Slow raid problems. Help configuring plz.

[markjohnson]

I have 2 36g raptors in raid 0 64/16 or maybe 64/4 can't remember and can't figure it oiut in windows where to find out.

 

anyway, I normall get 100+ on my HDTach scores and now only get around 80ish. Not sure what is different since my last windows reinstall about 2 months ago. Just noticed my suystem has been laggy.

 

I'm going to hook up my hitachi 80-g sataII drive and try to backup my current windows install and do some more testing/reconfiguring.

 

anyone have a suggestion on how to do this so I don't have to reinstall windows all over again? I have alcohol 120% but it seems to work on dvd only amd not the hard drive. anyone know of a good image maker/restorer?

 

-=Mark=-

[Reinvented]

You should set your striping size to 16k. 64 is optimal...which isn't the best per se.

 

Visit the off topic section here at DFI-street, and look at the Hard drive and benchmark sticky.

[markjohnson]

well, I looked at the thread. a coiple pages anyway. 52 pages are too many for me - hehe

 

I will try the 16k/16k or maybe the 16k/4k

 

Now, I need a way to make an image of my hard drive and a way to restore it. any suggestions?

[Reinvented]

Fresh installs are best.

[Monk0101]

How much of the 72GB of the array is used. If you have over 50% used then it would not be unusual to see your benchmarks drop. Also, if the disks are badly fragmented, that can have an affect.

 

As far as stripe vs cluster, a 1 to 4 ratio seems to work best for me. I have had good luck with custer of 4 and stripe of 16 or custer of 8 and stripe of 32. Play with it and see what works for you.

 

As far as what stripe/cluster sizes you have now, there may be other ways to tell, but Everst can tell you the cluster size. To find the stripe, Hit f10 or whatever gets you into the raid setup when you are booting. You should be able to see the stripe size there. Just don't change anything and then exit after you find it.

[ww2]

When you set another stripping/cluster size, do you have to format all over again? How do you set the cluster size? Is 16/4 (stripping and cluster, respectively) the best setting?

[suspekt]

I think you have to format the whole array to change the striping size. To change cluster size, you have to format the partition(s) in Windows or whatever OS u are using. You cannot change cluster size on the system partition without having to reinstall tho

 

Btw im running 4x74GB Raptors in RAID 0 with Stripe size 64kb and cluster size 4kb, and I'm getting 113Mb/s in sequential read and 227MB/s burst read.

 

Looking back now, I should have gone with stripe size/lenght of 16kb instead of "Optimal"/64kb. The thing was, I couldn't get either Windows install, or Windows Disk Management to recognize the RAID array with stripe of 16kb... very strange. Tried to recreate the array, write zero's to the indivual disks (ala "killdisk") etc... nothing worked, except when I created it with Optimal/64kb stripe size, it was recognized everywhere and is now functioning as expected.

 

 

[ww2]

I also have 64 kb stripe lenght here... where do you check the cluster size?

[ww2]

Hum, I'm getting 220.7 mb/s burst speed. Is it ok for my config (see signature)?

[suspekt]

ww2:

 

Yes, 220.8mb/s should be good for 2 drives. I think your sequential will be lower, especially at the end of the platters with those disks.

 

I don't know where to check cluster size, maybe with Everest Home? (think I remember someone writing about this is some other thread). If you never changed cluster size for your partitions, they will be 4kb, which is standard Windows/NTFS cluster size.

[ww2]

Ok, then it's 4 kb.

 

Indeed, the sequential graph line gets down at 160 gb or so.

 

I also did the ATTO benchmark. My read and write speeds didn't even surpass the 100 mb/s mark. Is that normal for such drives?

[suspekt]

I think so. I think read and write is about 55-65mb/s with those drives running single so ~100mb/s with 2 drives should be correct.