3 X Raptor 150 in Matrix Raid 0 - Results and Information

[hyperasus]

ya good idea

 

[fritzman]

Have had a quick look at my C drive, and getting it down to 30Gb shouldn't be a hassle. I'm loathe to use the 'shrink' function in Vista, so will probably image it, delete the partition, then recreate it smaller, then reinstate the image and see how that goes.

Might try that tonight.

 

[dominick32]

Back on track here, thanks for the work fritz. I remember doing this research myself and it seemed to me that any slicing below 25GB, produced relatively similar access times. ie: 6.1, 6.3

So, it could either be the way the software synthetically reads and produces results in access time, or it could actually be the 10GB boot slice vs. my 20GB slice. We need you to do this for us hyperasus. Take 3 raptors and mirror my tests with hdtach, we will get to the bottom of this.

 

[hyperasus]

My raptors and mb arrived today. Hopefully I'll have time to do this tomorrow evening. I'll run the 3drive/10gb test first thing once its up and running. I'll do both HDTach and HDTune. Should be interesting.

 

[MadMan007]

Anyone else notice the very high CPU usage Hyperasus got?

Anyhow the access times make sense in a way, as long as we stck to the same program - different ones may produce different results. Hyper's tiiny 10GB RAID means that the drive heads have to move very little to do random seeks since they only have to move over a small fraction of the drive. With 3 drives 10GB is only 3.3GB/drive.

The slight increase can be explained by either being within test margin of error (.1ms out of 6ms is only 1/60=1.5%) or something else. Maybe a 'weak' RAID controller like the ICH9R has more overhead as the number of drives increases and seek times remain roughly the same. Not to mention diminishing returns, I'd be really surprised to see linear decreases myself.

Or it could be something else entirely!

 

[UglyChild]

Dom.

I would like to set up Raid 1, with 2x 74GB or 2x 150 Raptors, havent decided yet.

What experience have you had with Raid 1 and Slicing? Is it better seek/access time then Raid 0?


Thanks.

 

[MadMan007]

Oh yea, what stripe sizes did you guys use? That could have something to do with the differences.

 

[hyperasus]

128 for RAID 0 & 10
64 for RAID 5

 

[dominick32]

My striping was always 16k on NVRAID, and 64k I found was best on Matrix.

 

[MadMan007]

128 for RAID 0 & 10
64 for RAID 5

I see. Is that after testing various stripes by imaging and restoring the drive?

 

[hyperasus]

OK guys sorry it took so long. Here is the 3 drive RAID 0 test(128 stripe same as I always do.)

 

[fritzman]

OK guys sorry it took so long. Here is the 3 drive RAID 0 test(128 stripe same as I always do.)[/URL]

Thankyou...thankyou...thankyou.

I was so convinced that my rig was slower than it should be. Everything looks about right (random access is lower, presumably because of my 49Gb size Vs your 10Gb size) and my test was done with everything running, about 2 hrs after startup.

 

[hyperasus]

And here is a 10GB slice across all 5 raptors.




This kind of thing drives me fricken crazy. Whats its deal? I've tried running several times and it keeps doing the same thing. Goes like crazy and then drops down to 80mbps. What gives?

 

[fritzman]

That's wierd...

I noticed that on your 3 x raptor post right at the end and thought it a bit odd.

Obviously you have wbc enabled... I wonder about drivers maybe? or is something happening in the background to use drive-processing time?

 

[hyperasus]

Yes wbc is enabled. I'm not sure what it can be doing in the background since I only set up the one RAID 0 volume. Odd to say the least.

 

[jmorgan]

ttt any update, thats some crazy access time and was a nice sustained rate while it lasted.

Makes my 3X320 perps look slow with a 9.1ms access time and 230mb/s max sustained


did it do the same on HD Tach?


Also can there be that big of a difference between doms 20gb slice and your 10gb slice, his avg only about 260mb/s while yours was doing 425mb/s

 

[fritzman]

I just managed to score 3 of the new Seagate perp 500Gb 32Mb cache ES.2 drives, so will set them up later today and give them a bench or two. Results later.

 

[Joeteck]

Here's a 3 & 5 gig slice on two 150gig raptors...in RAID 0

 

[krag]

I just managed to score 3 of the new Seagate perp 500Gb 32Mb cache ES.2 drives, so will set them up later today and give them a bench or two. Results later.

WoAH! 32mb hunh? Bring on the 32mb Rappy's~!

 

[jmorgan]

fritzman how can you keep us waiting so long, its just not right. Results?