Getting RAID to work on the ASUS Maximus SE

[Talonman]

I would say just keep it simple, less headache in the long run for a little bit of performance gain.

I have been running my 2x 74GB Raptors in Raid 0 for a long time with np. I ran the same tests that you guys have just posted and mine is pretty spot on for your results. The only problem I have with mine is it is a very dirty system that has been up and running for 8 months or so, a good clean up or reinstall would clean up the spikes.

I am unclear as to what services I would need to disable to get things faster, nor do I really want to get into all that for a small performance gain.

I have also noticed with my SSD Raid that I get different readings from each program, with Everest being what I believe to be the closest to what it should be. There also seems to be a performance hit when running Vista over XP, at least from the graph DVnation sent me on XP vs my system and Vista. I also seemed to see a bit of difference from Vista 32 vs 64, that could be my Raid card tho.

In the end I think it is hard to bench a Raid that has a system running on it, because the OS is always trying to do things while you are benching.

I will be installing another 4x Raptor's to make another Raid 0 for my ARC-1231, just to fill out all Raid slots but it will be awhile for that. I want to get the system cooled and OC'd before I do much more. I might change out Motherboards also when the DreadNaught comes out, gezz who knows Ha !

Good to hear your opinion Buckeye, I am locking into my current config. I favor simple.

I just feel better understanding that I probably am never even dipping down below 140MB/sec, even though my average transfer rate was 132.5 MB/sec on the benchmark. The un-used slower half of the array lowers your score.
I also have a respectable burst rate of 1,861.0 MB/sec.

I love RAID!

[maxstep]

hey guys.
what are the actual chances of raid-0 failure?
(using maximus raid controller under vista x64)
i've been using mine for half a year without any problems, but i'm still kinda worried about data..

[Talonman]

I think it depends on your HD's.

I had one Raptor only live a few hours after I set RAID up the first time. I did an RMA and here I am again.

You might want to go for a backup if you are worried about your data.

I like going from my RAID array to another HD myself. Works fine, and I did expect my 103GB of RAID data, to use more than 38GB's of disk space to be successfully backed-up.

[maxstep]

well now I have 2xWD 500gb in raid-0. we had a great relationship of half a year.
tomorrow I'm getting Samsung Spinpoint F1 Series HD753LJ 750GB x2 and putting these babies in a raid.
and since I don't have any space to back them up to, I'm just a bit worried.
Well. I understand that if I am that much worried about data, i shouldnt go for raid at all, but I love raid0 performance..
So just wanted to hear an educated opinion on the chances of my data parting with me.
And if, if raid degrades for some reasons (what are the biggest threats?) is the data done for, or is there a way?
Thank you for info ^^

[Talonman]

BTW - 2xWD 500GB Drives in RAID-0 is some real 'Shere Animal Storage' for a 2 disk array!!!
You probably get about 450GB's of outstanding performance!

How much storage will you have be running in your system Buckeye, after all the smoke clears?

[Buckeye]

BTW - 2xWD 500GB Drives in RAID-0 is some real 'Shere Animal Storage' for a 2 disk array!!!
You probably get about 450GB's of outstanding performance!

How much storage will you have be running in your system Buckeye, after all the smoke clears?

So far... 256GB in SSD Raid 0, perhaps Raid 5, I haven't decided yet. I am leaning towards just Raid 0.
Then for the second Raid 0 those 4x Veloci-Raptor’s sounds pretty good.

I thought the TJ07 case was pretty big, but it’s filling up pretty fast LOL !

I have a WHS with 4x WD 750GB drives running that does my backup’s so I am not too concerned if a Raid goes down. I have just not tried to do a restore from it, it could be fun
I would like to go to a Server 2008 for that but I have not run that before so no clue on how to get it all setup.

The problem is while I wait for cooling I keep changing my mind on final parts list. Next month new GPU's from Nvida gezz it's never ending LOL !

[Sparda]

First of all i not an all knew person but with due to respect I already know the 20% of the lower part and the constant I/O when you cut the array to smaller portion . So no need to post an essay to explain it...lol ~.~... The main thing is the acces time. Thus making the head stay near smaller portion of array. Btw I read that such a low level program for defragmenting wont effect your raid lot since it already fast..or maybe none ^^ But it still nice to defrag files

[Sparda]

I not an expert nor an engineer but I am here to share something and what I know but anybody can correct me if I am wrong. Okey here something about the difference of the size of your array and the effect. This are borrowed from ocforums. Thanks to my neverarrive hardware.

WD6400AAKS x 2 Intel Matrix Raid setup. HDTach 3.0.4.0 - Long bench 32mb. Both "slices" have stripe size of 64kb.

====================================
Screen shots for first slice of different sizes...aka C:
Picture No.1 --> 100GB

Picture No. 2 --> 200GB

Picture No. 3 --> 1TB

Picture No.4 --> 1,05TB
====================================
1


2


3


4

[Sparda]

Pict 3&4...Four of the RaptorX150GB in Raid 0. << from Vixx

Pict 1&2...Four of the ST3500320AS in Raid 0. << borrowed from ocforums

My conclusion. Cheap hd with small raid array kick ass but Raptor is still king of acces/seek time. Do whatever you like as long as you are happy. It your choice.



Four of the ST3500320AS in Raid 0



Four of the RaptorX150GB in Raid 0

[Buckeye]

Very Nice Sparda, Thanks !

Must read it a bit now to digest the info

[Sparda]

Buckeye since you plan to do some good stuff check this out from page 24-25. There a dude (Nostromo5) using 6 solid state gigabyte I-rams on the ICH9 on his p5k. Crazy I/O. Average read 700++. Burst 35000++. Acess 0.1ms because of the ss i-rams

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848&page=24

[Buckeye]

Buckeye since you plan to do some good stuff read this from page 24-25. There a dude (Nostromo5) using 6 solid state gigabyte I-rams on the ICH9 on his p5k. Crazy I/O. Average read 700++. Burst 38000++. Acess 0.1ms because of the ss i-rams

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848&page=24

WoW nice link, thanks !

HAHA I love how he did the iRams, just add more motherboards for more iRams hehe. If they could just make it so you could power those with regular power connectors it would be great.

Yup and I am only getting 1216.7 burst, my Raid is slacking big time HAHA

[Talonman]

Sorry Sparda, I wasen't trying to school you, more me learning out loud.
Thanks for the posted info too.

I must have RAID fever.

I already had another 250 GB Samsung drive, that is an exact match to the one I currently had installed in my system. I thought I had to reserve 2 SATA connections for my CD / DVD / HD-DVD / Blue-Ray playing needs, but it turnes out I only need one. I am getting this wonder drive to take care of it all:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...L0A-_-27136133

Now that I can fill 5 of my 6 SATA connections with HD's, my second Samsung HD just had to go in too.

This was the performance I was getting from my single Samsung drive:



Now my performance graph looks like this, for my newly created two disk RAID 0 Samsung array! Good deal...
I am officially running two arrays now...
Signature Updated!

[Buckeye]

HAHA Talonman is going Raid Crazy !!!

hehe get yourself a ARC-1231 and build more !

[Talonman]

I love it!!!

My Western Digital Caviar was the second fastest drive on my system....


Not no more.. My Sammies now smoke it... RAID Rules!!
I now am running 1,442 GB's of formatted HD space. Hehehehee

[Sparda]

Nice result.
I am sorry if you feel getting sniped. Tired last night because of a busy day...so I become bit sensitive.

[Talonman]

No problem buddy! Were good.

[Talonman]

HAHA Talonman is going Raid Crazy !!!

hehe get yourself a ARC-1231 and build more !

http://www.dealtime.com/xPO-Areca-Ar...-Kit-ARC1231ML

Wow... $700.00 bucks.

I would have to want it bad.

What is the best/cheepest card that one might consider if they wanted a few more SATA ports for running some RAID 0 arrays. (3 to 4 disk arrays max)
That might be it...

I have also made the decission to back up both of my arrays onto the Caviar. It is the only disk that is not running in an array on my system, so I guess it would be the best choice for me recovery wise.

[Mr.Guvernment]

i don't have the Asus extreme, but i have a DFI x38 and i had the issue with raid not working....

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=189633

solution(thank you jimmyz)- use an IDE optical drive = problem solved.

[Talonman]

I have two questions:

1) In case I opt for a fresh OS install today, I would want the latest Intel Chipset drivers to load after getting back up and running. If I go here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Prod...?ProductID=816

and select Vista 64 bit Ultimate, or Vista 64 bit for my OS, it tells me 'Download not available' and 'This download is no longer available'.

What is the deal??


2) If I do opt to take 50 GB off the top of my 4 150 GB Raptors, to make a speedy 200 GB C Drive, is that done at the Control-I screen?

Do I just tell it to partition the drive into (1) 200 GB section, and the remaining space into a second drive?

Will the program automatically know that I want my 200 GB partition to be on the speedy section of all 4 Raptors, then create it correctly by default?

I am thinking the answer is Yes to these questions, but just checking.

FYI - I would be getting my Matrix Storage Manager program, and the drivers from here:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filt...bmit=Go&#37;21

I think using F6 to load drivers from floppy is only for Windows XP, not sure on that... I have always loaded the drivers using the option at the bottom of the 'Where do you want to install windows screen' during Vista's install.
Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

If there are some better beta drivers I should use, speak up please!

I am up to 165GB on my C Drive, but think I could keep myself happy with 200 GB's of speedy disk space.

I know, I probably shouldn't keep so many games on my PC, but some speed is being sacrificed in the name of convenience. I can only hope taking a greedy 55 GB's off the top of a 150 GB 10,000 RPM Raptor, dosent cost me too much in the end.

Mabey I should take more like 55 GB's off of the top 4 drives, to cover the format's overhead too. I would want a true 200 GB's of free space after formatting the drive. My 2 150's gave me 279 Gb of actual formatted storage. What size should I make my C Drive, to give me a true 200 GB of formatted disk storage? I am guessing about 220 GB's.

[Buckeye]

I am just asking here.

But what does doing all that actually buy you speed wise ?
Would you even notice it with a gaming machine ?

When I did my 2x 74GB Raptors in Raid 0 I simply created the Raid and installed. But I use this machine for work and other things so maybe I don’t really notice the effects of doing things like you are doing with yours.

[Talonman]

Well, there is the fun in a speedy boot up.

Between each level of many games, there is a loading time involved. Keeping that as close to a microjiffie as possible is rewarding too.

Can I justify it, probably not.

Do I want to run 4 Raptors in RAID 0 just to have super fast disk access for a desktop gaming PC, yes.

I think insted if 1.5GB/sec, I will be enjoying closer to 3GB/sec is the bottom line.

Every time my disk light comes on, I will be thinking, Run baby run!

[Buckeye]

Well, there is the fun in a speedy boot up.

Between each level of many games, there is a loading time involved. Keeping that as close to a microjiffie as possible is rewarding too.

Can I justify it, probably not.

Do I want to run 4 Raptors in RAID 0 just to have super fast disk access for a desktop gaming PC, yes.

I think insted if 1.5GB/sec, I will be enjoying closer to 3GB/sec is the bottom line.

Every time my disk light comes on, I will be thinking, Run baby run!

You know all that is so true !

I think I have just gotten spoiled with 874GB/sec bandwidth, 0.1 access time. Just shoot me now please

[Talonman]

Yeah buddy!! We wouldn't want to get into a toy justification conversation.

My shameless purchase of 2 extra Raptors to flirt with 3GB/sec transfer rate, is nothing compared to the gear in your rig...

[brad1102]

I am just asking here.

But what does doing all that actually buy you speed wise ?
Would you even notice it with a gaming machine ?

When I did my 2x 74GB Raptors in Raid 0 I simply created the Raid and installed. But I use this machine for work and other things so maybe I don’t really notice the effects of doing things like you are doing with yours.

It's really important to do your homework before creating a raid array - especially if you are using it as your primary OS volume.

Raid is essentially using 2+ data channels to access your data instead of 1, which you can expect to at least double your data access time. This is something that can be noticed in everyday computing immediately.

Instead of accessing your data at the typical ~60-75 MB/s - you can expect 120-450+ MB/s depending on the number of drives you are using.

Be very wary of RAID-0 arrays though. I'm sure all of us have suffered a hard drive failure at some point and if ANY drive in a RAID-0 array fails - your data is gone forever - end of story. You can get around this with a RAID-1 or RAID-5 array, but you simply lose out on performance with a parity array.

A good rule of thumb is to never put anything that cannot be replaced on a RAID-0 array. A good way to get around this is to either using another hard drive for automated backups or anther RAID-5 array as a backup volume.

Another thing to watch out for are PCI raid cards which I have been using up until 2 months ago. The maximum data transfer speed of the PCI interface is a major bottleneck - although you may have a 10 disc RAID-0 array on it, the maximum transfer rate of standard PCI interface is 133 MB/s which with RAID overhead even on 2 drives is less than 100 MB/s.

The workaround is to build a RAID-0 volume using onboard RAID conrollers that allow that dedicate 1 SATA channel per drive.

On my system I have built a 5-disc RAID-0 array using:

5x Seagate 320G, 16 MB cache, 7200 RPM drive
Asus Maximus Formula motherboard
128 KB stripe size
64-bit OS for enhanced memery addressing in RAID calculations

Its important to use matched HDD's here. I have tried dissimilar drives in this configuration with lesser results. My advice is to use regular HDD's - I have used Raptors before and the performance/cost ratio simply isn't worth it unless you have waay to much money kicking around - besides the max size of these raptors is like 150G which doesn't give you a very big volume when you are all done (600-750GB vs. 1.5 TB+ ?? with a typical 6 channel onboard controller).

Below are the results with this configuration.

Most of my major computing is repairing/extracting large .rar archives that I download from newsgroups and also video processing movies using DVDShrink and Nero and the performance is simply staggering. I can rip through any movie using DVDShrink in under a minute which would take any single drive volume 5-30 minutes depending on drive and bus speeds.