Raptor RAID0

[exdeath]

I'm working on optimizing a new system I just built. I have 2 WD740GD raptor drives on the silicon image RAID controller on the K8NSNXP-939 in raid 0 with a 32k block size. Im only getting 85 MB/s !!!!!!

And average seek time 11 ms? WTF!

What gives?

I expected at least over 100 MB/s ?

That was easily done with my SCSI Cheetah X15 array with 2 drives, and everyone is saying the Raptors are just as fast if not faster for desktop performance.

So where is this magical 'performance' ?

 

[DaFinn]

Originally posted by: exdeath
I'm working on optimizing a new system I just built. I have 2 WD740GD raptor drives on the silicon image RAID controller on the K8NSNXP-939 in raid 0 with a 32k block size. Im only getting 85 MB/s !!!!!!

And average seek time 11 ms? WTF!

What gives?

I expected at least over 100 MB/s ?

That was easily done with my SCSI Cheetah X15 array with 2 drives, and everyone is saying the Raptors are just as fast if not faster for desktop performance.

So where is this magical 'performance' ?

Raptors in RAID0 as fast as 15K Cheetahs in RAID0... who ever told you that should be castrated!

 

[DaFinn]

Raptors in RAID @ Storagereview

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Another RAID review in our beloved AT

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[exdeath]

Yeah 2 WD740GD = 126 MB PCI limited

Far cry from 85 MB/sec

 

[exdeath]

And for some reason one drive shows 70911 MB and the other is 70910 MB

uuh huh....

I figure I should be getting somewhere around 120 MB/sec with nothing else on the PCI bus.

 

[DJFuji]

in my experience, extended transfer rates never came close to the "burst" transfer rates or ceilings.

 

[exdeath]

Hmm updated drivers and everything else...still no go.

Anyone else have the K8NSNXP-939 and RAID0 WD740GD Raptors?

It's consistent 85 MB/sec, it needs to be between 100 and 133 MB/sec before I will be satisfied.

Still using the silicon image controller. The whole BIOS on this board is slow as 5hit and hangs or takes like 2 minutes on IDE detection and the nvidia RAID will hang at 'detecting' arrays, I finally got it working by plugging the drives into the SI controller instead, but 85 MB/sec will not do considering thats not much faster than a single Raptor.

This is the first time I've bought a system board that isn't Asus and I am extremely pi55ed off here. I wanted a nForce3 Ultra rather than the K8T800, and Asus doesn't one and MSIs Neo2 isn't out.

Asus A8V is looking pretty good right about now...

 

[exdeath]

Originally posted by: DJFuji
in my experience, extended transfer rates never came close to the "burst" transfer rates or ceilings.

Well I know for fact from several other benchmarks around the web, ie: storage review, that 2 WD740GD raptors can saturate the PCI bus by themselves and can expect around 120 MB/sec.

 

[exdeath]

Is Sandra just junk?

This is more like it:

http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/raid.jpg

I figure the missing 20 MB is PCI protocol overheard, interrupts, sound, NIC, OS context switch overhead, etc. the same reason we never get 6.4 GB/sec out of dual channel PC3200


And here is my memory bench. I had it up to 6304 MB/sec before just playing around and I didn't record it. This is all stock without overclocking. The ram is Corsair 3200 XLPT in a nForce3 Ultra socket 939 board with a FX53:

http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/mem.jpg

 

[GoSharks]

you were using sandra? hahahahahah that is a POS.

 

[sharkeeper]

http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/raid.jpg

That is a pair of 740G's striped?

That's a very good result. I see no problems here.

Carry on!

 

[CarrotStick]

Originally posted by: exdeath
Is Sandra just junk?

This is more like it:

http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/raid.jpg

I figure the missing 20 MB is PCI protocol overheard, interrupts, sound, NIC, OS context switch overhead, etc. the same reason we never get 6.4 GB/sec out of dual channel PC3200


And here is my memory bench. I had it up to 6304 MB/sec before just playing around and I didn't record it. This is all stock without overclocking. The ram is Corsair 3200 XLPT in a nForce3 Ultra socket 939 board with a FX53:

http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/mem.jpg

You will never get 6.4gb out of your memory because your memory must be refeshed all the time and during refreshing the system can not read or write to it. Where do you think memory timing comes from....Exp, 2-3-3 timings... the less time the memory needs to be refreshed the more time it has to be read and written to hense the slight higher bandwith of memory with fast timing.

 

[exdeath]

Ok, 118 MB/sec is about all I can get out of it. I've been messing with priorities on the benchmark and finding a balance between ATTO and OS (too high a priority on the app and the file system manager and disk driver get starved and can't serve the requests!).

I bet I could closer to 130 MB/sec if I removed all other PCI devices and disabled the ones on board.

Eitherway, It's alot better than 85 MB/sec ...

Time to install everything else now that I know I don't have to change the array settings or anything

 

[exdeath]

Originally posted by: CarrotStick

You will never get 6.4gb out of your memory because your memory must be refeshed all the time and during refreshing the system can not read or write to it. Where do you think memory timing comes from....Exp, 2-3-3 timings... the less time the memory needs to be refreshed the more time it has to be read and written to hense the slight higher bandwith of memory with fast timing.

I thought that might be part if it also, but I wasn't sure if advertised bandwidth is total or useable or if it included DRAM refresh, etc. Either way, my highest score of 6304 MB/sec 98% of the total so thats close enough for me