Recent content by WarDad

OK, I challenge you all to write your own brief guide for newbies, and motherboard raid with benchmarks. I have not seen much of anything on the web for it. That the OS should have a stagging area or funnel (cache) for the slower HDD is not a relevation.

OK now, from that info give the size of the Windows Write Buffer. Also since apps can set FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING, and use their own buffering how does a user know? Why would the omission of this info affect any of the data taken, and be missleading? I would think that too much data is a problem...

Actually, I do know computer architecture, electronics, and earn a good living at it. I only dabble with PCs, and I am surprised at how much of the inside info is not readily available on the web. MS windows cache document is many OS's old, so no telling off hand exactly how it's applied to...

As for the article itself: "Why would south bridge SATA controllers have better drivers? Source?" Source: Experience and Benchmarks. I read it somewhere. Also, Intel and AMD have more resources to spend on chip sets. "Windows write cache is unrelated to disk cache." Just try finding a...

NCQ is part of the AHCI spec, but started as a seperate spec. It's what gives 4K random Queue Depth 32 more MB/s vs. 4K random (CrystalDiskmark 3). Your DELL may implement most of the AHCI Spec, in ATA mode. RAID mode may not be passing the Trim command.

Your confusing things by doing too much at once. Intel SSD are good, but a defective few can cause BSOD. Runing Raid on one drive.. how did you get this far? ATA is likely AHCI in Dells simplistic bios, besides you don't have much choice. Tst the SSD for Non Raid HDD 1. Put your HDD back...

I'm interfested in seeing the (free) Crystal Diskmark 3.01 x64 benchmark on this one. It should list your drive and size. I assume you have this on the AMD south bridge and not the GSATA? I wrote the "Poor Mans Raid and Disk Tips" which has a thread here. One system had the GPA-890A-UD3H. I...

I got my two backup drives before the flooding and price increase. If I had to buy now, I might have just the one external backup drive.

Yea, you wan't to do the proper shut down thing. Open files get properly closed and pending writes get done. I had issues with a USB stick. Normally I close it's folder first and don't bother with the proper shut down. A couple of times I didn't close the folders and the new files weren't on...

Always on is always vulnerable. A virus could target all drives, not just c:. Always plugged in is always vulnerable to lightning. It destroyed my moms PC in Ohio. The same loacation is vulnerable to fire. I was a volunteer fireman. 1. I have a backup drive in my system that gets regular...

Gaming is over 90% read operation. The daily operations with the heavy write loads are web browsing and update downloads, and the bottle neck will be your internet link. I wonder what the limit is for W7-64 software raid 0 (stripe setup under disk management). The Intel south bridge should...

Ok, I meant OS (W7) disk cache. The Agility 3 is an SSD, not a HDD and it will have some cache on it, even if it is not an advertized feature. This was editied after some useful comments on another forum. It took a while to get around to it. Now is a good time as HDD prices are finally...

Steevo, are you comparing apples to oranges? My RAIDS were two HDDs, 2 x 137 MBs does not equal 1GB. My benchmarks file space was much larger than disk cache.

I did not try RAID 5 as it is a gamble today. 1TB and larger drives make hitting random bit errors likely. It won't rebuild when that happens. There is software that can help scrub errors. 2TB can use the MBR. Larger needs the GPT. Only w7-64 can boot from it. Some RAID bios can create 2...

I started this piece of work to satisfy my own curiosity. Last year I wanted to RAID 0 on my new AMD 965 system, but ended up dual booting because W7-64 was too young. It's going to be a Christmas gift this year. I already have this years Sandy Bridge system up and running. What a mix...