Help w/ RAID-0

I'm a tad confused. I'm seeing many RAID-0 benches that are far better than mine in Sandra... I read the forums and didn't find anything that specifically fixed my trouble so I created this post. I know about Via Drivers and the 686b/SBLive issue but have applied the fixes. I've also installed the MS IDE ATA/100 fix. I've set the RAID at UDMA/5, have ATA/100 cables, and ATA spec drives. CDROMs are set at Multiword DMA Mode 0 , and the other UDMA/33 Mode2.

The drives are (RAID-0) 2xWD200BB ATA/100 7200...., 1xWD300BB ATA/100 7200. The single drive is partitioned into 2 drives and the RAID is intact as one partition. I'm mostly concerned about the RAID.

Sysinfo:

Dual boot Win2000/98se (W2K on RAID/ 98se on the 30G ATA/100)
1.2G 266fsb Tbird
Abit K7Ta-RAID (Highpoint)
256mb PC133 CL2
*SBLive X-Gamer (installed PCI Latency patch as well as latest beta bios from Viahardware).
400w PSU

The benches are the same for 98 and 2000. I know about the W2K IDE issues but I still see others with much better performance. I've defraged with Diskkeeper and the cluster size on the RAID is 32 and 16 on the 98se.

I've done all I can think of including combing the bios settings and using Western Digital IDE settings tools. Also individual IDE drivers from VIA.

Here are some pics. The first is the PCPitstop performance chart. The second is the Sandra bench. The Sandra shot was at the very best score and now I hover around 29,000 which is even below Sandra comparisons. I see folks with well over 50,000.


http://content.communities.msn.com/i...&ID_Message=45

http://content.communities.msn.com/i...&ID_Message=40

Thanks for any tips or ideas.

first let me say that on my computer using a Seagate 7200Rpm Drives in Udma66 i got 36.5 to 39.6 Mb/Sec Sustained speed. this was in Stripe mode.
on a single drive test i get 19.9 to 29.6 Mb/Sec on this drive. with the IBM 75GXP i get even more.
Now it looks to me that i get better performances then you with out even going into Raid 0 mode, and i was using a standard IDE controller - Not a Raid model.
so my raid mesurments were using Software Raid under W2K.

from what i understand from you - you have 3 Drives. 2 are identicle and the third one is double size but Split into two partitions, and that way you created 4 Drives in a Strip Set.

Well - if it's so -
your first and main problem is this drive.
when you are in a strip set mode - the files are devided to all drives in the block level.
so now the data is writen into two partitions at the same time...... Big Speed penalty.
first try to stripset only the two drives.
if you want - also hook up the third - but Dont partition it - YES you will loose half of the space.

Look at my site to see my speed mesurments.
Good luck.

Sorry, let me clarify the drive setup.

There are two physical hard drives in the system.

(Drives C: & G: are on a 30Gig UA/100 single drive. They are essentially evenly split at 15Gigs each.)
C: is the Win98se drive.
G: is the Storage/backup drive.

(Drive D: is the two 20Gig UA/100 drives at RAID-0/stripping)

D: is the Win2000 drive.

Thanks for the info Scuba. Every little bit of info helps. Although it may seem like I know what I'm talking about I'm still relatively new to RAID and to Win2000. I'm just a home user college dude Social Worker who likes to fiddle with Tech... aka I don't know jack :D :p

I'm really confused here. Your original message says 2x200BBs and one 300BB. If you have a 3rd drive it shouldn't be connected to the RAID controller. If you only have two then they need to be masters on both channels (single drive since they are WDs).
I have the same board with the same drives and it is fast. Give me some clarification on your drive arrangement. If you set up the RAID correctly the computer will see the drives as one single drive. Did you use the default block size for the array? e-mail me when you have posted again. [email protected] Joel

msan -
man, you got me more cunfiused then any thing.

Raid level '0' (StripSet/Striping) mean that you take 2 physical drives, and use a metode called striping to make one big drive out of the two of them. this connection is not only in size, but also the data is devided on both drives in the block level.
Now - if you have 2 physical drives - they will show on the system as C & D.
you said that "c" is devided to "c" and "g" which is ok. so we are left with "d" wich is the W2K Drive. were is the stripset ?
did you partitiond "d" into two and created a stripset between the two partitons ?

or is there a third physical drive ? originaly shown on the system as "e" and is striped together with "d" ?

Sorry for confusing you guys. Discount the stuff above and I'll try to explain it better. If I succeed it will be a miracle though. Got a GF3 today and have been hard at work with it for a good 12 hours and it's 3 am....*zzzzzzzzz*

Ok, I have three physical drives. Two of the physical drives are Western Digital 20 Gigabyte. The third physical drive is a Western Digital 30 Gigabyte drive.

The 30 Gigabyte drive is partitioned into two drives. The first is partition drive C: which has Win98se. The second partition drive is drive G: which is used for storage.

I have the two 20 Gig drives raided together in RAID-0. That RAID array is "Drive D:" and has Windows 2000 on it.

I can see how this could be somewhat confusing. I have three physical drives and three "partition drives." Hope this helps and I've sent out an email to joelsplace.

Now that we cleard this thing up...

what type of ide controllers do you have ?
to which controller is each of the drives connected ?
primery secundery master slave.
were is your cd rom / DVD / cd R/W ?

edited by myself to avoid confusion....I suffered a brain fart--it happens.

In Raid Level '0' - Striping the final size is the amount of all the drives that were striped together.

I am not 100% sure about Spaning - but if i am not mistaken in spaning you just combine the size of the drives you are spaning without striping the data on them.

2 X 20G will show as only 20G in to raid levels - "1" & "5" which both use miroring.
"5" is miroring and striping while "1" is only miroring.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Scuba:
[B]

I am not 100% sure about Spaning - but if i am not mistaken in spaning you just combine the size of the drives you are spaning without striping the data on them.

B]

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that's correct also you will not see any beneficial speed differences, this comes in handy when you are using drives of different sizes and want the OS to treat them as 1 huge drive. also your overall speed will be the least common denominator ( the speed of the slowest drive)

one tip I do have, change the role of the machine to network server instead of desktop computer ( I noticed that in the sandra results) it will increase performance a bit.

carefully reading what you have insofar as hardware this is the config I would use. anyone is free to disagree.
Stripe the 2 20 GB drives RAID 0, partition them evenly win2k on one 98 on the other. use the 30 gb drive as storage for both ( with a single partition) formatting it fat32 not so much for the win2k but so the 98 can access the drive. In my mobo (Abit VP6)I would install the 30gb drive on the secondary IDE port instead of on the RAID.

You should see a bit of a performance increase with this setup. in my honest opinion.

Budster64,

I've had that config before and for safety sake decided to put the OS's on different drives. If the RAID goes out I can still boot. Also, the 98 drive is completely stripped down with 98Lite and used almost exclusively for games which rarely need to access the disk. The 98 disk is screaming fast in the gaming area but rather lousy in day to day activities.

I tried NTFS/Dynamic Disk and won't do that again. All drives will stay FAT32.

Quote:

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In my mobo (Abit VP6)I would install the 30gb drive on the secondary IDE port instead of on the RAID.

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That's what I did. I have the 2 20 gig's on the RAID ports with individual cables. The other drives use the two other "normal" ports. The two ATAPI devices are master/slave and the 30G drive is single on its own cable.

Except for the fact that i was never maneged to get decent speed out of a IDE Raid - in any config, your confige is supposed to be Lightnining fast.

check your cabels,
check your connections,
check your drivers,
check your PSU.
this way you might be able to get little more guice out of them.

BTW - installing W2K on a Raid Drive is not recomended and can causs problems !!! (Tech666 the moderator of the main board Bios forum had a nasty thing with this type of config not long time ago). you were given warning!

ahh ok understood.

If you have it configured as you say ( let me see if I have this correct) 98 is on the 30gb drive that has a partition for the OS and a secondary partition for storage.
If so then 98 is on the C drive by default.
the C drive is not on a RAID 0 config so it's speed results will actually not be benefited by RAID 0. results on that OS for the C partition should be about normal for your drive. I can't see the images right now so I can't tell what the actual results where.
W2K, on the other hand is on the striped drives, you should have seen a better performance on these.

OK now I have a question maybe the other members can answer.

Guy/Gals: I know some drives have to have UDMA turned on by manufacturer software otherwise they actually run at say ATA33 instead of ATA66/100 could this be the case here? If I remember the test scores they almost seem normal for ATA33 but below what you would expect for 66/100.

Sorry just trying to cover all bases, I may be mistaken here. Nothing to lose by asking.

I would put everyting on the stripe set. That is the way I have it. You should be backing the stuff up anyway if you are concerned about safety. Have you tried a different benchmark? I've used HDtach on mine. I would also try removing everything but the 3 HDs and see if that helps. Sometimes other devices can slow things down with Windows. I've also had fits with sound cards doing weird things on those boards. You could remove all you extra cards too and if that fixes it start adding things in one at a time until it gets slow again. I'm also assuming that you have the latest BIOS for your MB and RAID controller. ABIT has Beta BIOSs on their FTP site. I'm using the latest one without any problems.

Budster64 -

Correct - to use the Udma66-100 you will have to install Main Board Drivers and set DMA for them.
also - normaly the raid controller will require more extra drivers of it's own. for my Asus A7V i need to install Via Drivers for the mobo and IDE controller and second driver for my promise ATA100 controller.

www.2cpu.com has a nice review of an Abit motherboard http://www.2cpu.com/Hardware/vp6/vp6_1.html
Your performance scores are inline with what they achieved. The performance problem is probably with the Highpoint Raid Controller which you are using and which the Abit board uses. Promises IDE-RAID implementation seems to perform significantly better.

You may try disabling your on board raid and installing a Promise RAID controller and seeing if your scores don't go up by 30% or more. Otherwise it looks like your system is set up correctly. I have set up a lot of raid systems... and have had NO probs running Win2k.. either Server or Pro on a RAID set.

Good Luck