Thats why your games loaded faster because of the faster read.

Here is an example of a Single drive and a Raid1 that I have using the same drives.

-- ---------------Single--------Raid1------Raid5 4 disks---Raid10 4 disks
Buffered Read------74------------97---------180-------------123
Sequential Read----63------------92---------178-------------129
Random Read-------35------------60---------72---------------78

Sequential Write-----63-----------57----------53-------------86
Random Write-------43------------45---------39--------------82
Access time in ms---13ms---------6ms--------8ms------------5ms

These tests were all done on a RocketRaid Controller with my DFI system in Sig

I was talking about Raid 0.
Now that I look over my posts, looks like I didn't mention what Raid I was using.

As for the slower file copy, I am thinking maybe it is because I did Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V, effectively duplicating the data. If I had just dragged it to the Desktop from My Documents folder, it might have been faster.

I plan to do this test sometime before I write up the final report, even though one would not be able to compare it to the single drive.


Actually the game load times aren't faster at all. All of them are within the margin of error. FEAR just might have a minute increase in loading, but I don't think 1 second faster(assuming 2 second margin of error) justifies going RAID 0.