HD Tach Benchmarks

[Alec§taar]

you should invest in another 1.5 gb of ram, 512 is really subpar nowadays, and it makes a WORLD of difference in general responsiveness, i myself have only 1 gb but the jump from 512mb single channel to 1 gb dual channel was phenomenal!

just a suggestion!

NOTED... but, I have my ways around THAT... trust me!



* "WORD!", as young folks say, or USED to say...

APK

P.S.=> To be blunt about it also? For my needs I really do NOT need that RAM... not @ all... except for programs that have imo, SILLY installers that stall out if they do NOT detect that much RAM (they should be testing imo, rather, for FREE AVAILABLE RAM, not total amounts, in other words...)... apk

 

[randomperson21]

NOTED... but, I have my ways around THAT... trust me!

hehe like a gigantic ramdrive? I must admit, that thing is pretty sweet.

And I agree with you on the 512mb point: you only really need it if you run apps that really need it. For example, i like me desktop widgets, and desktop widgets like ram..... so i need more ram. Also, if you really streamline your systems (which i know you do, alec), you really don't need that much just for OS specific tasks.

 

[randomperson21]

oooh my. i just saw your 7900gt is phase. hows that working out for you?

 

[disarmedmeteor]

NOTED... but, I have my ways around THAT... trust me!



* "WORD!", as young folks say, or USED to say...

APK

P.S.=> To be blunt about it also? For my needs I really do NOT need that RAM... not @ all... except for programs that have imo, SILLY installers that stall out if they do NOT detect that much RAM (they should be testing imo, rather, for FREE AVAILABLE RAM, not total amounts, in other words...)... apk

good point, as randomperson said, if you stream-line your os, 512 is a good amount and heck, it can be zippy even with 256 mb of pc100 ram, WOOT!

 

[Pinchy]

Check out specs on side for HDD specs

 

[randomperson21]

oh man pinchy, thats impressive as heck.

i'm going to be rebuilding my raid array soon. any suggestions? like stripe size, etc? no new hardware for it tho, unfortunately.

 

[Pinchy]

LOL thanks

Im actally pretty new to raid, this being my first raid array (thanks to ALL the TPU guys that helped me, and Tigger for the advice ). My stripe size is set @ 128k.

Ive got 9 partitions; 4x10GB (each family member), 1x 150GB (Games), 1x150GB (Downloads/ music/videos/application installers, etc), 1x5GB for the page file (page file using 4096Mb), 1x50GB for installed programs (office/adobe/etc) and the rest, 80GB, for Windows and drivers and stuff

Here is my latest result:

Thats after ive installed all my stuff...the one in the previous post was freshly formatted


BTW - I did the 'quick' bench (8mb zones)...if thats what was wanted

 

[randomperson21]

might try messin with my strip size next time i set up raid. i'm running a 7200.8/7200.9 combo, sataI, 2x160gb drives. and good idear with the partitioning. currently running 40gb windows, rest for apps/userdata, but i might try the seperate partition for pagefile. i need to reload to server03 anyways, i just can't afford to have my computer down for a day (school, bah!)

 

[malware]

2x80GB Hitachi 7K80 SATAII RAID0

 

[Pinchy]

For some reason, i have a high access time tho

 

[regan1985]

 

[ntdouglas]

Hey guys.
I had a score of 240. That seems low with raid. I see people talking about stripe size. What is it and where can I find it. What would increase drive performance, higher or lower?

 

[t_ski]

Here's mine. I'm surprised no one here has more than 2 drives in raid posted yet...

And as a side note, I got about 20mb/s faster reads with four older 36GB raptors.

 

[t_ski]

Hey guys.
I had a score of 240. That seems low with raid. I see people talking about stripe size. What is it and where can I find it. What would increase drive performance, higher or lower?

To answer your Q's, stripe size is usually found in the Raid Controller Sertup program when creating the array. And yes, it can have an effect on performance. I had two older raptors that I played with, trying 16k, 32k, and 64k stripes. I get the best performance (reads in HDTach) with a 16k stripe. Please note that the default is usually higher (like 64k). traditionally, the stripes are set low for drives filled with small files, and larger for drives with big files. If you have it as an OS drive, I would suggest a 16k stripe. If being used for a strage drive (not recommended with Raid 0 due to lack of fault tolerance) that has MP3's, movies, etc., then you should use a bigger stripe.

If you have the time, you could try building the array with difference size stripes and see what works best for you. If not, I suggest going with a 16k stripe and forgettin about it...

 

[Pinchy]

Im on 128k and its fine...my biggest file is 2.5GB (game installation) and after that its like 500mb (besides steam files)

 

[disarmedmeteor]

I have a 32k stripe size and I think it's slowing me down because I have a 136.7 mb/s burst and 115.6 sequential, I think my raid controller (via pt800 pro/ultra) is partly the problem, but because I have so many movies, games, and tv shows, I think it would be better to go with a 128k stripe size or whatnot, am I right in my logical thinking?

 

[t_ski]

Try this: Go into the Device Manager and double click on the controller for your drives. Make sure NCQ and read caching are turned off for the Primary and Secondary controllers for each drive you have connected to the array. Click OK and reboot if necessary. Run the test again and you should see an improvement.

 

[Pinchy]

NCQ and read caching arent there

 

[t_ski]

Here's a screen shot for you of my Device Manager. Make sure you are looking under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. Under that you should find the controllers listed. Double click (or right-click and chose properties) and go into the Primary Channel and Secondary Channel. If your controller does not support NCQ, it will either not show up or be grayed out. Read caching should be there no matter what IIRC.

 

[Pinchy]

I went to IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and all that came up was:

Primary IDE channel
Secondary IDE channel and
Standard dual channel PCI IDE controller

Nothing like yours.

Before, i was in "SCSI and RAID controllers" where there was "Intel(R) ICH8R/DO/DH SATA RAID controller", but there was nothing there either

 

[t_ski]

Do you have a SATA Controller showing up in the Device Manager? It may be listed under a separate controller than the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. I have the ones shown, as well as a Raid Controller. It's not in there. Post a screenshot of your Device Manger if you can't find it, but try to expand anything related to drives so I can see what's in them.

 

[ntdouglas]

My device manager is the same as Pinchy's, I can't find it either. What do you guys use to post screenies? I use xnview and every time I try to post it says upload failed.

 

[rizzo]

I get a crazy burst score. I've run it a couple times and it's consistent.

 

[randomperson21]

I get a crazy burst score. I've run it a couple times and it's consistent.

that can't be right... the bus couldn't even support that. ever.

might be hdtach tweaking out. idk.

 

[t_ski]

My device manager is the same as Pinchy's, I can't find it either. What do you guys use to post screenies? I use xnview and every time I try to post it says upload failed.

Use Print Screen (or Alt + Print Screen) to capture the image, then post it in MS Paint. Save it as a JPG file. When you post here, go to Advanced (not the Quick Reply at the bottom of the page), scroll down to Additional Options (below the post text box), click on Manage Attachments, browse to the pic, and click Upload. It will list the image in the current window when it done uploading, then you can close the window and submit your post.