Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI Nvidia RAID 0 test... great results!

[GRAFiZ]

2 x 74gig 10K Raptors...

Using my old IC7-Max3 in RAID 0 I got about 175MB/s with quite a drop near the 100gig mark... that was with a FSB of 267mhz.

Using the Nforce 4 raid controller, the results are MUCH better. At 200mhz FSB.

[DoGMaN]

Looks good a little improvement over the NF3 raid controller.

[Richard Dower]

2 x 74gig 10K Raptors...

Using my old IC7-Max3 in RAID 0 I got about 175MB/s with quite a drop near the 100gig mark... that was with a FSB of 267mhz.

Using the Nforce 4 raid controller, the results are MUCH better. At 200mhz FSB.

I have the Gigabyte Ultra board, may i ask you how you set things up?
Would it be possible to make a post and describe what steps you took to setup your RAID, in terms of BIOS, loading drivers and installing OS etc.

I plan to also RAID 2x Raptors 74GB on the nForce4 Ultra, but not a clue as to what options in the BIOS need to be enabled/disabled + this whole F6 stage...what about that and what drivers did you load at that stage etc?

[jikdoc]

using windows ide drivers over nvidia drivers i got 212 or so on nf3. with nvidia drivers i got 205. this is interesting though since i was under the impression that intel raid chips were better than nvidia, might be a reflection of the testing method though.

[Tirlista]

Could you tell me what score you get in the sandra hdd benchie?

I am using Nforce3 MSI Neo2 and I get 99mb/s with 2 74gb raptors in Raid 0. USing Nvidia drivers.

[GRAFiZ]

Could you tell me what score you get in the sandra hdd benchie?

I am using Nforce3 MSI Neo2 and I get 99mb/s with 2 74gb raptors in Raid 0. USing Nvidia drivers.

I just ran the new Sandra test and get exactly what you do... 99mb/s.

Obviously the two programs dont agree.

[GRAFiZ]

I have the Gigabyte Ultra board, may i ask you how you set things up?
Would it be possible to make a post and describe what steps you took to setup your RAID, in terms of BIOS, loading drivers and installing OS etc.

I plan to also RAID 2x Raptors 74GB on the nForce4 Ultra, but not a clue as to what options in the BIOS need to be enabled/disabled + this whole F6 stage...what about that and what drivers did you load at that stage etc?

Easy... just read the instructions to find out how to make a SATA driver disk, depending on what chipset you use.

Then at windows setup, hit F6, later when it asks for the drivers, hit S and select the first listed. Then, after that, hit S again and select the second driver listed.

Then it will load both drivers. After that it's same as always.

[DoGMaN]

I just ran the new Sandra test and get exactly what you do... 99mb/s.

Obviously the two programs dont agree.

Actually they do. Average read speed in HDTach was 99.9Mb/s. The 207 score is only burst speed.

[Tirlista]

What about with diffferent stripe sizes - would there be much difference?

[Richard Dower]

Easy... just read the instructions to find out how to make a SATA driver disk, depending on what chipset you use.

Then at windows setup, hit F6, later when it asks for the drivers, hit S and select the first listed. Then, after that, hit S again and select the second driver listed.

Then it will load both drivers. After that it's same as always.

There is actually alot more to it then this, first you have numerous BIOS options as the nForce4 Ultra chipset (same as SLI) can use a combination of IDE and SATA drives for RAID 0, RAID 1, or a combination of RAID 0+1.

You can enable and disable both IDE and SATA RAID in the BIOS, then you have an option for "Serial ATA 1" enable/disable - then underneath you have SATA 1 Primary RAID enable/disable - SATA 1 Secondary RAID enable/disable.

What does that option do?, then you have "Serial ATA 2" enable/disable.

What does Serial ATA 1 and 2 mean?, why does it have Primary and Secondary for both these items when all SATA ports are supposed be all be master.

You've got 4 SATA ports on the nForce chipset, are these set up into channels or something?

Like Serial ATA 1 = SATA port 0 (Primary) SATA port 1 (secondary)
Like Serial ATA 2 = SATA port 3 (Primary) SATA port 4 (secondary)

See i'm confused with all the BIOS options, or does Serial ATA 1 refer to the transfer speed, as in Serial ATA 1 = 150mbps, Serial ATA 2 = 300mbps??

You can see the confusion then, and the manual is usless to explain BIOS options, and it says's nothing about advance BIOS options when hitting Ctrl+F1.

[Richard Dower]

What about with diffferent stripe sizes - would there be much difference?

I generally leave it at default, not sure if 64K is default with nVidia BIOS or not, Intel BIOS is 128K and it worked fine for me. Setting up the RAID array within the NV BIOS is easy enough. The triack is understanding and configuring the BIOS correctly.

[Bourch]

I've used stripping in the past. I ended losing all my data. Now I am attempted to try again with the nforce4 an a pair of raptor (actualy own a 36gb one) or maybe a pair of seagate 7200.8 (with Command queue).
I want to know how can I lose my data if I go again with an stripping set. Could it happen with a flash bios? what about a mobo change? will I be able to keep the stripe on the controler of another mobo? I never find required info about these particular situations

[Revv23]

ive experimented with stripe size before on my 2x74gb raptors...

a couple of things ive noticed,

-64kb is my favorite stripe size, very balanced

-smaller stripes are better for random access, larger are better for reading/wrinting large amounts of data (video editing is a big benifitor of large stripes

-raid 0 is not worth the trouble imho, ive since seperated the two drives into two computers and i honestly can only tell the difference when editing with large stripes, something that slowed down other stuff for me so i didnt use large stripes anyways...

There is actually alot more to it then this, first you have numerous BIOS options as the nForce4 Ultra chipset (same as SLI) can use a combination of IDE and SATA drives for RAID 0, RAID 1, or a combination of RAID 0+1.

You can enable and disable both IDE and SATA RAID in the BIOS, then you have an option for "Serial ATA 1" enable/disable - then underneath you have SATA 1 Primary RAID enable/disable - SATA 1 Secondary RAID enable/disable

What does that option do?, then you have "Serial ATA 2" enable/disable..

Enable SATA 1, Enable primary raid, disable secondary raid, enable sata 2

What does Serial ATA 1 and 2 mean?, why does it have Primary and Secondary for both these items when all SATA ports are supposed be all be master..

it is my belief that this is the difference between the SI SATA and the NF4 SATA

You've got 4 SATA ports on the nForce chipset, are these set up into channels or something?

Like Serial ATA 1 = SATA port 0 (Primary) SATA port 1 (secondary)
Like Serial ATA 2 = SATA port 3 (Primary) SATA port 4 (secondary)
.

no they are all master, though when running raid i would run all of the cables from the same "group" of SATA plugs, perhaps on group is labeled as primary?

See i'm confused with all the BIOS options, or does Serial ATA 1 refer to the transfer speed, as in Serial ATA 1 = 150mbps, Serial ATA 2 = 300mbps??

You can see the confusion then, and the manual is usless to explain BIOS options, and it says's nothing about advance BIOS options when hitting Ctrl+F1.

Perhaps the SATA 2 option means this, just leave it on unless you have issues.

Good luck/