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I have a DFI nf4 Ultra-D with 2x 36gb 1st gen Raptors in a Raid 0. They are on the nf4 chipsets raid controller for clarification.
Recently I saw a thread on raid 0 performance and I was notcing that EVERYONE was getting better performance than me, and I was wondering why.. anyway here is a picture of the HD tach run I did.
If anyone has any ideas on how to improve performance id be glad to hear it.
what the strip size?
I knew that question was coming. TBH im not sure. I just set it to the defualt in the raid bios setup. If you can tell me where I can find out I would gladly do so.
When I was setting mine up, the default was around 2K or 4k - which is pathetic IMO, 32K minimum for me 64k is preferred.
Brian, the default stripe size for the nVRAID is 64k, which is too much. For you and performance, 16k is best, and the lowest.
Really? My DFI board defaulted to 16k but I found better loading times in BF2(which is what I wanted Raid for) with 64k. Not tried 32k or anything below 16. Dunno about all the tech stuff with HD's tbh...maybe I could improve my setup?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/hd.jpg
Thats with 2 Samsung SATA spinpoints in Raid 0. I would have thought something was wrong with your raid setup maxxracer coz your Raptors should stomp all over my Spinpoints, they already do with random access but not average read or burst speed which is odd.
MaxxxRacer do you use the nforce raid or the Silicon Image raid ?
Raptors dont stamp all over SATA2 RAID, but slightly better.
Thinking has it that the best stripe size depends on the kind of files ya generally work with. Smaller stripe sizes can be useful with 3 or 4 drives?
@Ic3man, my RAID performance is very close to yours with the same 2 drives...reassuring, innit? :)
Do dual-cores help RAID performance?
My board also defaulted to 16K which is the setting I used.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7523/hdraid1xe.png
Honestly, i don't really know how to improve your HD performance other than defragging with Diskkeeper, changing stripe size or perhaps changing Sata ports.
After you ran HD tach you can click "compare another drive" .
Comparing my single 73Gb Raptor to 2x 36Gb Raptor in raid 0 shows that your performance is a lot less than the one in the graph.
EDIT: I just checked it and sure enough its 64k stripes.. ohwell.
its the nforce raid.Quote:
Originally Posted by cupra
I used to use diskeeper but I found the service it used always crashed and never came back again. would have to reformat to fix it.. after i got tired of that I switched to O&O defrag which is WAY better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeus
Indeed your performance is WAY better than mine.
i just benched mine with a half full stripe and no defrag at average of 128mbps....
which im very happy with :D
Try changing it with this program:
http://img433.imageshack.us/img433/9261/pm9lj.jpg
16K is the fastest setting for me.
Cool, I have partition magic but I always thought that changing the blocksize would mean re-formatting, true? Don't want to thread jack but....which block size does everyone recommend for gaming?
16k i think
hmm was thinking of doing raid 0 with my next build. But would I be better off with a 74gb raptor?
my 2 raptors rock in raid 0
No need for re-formatting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ic3man
But better be safe than sorry, so make a backup of your important data.
Silly question, but have you tried different cables? I have resolved RAID problems before simply by changing to better cables.
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/2...hrun6ql.th.jpg
I'm using 16K stripe on my 2x36GB Raid 0 raptors (using Nforce controller on a DFI SLI DR Expert) on WinXP SP2:
http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/9...d0ambso9wk.png
So yours results seems a bit too low.
PD: I see some high access times out there... ! (your is good)
This sort of leads me to believe it's an onboard SATA RAID controller.
Everyone that posted in this thread with their awesome results (meaning where their results should be), mind telling me when you purchased your DFI board and what bios it came with when it shipped?
I'm starting to believe that the older boards such as Max's and mine are older. Hence, poor RAID performance due to age of chipset.
Last week, I had just RMA'ed my two Hitachi drives because they were having piss poor performance. And my board is pretty old as well. Purchased in April of 2005.
Mine is an original revision board and my results are double Maxxx's but I have 4 Raptors, so its hard for me to say whether his is bad or not as I'm at the point where onboard is not showing anymore positive results, but my opinion is stripe size on Maxxx's setup. I personally use 16k and have for a while, regardless of benchs in real world situations it seems to be faster for me at the expense of cpu util%. Others will always argue that higher stripes are better. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...7&postcount=31
Then again I learned alot from this thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=97422
I had poor RAID 0 performance as well. My single 74GB Raptor runs faster than my two 36GB in a RAID 0. I left the RAID settings to default.
I just ran the latest version of partition magic (god forsaken symantec bought out the prog) and it says the block size is 4kb.. so thats wrong and I'm not about to bork the array by chaning the block size with a prog that cant even read the block size correctly.
EDIT: just thought about it. Its looking at the block size not the stripe size.. It cant change the stripe.. so this is useless.. I created an image with norton ghost (this is the greatest number of norton apps ive ever installed) and will fix the array with 16k stripes and then plop the image back in the raid.
If you do end up redoing things in the future, another performance booster is to set the HD cluster size in windows to the same size as your stripe. You do need antother temporary boot disk to accomplish this however.
Like UGP, I never got my 2x36 raptors to really perform like Id hoped so I switched to a single 74gb raptor. Same storage space, Less noise, less power, faster overall.
Tell me more! From the looks of it i can change that with the aformentioned utility.Quote:
Originally Posted by LexDiamonds
Using PM, you can easily change the block or cluster size to match the RAID stripe size without re-formatting your drives.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
After you've made the change using PM, run Windows Disk Defragmenter. Once complete, select the report option. The report will list the cluster size which should match the RAID stripe size for best performance. 16K appears to be the best size for my use.
Brian, Ghosting a drive might not work so well with RAID. I'll show it to you a bit later.
ok.. just send me a PM if u want to jump on AIM.
what i was thinking I might do is to load up a quick install of windows (nlite special) and then slap the ghost image on top of that giving me all my settings back.
thanks for the heads up Premmer. I will do that after the reformat and stripe size change..Quote:
Originally Posted by Premmer
EDIT: well it looks like Ghost is out of the picture. It keeps BSOD'ing whenever I run the bootable disk.. so I would have to isntal windows again and then run ghost to bring back my current install. .the question is will it be able to write over the windows folder while windows is running???
Yeah, that was the thing with RAID and ghosting drives mentioned in tech docs of the nvidia media shield/raid.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
For your sake I hope I'm wrong but I suspect that there will be conflicts between current install Ghost or Acronis True Image load points and the new RAID stripe/block size.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
If it does load, Ghost or Acronis True Image may default drive block/cluster size to a lower value but that would be easily correctable using PM.
Good Luck!
with RAID Ghost does not work too well, but Acronis True Image works, you can download the 14 day demo and use it, that should be enough time to do whatever you have to accomplish
Reinvented, the tech doc actually said that it will BSOD if u have raid? that is total bullocks. what kind of POS software is this.. well its exactly what i thought it would be.. lol.. leave it to symantic to create useless software.
thanks for the heads up hassan.. does it come with a bootable disc so that I can reload the OS without having to re-install windows?
Which Ghost are you using? I have Raid 0 as well and 64k size, but I have never tried using ghost to back it up as I dont have a floppy drive.
I guess I should try it since I bought the same program
Ghost 10.05
yes after you install it from windows you have the option to make a rescue disk if I remember correctly, moreso it has a clone disk option if you have a blank ide, it'll setup the boot to ide instead of raid and back and forth, I've used it many times when i upgrade my array, add a disk, remove a disk, what have you
hmm.. So I can slap in my my spare 80gb IDE drive and have it dump the OS to there and then back again to the array after I fix it?
exactly, thats what I do. clone to raid--->ide, switch boot priority, rebuild raid stripe whatever, then boot with ide switch ide--->raid, voila complete... and best of all you have a perfectly bootable functioning ide drive to boot up with incase of failure.
If you install a spare 80G drive you don't need anything other that PM. Just boot on the floppies and copy your current OS to the spare drive. I do frequently as a backup routine and it works flawlessly. It's also extremely fast as compared to Ghost. No need to do any formatting as PM will copy from your saved OS.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
After you have your OS on the spare drive, run the PM cluster resizing option and select 16K. Verify that copy is error-free.
Use the F10 option to delete/create a new 16K stripe/block size array. Boot to PM and copy your saved OS partition on your spare drive to your RAID array on the Raptors.
If you do encounter errors it's probably due to mismatchs in your saved file allocation tables vs the new RAID 16K size. The only fix that I'm awhere of is a total reload of all your SW.
That sounds like a huge risk... I would stick with Acronis True Image, remember when you boot with a floppy, can you still see your drive without raid drivers loaded, ntfs partitions? I don't own any floppy drives so all my techniques revolve around bootable cd's and usb drives.Quote:
Originally Posted by Premmer
Check your PMs maxxxx. Youre setup :toast:
I'll stick with Hassans idea.. safer I think.
The risk of losing his current OS can be eliminated by coping (2) images to his spare 80G drive. One image would be reloaded after he resizes the RAID to 16K. The second copy would be used if he does encounter errors which I suspect is likely whether he uses Ghost, TI or PM for the reason previously noted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hassan
Why would I need two anyway? If I have one and I just keep it intact on the 80gb spare drive everything will be fine.
Performance with different stripe sizes.
Hardware used:
DFI NF4-SLI
2x36GB Raptors
NVidia RAID controller
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7659/hdtune3wa.png
http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/6089/pcmark4kt.png
for what its worth PC mark is a pretty freaking useless HDD benchmark.
Kinda funny how PCMark and the other program are at COMPLETE odds with eachother.. in PCMark 32k is the fastes while with the other 32k is the slowest.. by ALOT.
anyway, I just reformated the array and I am using a 16k stripe with 16k clusters. performance is where it should be.
The wierdest thing is that right now Im on the clone 30gb spare drive right now.. VERY wierd to do a straight copy.. it works fine, but I think it has some regisytry issues because Photoshop CS2 was complaining that it needed me to reactivate it.
Looking at a few other users like krampak I see that my setup still lacks a bit in performance. Not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with the mobo.
well the 1st gen raptors are nothing compared to current gen sata2. you might want to consider upgrading your hard drives
here's 1st gen raptors vs 2nd gen raptors plus multiple drive raid0
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...aptor74&page=1
if you want to keep your 1st gen raptors get 2 more and use them in a 4x raid0 array.
The first copy would have the cluster size set at 16K. The second copy would have the original cluster size.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
Also if you do use the spare drive/PM method, it is imperative that the spare drive be disabled in the BIOS or the power connector removed before you boot into Windows. Failure to do so will cause Windows to register the drive as an additional non-bootable storage device which renders that image useless for future restore operations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Premmer
Well its already done. I didnt disconnect it, but it isnt useless. I have a tool that will restore the MBR and make it bootable again.
SATA2 doesnt do jack for performance unless your running a server and the drive fully supports NCQ (and I havnt seen a good SATA2 implimentation of NCQ). The only use SATA 2 has for raw performance is with the RAM drives.Quote:
Originally Posted by safan80
anyway, while I would love 2x150gb raptors or even the 74g's its not worth the money to me. (not that I have it currently)
When I ran 36G Raptors RAID my average and burst values were quite close to yours. Don't expect to achieve 74G Raptor performance.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
Did you use TI? Did you boot with the spare drive enabled?
Hmm i didnt know 36gb raptors were that slow in raid :confused:
Anyway here are mine hitachi 2x120 sata in raid 0 using 16K stripe
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8014/raid03co.jpg
I just went through the mess of convertion the drive to 16k blocks. Found out that my previous efforts had failed and that it was still 4k. This should improve read and write performance, but it didnt seem to demonstrate itself as such when I ran HD tach.
go into device manager and make sure drives look like this...
http://s2.supload.com/thumbs/default/hd.JPG
I have found w/WD drives they like 16K and 32K stripe sizes...
Nice boost in burst speed thx for the tip Grinch :toast:
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/741...243mbis0su.jpg
It's awful long winded, but I just tested NV Raid and Sil3114 controllers on a DFI Venus. Tested Single drives, 2 and 3 drive RAID 0 arrays, SATA 1 Raptors vs SATA 2 16M cache WD2500KS, effects of various stripe/cluster combinations, NV vs Sil3114, effects of "Read Cache" Enabled/Disabled, the effects of "Command Queing" enabled/disabled, with screenshots (73) using HD Tach, ATTO, HD Tune, and Everest Disc Benchmark.
I'm certainly not an expert but you may find the screenshots very interesting as well as helpful. http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?showtopic=21897
I did this as it was recomended on dfi-street and did a before and after and noticed and increase in speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grinch
for what its worth, ATTO is a better benchmark than HDtach, i usually run it 3 times cause every time it can be significantly different.
Sata two only makes a difference on Huge raid 0 arrays (4+ drives) as well as with Burst speed.
Grinch. thanks for the tip. I will re-bench the next time I restart to see if it helped.
Incase no one bothered to tell you, nice write up bro!Quote:
Originally Posted by soundx98
:toast: Thanks man, teacher gave me a "T" for time consuming on it :)
Its not that they're slow in RAID its that NVRAID sucks ass compared to a hardware RAID controller.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shark-357
http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?i...rmaxlineii.jpg
Does 10.05 have these parameters?Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
-ffx -fni
I had to turn those on using Ghost 2003 to identify RAID arrays on the DFI.
I've had this happen with Windows XP activation too, when moving images between arrays and single drives.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
heres my 74gig raptors on my a8r32-mvp
http://www.spikehorns.com/pix/uliraid0.JPG
this is what I am getting on a 16K/16K raid 0 setup with my 2 wd 150 raptors on nvraid:
http://s2.supload.com/thumbs/default/raidraptors.jpg
Grinch what do you mean by 16K/16K - what second number stands for ?
Also where other drives are catching up and surpassing the transfer rate of first gen raptors, their random access and seek times are still quite excellent
For setting up your stripe size you might want to check http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic1596.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
Quote:
I may have discovered a formula for determining an appropriate stripe size.
If you go into XP disk defragmenter and click on Analyze for your array, it should return a value of the average file size.
Take this number, and divide it by 2 x # of harddrives in the array, then round DOWN to the nearest available stripe size you can choose.
Let's assume that the average file size on your harddrive is 512Kb.
Divide that by a factor of the above calculated number. In my case, I have 4 harddrives in my array, so I would choose 8.
So, 512Kb divided by 8 = 64K (the optimal stripe size for my average files).
Let's say you had 2 harddrives in the array, then using the above formula, you would choose 128K stripe size.
This is contingent on whether you are just storing data and seldom using it or are actively using the data. If just storing Data, then put the operating system on it's own harddrive, not on the array. OS=small stripe size, data=big stripe size in your case.
Another important OVERLOOKED factor is the Cluster Size of the formatted harddrives.
In my humble opinion, I would set the cluster size for 1/2 of the stripe size when formatting. This should reduce disk fragmentation and can appreciably decrease drive maintenance.
I have done several experiments, and smaller stripe sizes for the OS can make it really fly! But with smaller stripe sizes, you also have to defragment daily (not my cup of tea). Personally, I am using a 64K stripe with a 32K cluster. My fragmentation is pretty normal as opposed to a single harddrive. And I wouldn't suggest going with any stripe size less than 8K - you go from extreme speed at first to a snails pace in a few hours of heavy use, without defragmentating. Highpoint can let you go lower than that, and up to 2048Kb if desired.
It works quite nicely except on boot up, but that could be the umteen things I have running...
I would experiment further, but I wore out my XP disk and had to buy another one - lol. And Microsoft doesn't like it when you have to keep activating numerous times for your experiments.
To the guy with the MP3's and such, I suggest the following combination -
4Mb average filesize = 512 stripe size
Cluster size when formatting under XP should be 1/2 x 512 or 64K cluster size (max cluster size allowed under XP).
This should give you very nice performance and you shouldn't have to defragment too often.
By all means, email me. I would love to hear how well this works for you.
I was meaning the proformance of current sata2 based hard drives like the seagate 7200.9 series drives with 16MB cache in a raid0 setup and the not sata2 standard. However, speaking in terms of the standard the sata2.5 standard has hotplug and staggered spin up the latter which is useful when your dealing with a lot of drives. a good controller card is also worth getting because the nv controller doesn't have any onboard cache. I'm using an areca pci-express sata2 controller card in my other system and it is very fast to say the least.
you want to see large fast arrays go to http://forums.2cpu.com/ in the storage section.
that is the purpose of diskeeper on a raid array, quick dfrags, cpl of mins, and an automated function to allow daily defrags at low usage times.
well If I ever happen upon a good amount of spare cash, I will get one the areca cards (from what I've seen of that card it blows the socks off other PCIE STA cards) and run a 3x150gb raptor array. But until then I will stick with the onboard SATA.
and wow.. some guys is running 8x 150gb raptors in a raid array... thats absolutley insane..
EDIT: after that tweak the burst went to 204mb/s and the cpu utilization went in half.. an excelent tweak if u ask me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
WHERE!!!
yah those areca cards are nice, especially the ones with onboard memory.:slobber:
In my device manager all the boxes are ticked... Should I untick the two that aren't in your screen shot?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grinch
No leave them alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmay
leave write caching enabled
and bios select transfer mode enabled
:confused: Well thats strange, My results are:
32K stripe, 8K cluster - 2 x Seagate 80GB's on nForce4 Chipset.
"4 Ticks": 220.8MB/s
"2 Ticks": 235.5MB/s
**edit**: Im about to ghost my setup and change to 64K stripe as I feel that works best for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
np...:woot:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmay
after doing a bunch of reading...the doing a bunch of tests this is what gave me best results on nforce4 chipset....there is a performance hit when NCQ is enabled as well as read caching...with read caching disabled it gives a more accurate picture...with NCQ disabled to get more speed out of it unless it is a multiuser environment....
here are some links:
http://www.storagereview.com/article...500ADFD_8.html
http://www.storagereview.com/article...500ADFD_4.html
http://www.storagereview.com/article...500ADFD_6.html
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:...s&ct=clnk&cd=4
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&cd=17
A link would be nice!:DQuote:
Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer
go here and lookQuote:
Originally Posted by Vassili
http://forums.2cpu.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26
Bloody awsome work, thanks Grinch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grinch
he doesnt give any perfomrance benches because the areca is dropping the drives all the time and he cant get the setup stable... but here is the link
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=74379
A BIG thanks to everyone who has helped me solved the issue of my crappy RAID 0 performance!
Thx for the tweaks...helped me!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/hd2.jpg
np....while back I had an obsession with raid and went crazy with it...now it is water cooling...LOL....:woot: :toast: :clap: :banana:
10+ ms random acces time :confused:
I would just get a new HDD.
10+ ms random access time is slooooooooooooooooooow
unless raptors...about right...:toast: :woot:
Raptor performance seems rather weak for a 10k drive even if its a 1st gen, heres my drives in my sig compared.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...an/compare.jpg
the raptors have nearly half the burst speed.
This is what I get with 4x 150gb raptors on raid=0 (nforce)
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/2...tach2871kx.jpg
EDIT--
HOLLY CRAP!
I applied the tweaks and look what I got:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9...ewindow9xw.jpg
WOW! That's big difference! Hope these settings are safe. Well...we see.
KK, let me get this straight, you have 4 Raptors In RAID 0, yet you only beat me by 2MB/ps
Quote:
Originally Posted by Delirious
if that is the 36gig version that is about right...
Quote:
Originally Posted by SamHughe
Glad to see some tweaking helped ya out...:woot: :toast: :banana: :clap:
hows this for a single 74 raptor + areca controller? on msi nf4 sli x16..
64KB stripe/4KB cluster
i take it dat aint so good for a 74 raptor?
read all the replies but still confused on wats better? 16kb/16kb? 32kb/32kb? 64kb/64kb?
Wow thats some impressive numbers, cpu utilization is pretty high though. you spent $1000? on HDD's, now u should get an areca controller and watch those babies fly.
yah i know, just most people think 10k drive = fast which isnt always the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grinch
One drive on a raid controller? why?Quote:
Originally Posted by NapalmV5
Looks about right for that drive.
oh.. its just temporary.. ill be going for 2/4 raptors shortly..Quote:
Originally Posted by Delirious
tnx!
I disabled TCQ and Cached Reads and improved my read speeds by about 40 mb/s but NCQ is greyed out in my device manager, is there a reason for that?
BTW this is 4 x 36G Raptors 16k stripe default block, very nice improvement, thx guys
All this raid talk makes me want to get more HDD's and a good controller.:mad:
The more the merrier :DQuote:
Originally Posted by NapalmV5
I think it's because 36G raptors don't have NCQ. If I remember correctly, NCQ was first implemented with 74G versions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hassan
I think I should.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delirious
Thanks dude!!! :toast:Quote:
Originally Posted by Grinch
yeah that's right they implemented NCQ with SATA I, as opposed to conforming to full SATA II spec
I think only the 150 has NCQ
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trice
Correct!:woot:
Quote:
Originally Posted by NapalmV5
Seems to be about right for 74giger....16/16 is really better if you use alot of smaller files like everyday (normal use) surf the web..write emails..word/excel...etc....as the stripe and cluster get bigger you will lose some bytes doing smaller stuff but it is marginal...if you are into heavy graphic rendering and unraring big file then a larger stripe (32,64,128) along with matching cluster sizes will help do those tasks better....I have found that 16/16 shows better benchmarks....personally I use 16/16....looks bada$$ in benchmarks...but if I start compiling and decoding large files again I will move up to 32/32 or 64/64....there is a hella easy way to change the default cluster size without any 3rd party software:
The "EASIEST" way to change your cluster size is to have a 3rd drive with Win XP on it....here is what you need to do.
1. Have 3rd drive with Win XP
2. Go to bios and change boot order to 3rd drive b4 Raid
3. Once in windows goto "Disk Management" (as soon as you click on it you will have a window pop up and ask you to select drive and it will also want to know if you want to convert drive to a dynamic disk...I always choose no)
4. You will see your raid drives as 1 BIG drive..now all you do is right click on the drive and click partion...primary partition...set size...now is where you can choose cluster size...you will have 3 boxes to check off...
5. NTFS or FAT32...Volume Label....Cluster Size......
6. After you check all of that off then you click off quick format and Voila...you have done it now do same on rest of drives....
7. once you have setup all your partitons and selected cluster sizes...shutdown PC unplug 3rd drive...change boot order so CD rom will be a bootable device b4 raid device and you are good to go on a clean install....remember once you get into the window when setting up XP you have choices to format drives again and choose where XP get sinstalled ...choose to leave as is...no need to format again cuz it will default to 4k cluster again.....
let me know how this goes for ....I have been doing this trick now for a VERY LONG time and I know for a fact that this is a fast and easy way...without using any 3rd party software.....
Hassan, looking at your graph there, you would GREATLY benefit from an Areca card... alot of untapped potential in those HDD's with the nvidia raid system. it seems to only be able to effectively handle 2HDD's.
hehe funny you say that Maxxx, I am on the lookout for one as my next upgrade, figure it would be ideal as I could move my array from rig to rig without worries. I sold my 3ware card a few months back and really miss hardware raid. i have a couple of new sata II 160G drives I wouldn't throwing into a nice array also... just 500 beans is alot