My new Cheap Raid

Larcen · Jun 1, 2009

Made a 100gig Raid 0 - 500gig raid 0 setup using two seagate 7200.10 hdd's.

1x 500gig and 1x 320gig

Here are the results which aren't too bad I think for a couple year old drives.

Don't have time right now to post pics but maybe tomorrow.

This is using HD Tune 2.55 (Free Edition)

Transfer Rate:
Minimum - 121.0 MB/sec
Maximum - 149.3 MB/sec
Average - 140. MB/sec

Access Time: 8.7 ms

Burst Rate: 1075.1 MB/sec

CPU Usage: 6.9%

xtkxhom3r · Jun 1, 2009

not bad man not bad how do you like the speed increase?

Larcen · Jun 1, 2009

It's pretty nice. I can definitely notice a difference with overall performance.

Larcen · Jun 1, 2009

I did some tweaking this morning and decided to run another bench. Max speeds didnt change much but after 3 times the minimum seemed to stay a bit higher then before.

Cant remember the name, and im not at home right now, but its an option if you go into device manager and click policies on the sata drives for performance.

Transfer Rate:
Minimum - 130.7 MB/sec
Maximum - 151.2 MB/sec
Average - 142.4 MB/sec

Access Time: 8.7 ms

Burst Rate: 1070.0 MB/sec

CPU Usage: 7.5%

Larcen · Jun 1, 2009

Here is a screenshot of the HD Tune I ran this morning. Using my two Seagate 7200.10 hdd's.

aoch88 · Jun 2, 2009

Do you have HDTach also? Too many tools around these days but I've always preferred HD Tach.

Larcen · Jun 2, 2009

Nope but thats easy to fix. Here it is.

Larcen · Jun 2, 2009

Here's the rest of the drives in raid 0 as well.

Junglebizz · Jun 2, 2009

How is the burst so high? I ran tests on my 2x WD AALS 640GB Blacks and My burst rate was was lower than that and my access time was higher too, like 11.2 or something. I setup both drives to be in 1 big Raid 0 array and assigned a 40gb partition for windows and the rest is empty right now. Is there a better way I could have set this up to get more performance? All of the other numbers (min, max, avg) were nice and high, over 200.

WonderingSoul · Jun 2, 2009

Junglebizz said:
How is the burst so high? I ran tests on my 2x WD AALS 640GB Blacks and My burst rate was was lower than that and my access time was higher too, like 11.2 or something. I setup both drives to be in 1 big Raid 0 array and assigned a 40gb partition for windows and the rest is empty right now. Is there a better way I could have set this up to get more performance? All of the other numbers (min, max, avg) were nice and high, over 200.

Try an Intel Matrix Raid?

Junglebizz · Jun 2, 2009

I'm on AMD with the SB750 SB, not ICH10R. Is that why his burst and access times are so good?

Larcen · Jun 2, 2009

I think it is because of the way the raid is setup. I have my initial raid 0 setup as one volume with enables the hard drive to perform what they call a short stroke. (which drastically improves performance) Having a smaller partition will help out with performance but volumes affect the performance on a hardware level, where the partitions are more software.

Thats just from what I have taken from the many articles I have read. Thats why Hardware raids are a lot more mainstream then a software raid. The performance speaks for itself. If you have a Intel southbridge, ie: ICHxR then you can make a matrix *hardware* raid which will allow you to basically create a smaller hdd volume which in turn helps with the performance. Please correct me anyone if I am off here because I am still new to the raiding party.

Junglebizz · Jun 2, 2009

Would I notice any difference by creating two arrays between my two HDD's? Perhaps one small Raid 0 array with a single partition for my OS and one large array with however many partitions I need for the rest?

Larcen · Jun 2, 2009

Junglebizz said:
I'm on AMD with the SB750 SB

I dont believe you can do that with your SB. It has to be an intel southbridge because in order to split drives up like that you have to use a raid matrix which is only done by intel right now.

Junglebizz said:
Would I notice any difference by creating two arrays between my two HDD's? Perhaps one small Raid 0 array with a single partition for my OS and one large array with however many partitions I need for the rest?

Yes if you could do a raid matrix you would. But if you played games or used certain applications you would see better performance by keeping them on this primary volume.

Junglebizz · Jun 2, 2009

Well, I know it allowed me to create two arrays between the same two drives, but after I did that I changed it back to one and carried on. I tried to google whether there was an advantage to doing this but I couldn't get a definitive answer. Maybe I will just have to try it for myself, run a couple HD Tune/Tach benchies and compare the results.

I know it wouldn't let me create a 3rd array though. Maybe I should go and give it a shot. Sadly, I will have to toast windows again :-/

Larcen · Jun 2, 2009

I know on the Intel chipsets its a huge performance boost because your first volume is using the fastest part of the HDD. Check out the Matrix Sticky here and look at what types of performance having split raid volumes does.

Junglebizz · Jun 2, 2009

I recall reading through that thread when I was trying to figure out "what is the matrix"....raid.

The difference is the matrix raid is a mix of raid 0 and raid 1, shown in the first pic there whereas mine would only let me do raid 0 twice.

aoch88 · Jun 2, 2009

I had all as RAID-0 too. I'm worried that if I were to change boards, I couldn't move the array over so even if it's RAID-1, there isn't any point to it.

My new Cheap Raid

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