RAID0 with Seagate 7200.10 speeds

szabi4 · Jan 30, 2007

Hi people!

I've just set up my two Seagate 7200.10 250GB drives in a RAID0 and I'm having a performance issue (screenshots below). These numbers are far from what I've seen in the forum for 7200.10 RAID0 speeds (~140-150 MB/s). And winXP feels sluggish too. Besides that, it sounds like a tractor when in heavy random seek (like the Random access test in HD Tach). Is it that loud for all you 7200.10 owners? I had a few drives in my PC, but this beats them by far with it's loudness (even my old 4 gig Quantum Fireball, which is REALLY loud). Although, it's almost silent when reading sequentially.

I have an nForce430 southbridge which uses the C51 controller (if I got it right, but please correct me if not!), and I've installed every nvidia driver that came with the motherboard (downloaded the latest too, but still the same).

What am I missing? Can anybody give me a hint where to look? Has anyone experienced these kinds of problems?

Here are the screenshots. Btw, before setting up the RAID, I benchmarked one of the drives, and it read with ~70-75 MB/s at the beginning of the drive (almost the same as when in RAID0) and I didn't notice any seeking noise...

bing · Jan 30, 2007

Geez.. that is bad ! The STR looks like a single drive to me or even worst, it is flat ! Normally even on single drive, the transfer rate should be started high and gradually getting slower at the end of the drive (inner track) !

Have you pull the 1.5GBps jumper on both drives ?

Edit :

The seek time is ok though, typical for 7200.10 drive.

szabi4 · Jan 30, 2007

I've pulled out both jumpers, so they should be able to go up to 3Gb/s.
Also, the Burst Speed varies from run to run. I've got speeds of 250 MB/s too, but it's totally random from 150-250 each time I run HDTach.
The graph being flat suggests that it's in RAID mode... no?

bing · Jan 30, 2007

Forget the burst speed ! The biggest problem you're facing now is the Raid controller is somehow "limiting" the 7200.10 transfer speed !

Watch the graph for sequential reading, for this 7200.10 drives, it "must" started from approx. 140-160 MB/s which the fastest part of the drive (outer ring) and gradually slow down to around 60-80 MB/s (the slowest part, inner ring of the disc platter). Check this post and at the 1st screen shot of hdtach, although it is not the same controller as yours, your graph should be similiar to the red graph, see it started at approx. 150MB/s and down to 80MB/s.

Now your's show it performs flat 80/MBs, it seems that something is holding the transfer speed.

Are sure you're using the latest driver and bios ? Can't help further since I'm not familiar with your rig.

szabi4 · Jan 30, 2007

As I've seen around here, nvidia setups have a mostly flat graph unlike the intel ones, which are fast at the beginning of the drive and degrade as it moves towards the end.
Not that this would explain my "80MB/s" flat...
Thanks for the hints, though!

tuskenraider · Jan 30, 2007

Make sure Command Queuing is disabled(unchecked) in the Device Manager under your SATA controller properties. Might be under SCSI Controllers, SATA Controllers or Disk Controllers, but you'll find it.

szabi4 · Jan 30, 2007

I forgot to mention that I connected the two drives to the SATA 1 and 2 connectors. I've read somewhere that one should connect it to the 1st and 3rd connectors for optimal performance.
Will it destroy the current RAID (and my data on it), if I'd reconnect it to 1 and 3 (or even 3 and 4 maybe)? What if I boot from my 200 gig old drive and plug in only one Seagate 7200.10, to check it's speed when it's alone... would that invalidate the data on it?

JCLW · Jan 30, 2007

Flat STR like that indicates a controller bandwidth issue. I've seen plenty of nV controller graphs like that, but I don't know what the exact issue is.

Maybe try a different driver?

tuskenraider · Jan 31, 2007

Flat STR like that indicates a controller bandwidth issue. I've seen plenty of nV controller graphs like that, but I don't know what the exact issue is.

Exactly.

I've read somewhere that one should connect it to the 1st and 3rd connectors for optimal performance.
Will it destroy the current RAID (and my data on it), if I'd reconnect it to 1 and 3 (or even 3 and 4 maybe)? What if I boot from my 200 gig old drive and plug in only one Seagate 7200.10, to check it's speed when it's alone... would that invalidate the data on it?

With the NF4, yes, 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 will utilize one controller each within the chipset. I don't have an answer if it'll just work if you switch the drive on port 2 to 3. I doubt it, but you could try to boot from it to see as it shouldn't do anything but give you a broken array error and you can just put the drive back on port 2 and you should be fine. If that's the case, a reinstall or reimage will have to be done with drives on ports 1 and 3. Did you check for Command Queuing?

szabi4 · Jan 31, 2007

I have unchecked the command queuing for both drives under Devices - SATA Controller, but just a slight increase in STR (+ 5%), which I would just put in the random +- category. It was weird though, as it started at 70MB/s, it got up steadily to 85 at somewhere at 50% of the drive and descended from there back to 70 as it reached the end of the drive (I'm referring to the 500GB RAID drive here).
Unfortunately there aren't any other versions of the driver, I've checked nVidia's page (there is something from 2004 but that is way back and couldn't be compatible with this chipset).

tuskenraider · Jan 31, 2007

A reach, but what stripe size are you using? Not that I know what best for that board, but NF4 usually like 16-32K it seems.

Edit: I reread your first post about the fine single drive performance. Both tested OK?

szabi4 · Jan 31, 2007

I left the default stripe size in the nvidia utility (F10 right after POST), which was 64K, if I remember well. I suppose if I want to change it to 32K, I would have to clear the drives and thus loosing all the data (the thing is I copied a bunch of data to the drive already, and was hoping that some setting would fix this issue, and I wouldn't have to remake it...

I didn't test the second drive, but I will. When I start the pc, both drives start spinning at the same time and remain synced, so I'm assuming that neither of them has some physical damage. But I'll test them shortly.

szabi4 · Jan 31, 2007

The stripe is 64K, checked now.
Tried plugging the drives into 1 & 3; 3 & 4 but no difference. I removed all other Hdds, cd drives, but no effect (not that is has something to do with it...).

The one thing that did make a difference was disabling command queuing and disabling read/write caching from the device manager. It shows a little improvement, but it's still quite strange.

No read/write cache, no NCQ:

tuskenraider · Jan 31, 2007

Yeah, that's a crazy looking graph and your random access is going to crap. Be interesting to see what a PCI SATA RAID controller would do on that board. At this point maybe there's some goofy setting you'll find somewhere that'll have further impact, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. If testing the drives as singles shows a normal declining graph from left to right on each, and no answer is found for your RAID problem, obviously ditching the RAID all together would be best. Or.........buy a $30 PCI RAID controller if you're adamant about having a RAID setup and see what happens then. If you got the expected 115-120MB/s graph on the PCI bus with that, I'd chalk up that chipset/driver combo as poorly implemented, at least on that board. Good luck.

szabi4 · Jan 31, 2007

Thanks.
I'm out of ideas too... I will try to reinstall my winxp. Maybe I'll try creating a RAID1, to see if the same limitation on the read spead applies there too...
Buying a PCI controller isn't really a choice I would happily make (especially as there are no guaranty it'll work).

redrumy3 · Jan 31, 2007

this is what i get with mine with 32k stripe but i have 2 320gb ones

szabi4 · Jan 31, 2007

The burst rate looks somewhat like mine. What chipset/controller are you using? At least you got over the 120 MB/s mark... Although I think the 7200.10 can do better (I've seen a lot of benchs over 140-150 MB/s). I don't think that there's a practical difference in speed between the 320 and the 250 GB versions, so I should be able to almost reach those speeds myself.

I just don't get it... :bang head

:

redrumy3 · Jan 31, 2007

nforce 4 ultra and nvidia raid controller im guessing

bing · Jan 31, 2007

On Seagate 7200.10 perp drive, 320GB vs 250GB real life speed or benchies result should be no huge difference, but theoritically based on seagate datasheet, the 250GB STR should be slightly faster since it use higher density platter than 320GB version.

You should expect they're capable to deliver at least the same STR as 320GB version.

szabi4 · Jan 31, 2007

Yeah, that's what I mean. I'm almost certain that the drives are working fine each (got around 75 MB/s on the single drive bench). It's definitely a controller issue, but I don't believe that it has compatibility issues with the 7200.10s (it works for redrumy3), and it's really unlikely that my motherboard specimen is a faulty one...

I'm very dissapointed because I invested this money into these two drives for speed only (when I saw those 140-150 GB/s benchmarks on the forum, my ears started flapping...

)

RAID0 with Seagate 7200.10 speeds

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