Enter The Matrix: Slice out and get the best part from your hard drives

[Voidn]

Hey Fritz how long does it take to clone your Raid0 to your Raid5?

I tried 3 different programs and they were taking 24 hours (256GB raid0 30GB used). I thought that was too long so I kept canceling them. After the 3rd try a drive was marked bad. That would explain the poor performance. So I removed the drive and tried to setup a 3 drive raid0. Windows crashed while formatting the new partition and 2 drivers were marked with errors. Weird. I'm running diagnostics now. Hopefully its just 1 bad drive (and I can get some 3disk Benchmarks for comparison).

Rebooting during a partition copy couldn't physically damage a drive right? I would understand if I hosed my partitions but not actually damage 1 or more drives. *fingers crossed*

EDIT

All drives pass quick test. Original failed drive passes full test. I might increase the south bridge ICH voltage incase the oc is causing chipset instability (wild guess).

 

[fritzman]

Hey Fritz how long does it take to clone your Raid0 to your Raid5?

I tried 3 different programs and they were taking 24 hours (256GB raid0 30GB used). I thought that was too long so I kept canceling them. After the 3rd try a drive was marked bad. That would explain the poor performance. So I removed the drive and tried to setup a 3 drive raid0. Windows crashed while formatting the new partition and 2 drivers were marked with errors. Weird. I'm running diagnostics now. Hopefully its just 1 bad drive (and I can get some 3disk Benchmarks for comparison).

Rebooting during a partition copy couldn't physically damage a drive right? I would understand if I hosed my partitions but not actually damage 1 or more drives. *fingers crossed*

EDIT

All drives pass quick test. Original failed drive passes full test. I might increase the south bridge ICH voltage incase the oc is causing chipset instability (wild guess).

That's all pretty wierd... I have a 36Gb Raptor that I have XP-Pro on, and running Acronis TI Home 11 from the XP drive, I clone my Vista 32-bit drive to an image on the Raid5, and it takes maybe 15 mins or so (and that's with about 45Gb on the Vista part.

If all else fails... I would try doing it all at stock settings and see how that goes.

 

[Voidn]

I rebuilt the Raid 0/ Raid 5 with all 4 disks then reinstalled xp and everything seems fine(shrug). I'm using a boot cd to do the disk clone. A 4 GB xp install took over an hour, but it worked and now I can boot off the raid5. I might try backing up to a spare IDE drive to see what happens.

If you ever try doing a straight clone from the Raid0 to the Raid5 without the raptor involved I'd be curious to know what the performance is.

 

[fritzman]

I rebuilt the Raid 0/ Raid 5 with all 4 disks then reinstalled xp and everything seems fine(shrug). I'm using a boot cd to do the disk clone. A 4 GB xp install took over an hour, but it worked and now I can boot off the raid5. I might try backing up to a spare IDE drive to see what happens.

If you ever try doing a straight clone from the Raid0 to the Raid5 without the raptor involved I'd be curious to know what the performance is.

Just started one up in the background, and it is going to take 7 minutes. That is... I'm working on the PC having booted to my Raid0 Vista 32-bit, and I'm running an Acronis Backup of that Raid0, to a new folder in my Raid5. It's like a 1/3 the way through since I've been typing this.

+++ edit... checking the log.... Acronis changed the priority of the backup to low (I guess it recognised that I was still working on the PC) and it took 11 minutes to complete.

You got something wierd going on there mate.

 

[Voidn]

Just started one up in the background, and it is going to take 7 minutes. That is... I'm working on the PC having booted to my Raid0 Vista 32-bit, and I'm running an Acronis Backup of that Raid0, to a new folder in my Raid5. It's like a 1/3 the way through since I've been typing this.

+++ edit... checking the log.... Acronis changed the priority of the backup to low (I guess it recognised that I was still working on the PC) and it took 11 minutes to complete.

You got something wierd going on there mate.

You can say that again. I'm going to assume its the boot cd / older programs I'm using. I'll try something from within windows or just buy Acronis already.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Voidn]

I downloaded the 15day trial for Acronis TI home 2009. It took 8 mins (high priority) to backup 35GB to an image and 20 or mins to restore it to the Raid5. It worked, I can boot off of it, woo. I think my problem was I was doing a full disk clone not a partition backup or image. Clones are bad too because they like to destroy all partitions on the destination disk.

 

[fritzman]

Now you've got it!

That's exactly right... take an image of the drive, and work with that. That time sounds a whole lot better. (makes note - must try TI2009)

 

[bing]

Regarding Acronis, I suggest "ALWAYS" do validate the image "EVERYTIME" you've created a new one, its a good practice imo.










.

 

[Voidn]

Will do. Even if validating doubles the time to create an image, its still quick. I'll probably schedule it to run at night anyway so I won't even notice.

 

[The Doors]

Interesting comparing my test to yours (The Doors)... we are using the same sized slice and both on 3 x drives... yours being 500Gb Seagates & mine being 1Tb Black's. I'm pleased to see my extra expense was worthwhile, but I've still got to get to the bottom of the huge difference between my setup and Voidn's... can't be that much of a gain just from adding 1 more drive... surely not? (and his are only 750Gb drives but the slice is 274Gb... over double!) I mean, my Raid0 is roughly eqyuivalent to his Raid5 for goodness sake!

Is it possible that there is a sweet spot, somewhere larger than 128Gb, that makes better use of the two heads that the Black drives have? (he asked, clutching at a bunch of straws)

Really sorry for my absense, I was in trouble with my new install of Ununtu due to Grub loader.. any way I'm still using a 2 disk raid config, and soon will add the 3rd disk because was not availbale the replacement for the RMA, so as soon I will get it I will post the results.

Thanks a ton for all the Great suggestions, really appreciated, and also your results seems really impressive, I don't think I'll be so fast at all

 

[fritzman]

Really sorry for my absense, I was in trouble with my new install of Ununtu due to Grub loader.. any way I'm still using a 2 disk raid config, and soon will add the 3rd disk because was not availbale the replacement for the RMA, so as soon I will get it I will post the results.

Thanks a ton for all the Great suggestions, really appreciated, and also your results seems really impressive!

Cheers bud... no prob.

I've reduced the size of my 1st slice to 75Gb, but the results are almost the same, except seek time is a little quicker.

I am seriously thinking about adding a 4th Black!

I've actually got 4 x WD RE3 1Tb drives sitting here, waiting to go into a server at the weekend, so if I get the time... I'll re-image my Vista and see how they go, plus I'll test them from XP as well.

I don't know what the comparison is in performance from the Blacks to the RE3's, but I don't imagine they will be that different, so should be a good indicator for my system.

 

[Audioaficionado]

I've got 2 x WD RE3 1Tb drives. It would be great if there was a direct comparison in Matrix RAID mode.

 

[fritzman]

I've got 2 x WD RE3 1Tb drives. It would be great if there was a direct comparison in Matrix RAID mode.

Sure... what sized 1st slice?

 

[Audioaficionado]

Matrix slice 30+30GB & 900GB Mirrored array

 

[fritzman]

Matrix slice 30+30GB & 900GB Mirrored array

Okay if I just create the 30+30 Raid0 and do that? or do you need the raid1 as well?

If it's just the 30+30, I'll do 60Gb on 2 / 3 & 4 drives just for the hell of it and bench them from my XP drive with nothing in them.


++++ edit .... here's a question....

I'm planning on pulling the 3 x Black 1Tb drives off the controller and taking their power away.

I then plan to plug the 2 then 3 then 4 RE3 drives in, in order to bench them.

Will I need to do anything before plugging my 3 Black's back in again, like write down the exact size of the two arrays, or will the Matrix Management software (Ctrl+I) pick up how the 3 x drives were set up from the information already on them (never having done that with drives containing live data before... they have always been empty and re-imaged after)

Ta

 

[Audioaficionado]

Yeah just the 60GB RAID 0 slice. I don't imagine the RE3 will smoke the already great black labels, but I did get them because they were closer to enterprise quality and more reliable (I hope).

 

[Voidn]

I'm planning on pulling the 3 x Black 1Tb drives off the controller and taking their power away.

I then plan to plug the 2 then 3 then 4 RE3 drives in, in order to bench them.

Will I need to do anything before plugging my 3 Black's back in again, like write down the exact size of the two arrays, or will the Matrix Management software (Ctrl+I) pick up how the 3 x drives were set up from the information already on them (never having done that with drives containing live data before... they have always been empty and re-imaged after)

Ta

I've only done that on enterprise cards like the Perc 4 & 5i. The Perc controllers will give you the option to load the config off the disks. Just make sure the disks are plugged into the exact same ports / same order. No idea if the Intel chipset will work the same. Though I sure would like to know in case I juggle disks in the future. Make some backups .

Looking forward to some Vista VS XP and 3 vs 4 and 4 x RE3 vs 4 x Blacks benchmarks! Looks like you are going to be busy.

 

[fritzman]

Yeah just the 60GB RAID 0 slice. I don't imagine the RE3 will smoke the already great black labels, but I did get them because they were closer to enterprise quality and more reliable (I hope).

No prob... I did the 968 Raid1 already anyways. Still working out how to do the 3 & 4 RE3's as I only have 2 ports spare atm.

Here we go with the Raid0 60Gb slice...

and for the Raid1 (remainder)...

Hope that is helpful.

I'll try to get the others done at some point today, or maybe tomorrow if I can work out a simple way to do them, otherwise I might have to pass for the moment.

 

[Voidn]

Pretty good speeds / access times for 2 disks. Was that XP or Vista? If you aren't able to test 3 and 4 disks can you still do a Vista vs XP comparison on 2 disks?

 

[fritzman]

Pretty good speeds / access times for 2 disks. Was that XP or Vista? If you aren't able to test 3 and 4 disks can you still do a Vista vs XP comparison on 2 disks?

These were run from XP-Pro 36Gb Raptor, testing empty Raid0 & Raid1's.

I could plug them in again and run the same tests from Vista, but I think they will only be very similar, maybe slightly slower. If I get time this arvo, I'll run them up.

Vista results...

Interestingly... the Vista shows a slightly quicker access time, but slower burst fwiw.