HD Tach Benchmarks

[t_ski]

OK, Dawgdoc, you have my interest peaked. I have an ICH7R chipset, so I should be able to do this. I have four 250 GB Seagate 7200.10s - how do I go about setting this up?

 

[Deleted member 3]

my motherboard already has a decently performing RAID controller and I don't have to pay any more for what I believe would be a relatively negligible increase in performance

Test your controller in an actual RAID level, as RAID0 isn't actually RAID. Try RAID 5 for example and don't just look at bandwidth and seek times but compare CPU load.

 

[t_ski]

I did some more reading in the OCForums and found this link:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1733448,00.asp

Seems like it gets set up the same as a hardware raid array, but not all the space is utilized for the first array. The remaining space then used for the second array.

Dawgdoc, is there a reason you went with a 64K stripe? From what I was reading, they were recommending a 128K stripe for a dual array.

 

[Dawgdoc]

T_ski : Click on the 2nd link I gave on my post about 4 or 5 posts ago. That link goes to a well written post on www.overclockers.com where everything is basically described.

In a nutshell though, download all necessary drivers for the Intel Matrix RAID. Rebuild your array and F6 install your drivers with the windows install. Download the Matrix RAID storage manager. Enable write-back cache on your RAID 0 array.

Ill 2ble check for 100% accuracy when I reboot, but I choose 64k for the RAID 0 array, and 128k for my RAID 5. These were the recommended defaults.

Also, to use HDtach in Vista, I believe you also need to run in XP compatability mode.

If you have ever built a RAID array before, I dont think it should be any more difficult to do the matrix, you just need to know what you want beforehand and have all of your drivers set and ready to roll. If you need more help/details feel free to post back again and ill search around and setup some more links.

 

[t_ski]

Ok, I was checking that out this morning after I saw your post. There's a lot of stuff to weed through there, but I think I was able to figure out the basics. One question I have though is whether the drivers are the same for a standard raid array? I currently have a Raid 5 array running off the ICH7R. I would love to take my current data, image it to my spare 200 GB drive, build the new array, then image the data back to the new raid array. I have done this before (first time I did raid I installed the raid drivers before the image) by using Norton Ghost to copy the data over and have not had any issues. If the drivers are the same, I should be able to just do the image as described and go, without having to install any new drivers.

 

[t_ski]

According to what I found, the drivers I need are here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/fil...XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go!

And I checked: I already have these downloaded and installed (Device Manager says the raid driver is 7.6.0.1011). Sounds like I should be good to go.

The only thing is that, in order to keep using my 200 GB drive for images, I'll need to keep the raid 0 array under 200 GB for Ghost to work. The bad part is that, according to HD Tach, I can use the first 100-110 GB of each drive before performance really starts to decline.

So for parity loss, it will be ( where n = the number of drives):

[n x drive size] - (raid 0 array)
_________________________________________
n

So if I have four 250 GB drives and a 190 GB raid 0 array:

[4 x 250] - 190
_____________
4

Which gives me 202.5 GB for parity loss. I should end up with a 190 GB raid 0 array and a 607.5 GB Raid 5 array for all my pictures, music and, um, "movies."

Dawgdoc, by any chance did you run HD Tach on an individual drive before you built the array? I have not yet installed one of them in the ICH7R controller, just the JMicron controller. Performance for each drive was over 81 MB/s for each drive, but I have a hard time your read comes from just the addition of each drives' max. If adding all mine up the max would only be around 400 MB/s, and yours was 439-473 MB/s.

 

[Dawgdoc]

I did not run any benchmarks on the hard drives individually, sorry.

I set up my RAID array prior to install of windows, and have only had this same Matrix 0/5 array since first building the computer.

Maybe thats not 100% true...I need to rebuild the array a few times that first evening to get everything the way I wanted.

Also make sure that you have your BIOS settings approrpriately set. This has nothing to do with Jmicron. Jmicron is a PATA enhacement I believe, and this is SATA. Disable anything Jmicron in your BIOS.

Let me know if I can help any further.

 

[t_ski]

Actually, I have the JMicron controller for two SATA ports (one eSATA) and one PATA port. I had been using the JMicron for the Maxtor drive in my siggy as the Asus P5W DH Deluxe only has one PATA port, which I was using to connect my DVD-RW drive. I only used the JMicron to test the SATA drives, while still being able to use my WD Raptors in the Raid 5 array from the ICH7R.

Anyway, I have it all configured now and I'm typing from the new array. I'm in the process of formatting the 600+ GB Raid 5 array, which looks like it will take about 4 or 5 hours. lol

A quick bench showed 430+ MB/s read on the raid 0 array. Gotta tweak it a little to see if I can improve that.

Thanks for bringing this up Dawgdoc - I would have never nown about it otherwise

 

[Dawgdoc]

Sweet! Nice bench

CPU utilization is a tad high, but your burst and your average and your access times are all excellent!

Intel Matrix is definitely the way to go Far exceeds other RAID setups at the current time...

 

[t_ski]

Thanks. Like I said, still need to tweak it.

 

[Frogger]

Thanks for bringing this up Dawgdoc - I would have never nown about it otherwise

1st congrats T nice Times

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848
I posted this link about 8 weeks ago in another raid thread guess you were Having an 'Old Fart' moment

 

[t_ski]

No, I just have tunnel vision sometimes. If it's not not right in front of me waving wildly at me with both arms swinging wide, I don't see it...

 

[ex_reven]

I think its time for me to buy more 7200.10's
Shit maybe even 7200.11, those scores are off the charts...

 

[t_ski]

Right now Newegg is shipping the 250 GB 7200.10's with 3.AAA or 3.AAC firmware. I got two China 3.AAA's and two Thailand 3.AAC's It seems others are getting the same too. FWIW, the 3.AAK's are the one's people are complaining about.

I say sell your 320 GB and buy three 250 GB's. I can't see any use for 4 x 750 GB raid myself, but that's just me....

 

[Dawgdoc]

Heck I cant see any use for 4X320 gb like I have. Even with me slicing 100gb off of each HD thats 400gb RAID 0 for programs only.

Cant see how I will ever use all of this space.....

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Is it easy to set up the matrix raid setup? i have 2 250gb samsungs and fancy giving it a try on a matrix 0/1 setup.

 

[t_ski]

Me either. With my three 36 GB Raptors I only had two of them almost full, and that's with all my programs, downloads, music, pictures, etc. But then again, I did a re-install a month or so ago when I switched to this board, so I didn't have everything I could have installed I suppose.

However, I've been using computers since they ran off floppies. My first PC with a hard drive only had a 40 MB drive in it. I remember how Win 3.1, Works, AfterDark, and all my games filled it up, and later I bought my 345 MB drive for a steal - only $289! Man that was cheap when drives went beloe $1 a MB. LOL now they run $.28 per GB!!!

 

[t_ski]

Is it easy to set up the matrix raid setup? i have 2 250gb samsungs and fancy giving it a try on a matrix 0/1 setup.

Very easy.

• Back up all necessary files to another source.
• Reboot the PC
• When prompted, press Ctrl + I to enter the raid BIOS (make sure the ICH controller is configure in the mobo's BIOS to "Raid")
• Select Create Raid
• Select the drives
• Select the raid type (start with 0)
• Select the stripe size (default should be OK)
• Select the size of the array (for your two drives I would keep it under 200 GB)
• Select Build Array (or complete or whatever it's called)
• Go back in and do it all again with the remainder of the array, but choose raid 1 this time (you have to use the remainder of the space available)

From there you can reinstall the OS with the raid drivers (in XP you need to press F6 when it starts up to load the drivers off a floppy), or do like I did and restore an image of the previous install (you need a special program like Norton Ghost and need to install the raid drivers before creating the image).

 

[Deleted member 24505]

My drives are currently in ide mode,i guess i need to go into the bios and set them as raid before rebooting and using ctrl-i to set it up? also i dont think i need to do the F6 driver thing on vista.

How do install the drivers before creating the image?

 

[t_ski]

My drives are currently in ide mode,i guess i need to go into the bios and set them as raid before rebooting and using ctrl-i to set it up?

Yes, that is correct.

also i dont think i need to do the F6 driver thing on vista.

IDK for sure the exact process. but the readme file says that you can use a floppy, USB or CD/DVD. It still lists that information under the section for "F6 Installation" though.

How do install the drivers before creating the image?

For me, I already had a raid 5 array set up and had the drivers installed. However, when I had a DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity, I took my current installation on an IDE drive and installed the drivers for the Silicon Image 3112 controller in Windows. I then shut down the system, connected the two SATA drives to the SiL controller, rebooted and configured them in the BIOS. Then I set them up in the Raid BIOS and rebooted. Using a boot floppy with Norton Ghost on it, I imaged the contents of the IDE drive to the raid array. One note about Norton Ghost: the version I have requires that the destination drive not be smaller than the source drive. You may be able to use a different program that allows the image to work in different ways, but Ghost is the only one I'ver ever used and can comment on.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

So if i imaged the 40gb c: partition,it would be ok to restore on a c: partition the same size on the new array?

 

[ntdouglas]

Guys, check this out. This is unbelievable. I didn't know about removing jumpers on Seagates. When I did that my burst speed went from 235 to 398. Then I enabled write cache back and got this insane score. I ran it 5 times with same results. Does anybody know about native command queing? And where to find it?

 

[crazyfinx]

Guys, check this out. This is unbelievable. I didn't know about removing jumpers on Seagates. When I did that my burst speed went from 235 to 398. Then I enabled write cache back and got this insane score. I ran it 5 times with same results. Does anybody know about native command queing? And where to find it?

NCQ is automatically enabled if your HDD has the feature- you can check it in the intel matrix storage manager if you have installed!

 

[ntdouglas]

NCQ is automatically enabled if your HDD has the feature- you can check it in the intel matrix storage manager if you have installed!

Thanks man.

 

[ntdouglas]

This is with write caching disabled.