Promise FastTrack 66 [Archive]

MadMax

07-22-1999, 09:32 AM

I'm hearing some good noises about that tech from a trusted friend that recently purchased one of these and a
WD drive to match. While a single drive can hardly be referred to as an "Array", he said the bugger is blindingly fast. Did some benching and said he was amazed.

I will comment about using a limited-customer base ide/ata product for a RAID array. Don't do it. RAID is for protection. Reliability is a key to protection. There is no way that anyone can know if this product is reliable under a heavy RAID load for extended durations. Particularly if you try to use the o/b controllers at the same time. I'm a pretty adventurous guy but there's no way I would try that setup with mission critical data. Get a good Ultra2 controller and buy cheaper protocol drives. Steer clear of ide in mass storage situations.

U2W not only has an "edge", it makes dma/66 look like a poor joke in a mulitple-device (RAID) environment. You could back off to Wide or Ultra and still be way ahead of any dma/66 RAID application. Look at the total throughput numbers for SCSI, my friend. IDE doesn't add 1 media sustained x-fer push-rate for 1 device to the total throughput value like SCSI does.

[This message has been edited by MadMax (edited 07-22-99).]

Stan

07-23-1999, 06:03 AM

Could not resist...
I bought the card yesterday.
I will buy 2 IBM Titan II (7200rpm, 2Mb cache). I still have to decide about the size. It will be probably 9.1 Gb...

I CAN'T WAIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zonker

07-24-1999, 05:44 AM

Hey, I just bought the plain vanilla FastTrack this morning. I'll be running stripe (Raid 0) on 2 Maxtor 8.4GB 4320's. NT and Linux.

Promise has lot's of links to folks who have tested this technology here...
www.promise.com/IDERAID/raidreviews.htm (http://www.promise.com/IDERAID/raidreviews.htm)

I looked at the Adaptec and Mylex SCSI Raid cards and their cards alone cost more than my entire RAID system will cost.

IBM had a 4 stripe set that beat a 2 stripe SCSI RAID system using Cheetas...

www.bapco.com/nt4rslt.htm (http://www.bapco.com/nt4rslt.htm)

the Fasttrack RAID is the Intellistation Z in that chart http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Windows Magazine did a test of servers as well... the winner was a system using a Promise Fasttrack RAID disk system

www.winmag.com/library/1998/1001/xeon/xeon7.htm (http://www.winmag.com/library/1998/1001/xeon/xeon7.htm)

"Its cached disk score was also notably higher than that of the other systems."

comment: The other systems included Ultra2 SCSI RAID 0 disk systems

Final thought...

I will still back up this system using DriveImage. I'm not buying RAID for security, I'm buying it for relativly cheap speed, a considerable boost over a standard IDE setup.

I'm thinking this is better and also cheaper than any 16 GB SCSI system, and dramatically cheaper than SCSI RAID.

[This message has been edited by Zonker (edited 07-24-99).]

Stan

07-24-1999, 07:16 AM

Zonker, thanks for the links, interesting...

Same for me: raid 0.
I don't need extra security as I do my backups on my server...

Can't wait to buy the HD. Still don't know if I will buy 2 or 4... rather $$$

Stan

BBA

07-24-1999, 11:59 AM

Well, heres the deal!

If you run NT and more than one drive, you can run raid 0 just by making a CVF. The only thing I see is the Promise is giving CVF with Raid 1 to regular Win9X version OS's.

I would like to see a performance difference on a sys with the same drives, once without the FastTrack card installed (ATA33) and one with it in ATA66.

With NT4 using CVF's on the rugular controller and the Fast Track using CVF's ( or stripesetting raid 0 )

Who has the required stuff?

I wonder if a difference will be seen?

BBA

[This message has been edited by BBA (edited 07-24-99).]

Zonker

07-24-1999, 02:12 PM

I tried the software RAID 0 and it does work OK.

The limitations of s/w RAID 0 include the fact that your boot partition and also the OS partition cannot be included in the stipe.

Also, I ran out of IDE/ATAPI chanels in my system, and had to run the stripe on master and slave drives on the same channel. I'm pretty sure this is not nearly as effective as using two seperate channels' master drives for the stripes.

Using the S/W RAID in NT does nothing for the other OS's installed in my system. In fact it makes the striped pair inaccessable to the other OS's which is not desirable in my opinion.

Donn Ganley

07-24-1999, 02:55 PM

will receive soon Western Digital 9.1 ATA 66 HD 7200 RPM model AC29100 and an ABIT HA66 ATA 66 controller card - I chose this controller as I'm using ABIT BX6 rev.2.0 MB - if anyone wants me to send info on this setup please let me know, regards, Donn

Scott Evans

07-26-1999, 08:56 PM

Just bought two ultra cheap Quantum CR 4.3 GB
drives to use with my old FastTrak ATA33.

They MUST be ATA66 disabled to work.

The controller used to have errors at 75 MHz bus, and not work at all at 83 MHz on the previous 430HX and VIA VP2 boards it was in, now it works fine in the SOYO 6BA+III at 41 MHz PCI speed. Go figure.

It benchmarks on par or slightly more than the AMI MegaRAID F/W SCSI card in the main system, but real world performance, especially when into the swap file, large file transfer, etc. there is no comparison- even the ancient F/W 20 MHz 4 drive single channel RAID logical drive kicks the snot out of it. Some is due to the 32 MB cache (cache is set to flush every 2 seconds so it doesn't matter much), but even with cache turned off it smokes the FastTrak.

However the FastTrak is an excellent choice for performance *on the cheap* as small newer generation drives are $75.00 or less.

The FastTrak with 2 Fireball CR 4.3's set to ATA33, RAID 0 across channels with 64KB stripe using Win98- Threadmark 2.0 score of 11.5-12.5 MB/s. (Soyo 6BA+III, 64 MB, P-II @ 416 MHz, 41 MHz PCI bus).

Stan

07-28-1999, 08:00 AM

Yeehaaa

Just received 2 IBM 22Gxp HD and the Promise FastTrack RAID card...
Can't wait to install them...

Stan

Stan

07-28-1999, 01:28 PM

Don't worry, I'll post some benchmarks.
Install is planned for Saturday.

What would you recommend to benchmark my system ?
I am currently using WinTune 98 ver 1.0.39

Stan

Bleeding Edge

07-28-1999, 02:28 PM

I guess Wintune would be a start. You would want ot bench it with something that the rest of us can compare our disk sub-systems with and still get accurate readings for your raid setup...

You can combine a couple few benches. I like HdTach for a quick burst rate transfer readings. Most benches report the the average transfer. So a combo of benches would be the way to go.

As to which ones? I'm not sure. Adaptec's Threadmark has always been highly regarded.

There are a few disk benches over here. http://www.acnc.com/benchmarks.html

Scott Evans

07-28-1999, 08:46 PM

Don't use a stripe size smaller than 64KB unless you are setting up a transaction server or something like that. Normal desktop use works best at 64KB-up. Put the 2 drives on different channels, or if four drives alternate the array on the channels- Disk 1 channel 1, disk 2 channel 2, disk 3 channel 1, disk 4 channel 2. This gives the disks time to get the next stripe ready and makes best use of the disks' on board cache.

Bleeding Edge

07-29-1999, 12:52 AM

Very interested to hear the performance details.

Await your findings with anticipation...

[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 07-28-99).]

Stan

07-29-1999, 03:15 AM

Thanks for the links/advices.

As I have 2 HD, they will be installed on IDE1 and IDE2 as masters.
I wish I could have bought 4 HD, but the prices are a bit higher in the UK than in the US. I paid 125 (incl VAT) pounds for 1 IBM 22Gxp 9.1Gb.

Stan

Stan

07-30-1999, 03:11 AM

Well well well

Win98 installed succesfully on the RAID0 config... but no joy for NT...
I probably need to download the latest drivers.
I access the NT wizard, ask to format the partition using NTFS. Then it copies the files needed for NT, reboots, then badaboum: boot sector not found !
Not funny

Will try with the newest drivers tonight.

BTW, this RAID controller is really fast. I have not benchamrked it yet under 98, but it is fast...

Stan

Stan

07-31-1999, 04:48 AM

Yehaah... install succesfull, both OS...

Benchmarks coming soone

Stan

800XL

07-31-1999, 05:59 AM

I know when I used to run a board with an MR-BIOS in it the RAID 0 feature in the bios was pretty fly. Of course, there are no win95 or win98 drivers that I know of, but I ran that setup in my DOS days. Pretty much doubled the performance of my drives at the time. Its too bad MRBIOS never got mainstream enough to get driver support out there.

Stan

07-31-1999, 09:14 AM

OK...
Here are the 1st results. The tests have been done under NT4 sp5.
Spec of my machine: PII 350, 256Mb PC100, Promise FastTrack in RAID 0 config (drivers 1.22), 2 x 9.1Gb IBM 22Gxp (2Mb cache, 7200rpm), stripe size of 64Kb.

The version of WinTune98 is 1.0.39

CPU (1) Intel Pentium II with MMX@350 MHz
Video Board Matrox Graphics Millennium G200 AGP
Video Mode 1600x1200@24bits/pixel
RAM 256 MB
OS Windows NT 4.0.1381 Service Pack 5

CPU Integer 1019.351 MIPS
CPU Floating Point 408.6801 MFLOPS
Video(2D) 64.94155 MPixels/s
Direct3D 30.33467 MPixels/s
OpenGL 9.454965 MPixels/s
Memory 621.0342 MB/s
Cached Disk 254.626 MB/s
Uncached Disk 5.31854 MB/s

NBench 2.1 results
Disk performance in Mb/s, file size 10Mb
write: 26.95
read: 29.41
Disk performance in Mb/s, file size 100Mb
write: 28.53
read: 27.35

I could not run HdTach under NT as I have to register it. So I will do the test under Win98 and post the results.

**** this Raid card is fast !

Stan

Bleeding Edge

07-31-1999, 09:41 AM

Congratulations are in order. The disk sub-system if fast. Grrreat!

You got to change the chip. It hurts the memory transfers. 450MHz should yield over 800MB/s. The vid scores seem low, but I don’t know. Never ran the bench at 1600x1200…

CMonster

07-31-1999, 10:04 AM

Thanks Stan,

It's good to know that there is an upgrade path for IDE that really works. I'm glad you shared the results with us.

Of particular interest is the "Uncached Disk" results.

Still after weighing all the alternatives I will go with SCSI in my next machine.

Stan

07-31-1999, 01:21 PM

OK, here are the final tests done under Win98, using WinTune 98 ver 1.0.39 and HD Tach ver 2.60

WinTune 98 (1.0.39)

CPU (1) Intel Pentium II with MMX@350 MHz
Video Board Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA)
Video Mode 1600x1200@24bits/pixel
RAM 256 MB
OS Windows 98 4.10.1998

Area Tested Value
CPU Integer 1014.294 MIPS
CPU Floating Point 407.9248 MFLOPS
Video(2D) 60.66676 MPixels/s
Direct3D 18.24547 MPixels/s
OpenGL 9.465129 MPixels/s
Memory 606.2049 MB/s
Cached Disk 79.46478 MB/s
Uncached Disk 5.462143 MB/s

HD Tach (2.60)

Random Access Time 11.2ms
Read Burst Speed 29.7Mbps
Read Speed Max 25097Kps
Read Speed Min 17235Kps
Read Speed Average 23401.2Kps
CPU utilization 8.7%

Conclusion: I love this RAID card !

Stan

Bleeding Edge

07-31-1999, 02:37 PM

What was the installation like on Win98?

A clean hardware/os install?

Any snags?

Gordon

08-01-1999, 03:22 AM

Do you know what the normal numbers are for those HD's without RAID?

Gordon

08-01-1999, 03:29 AM

Would four drives be even faster w/the FasTrack66, setup as RAID 0?
Would it make a difference to use one FasTrack66 with four HD's, using two as Masters and the other two as Slaves, or to use two FasTrack66's and setting up all four drives as Masters?

Stan

08-01-1999, 05:39 AM

Bleeding Edge:
It is a clean install as the HD's are brand new.
The install of Win98 was "nearly" OK.
During install, the wizard reboots the machine 3 times:
- 1st after having copied the files
- 2nd after the hardware detection
- 3rd: run Win98 for the 1st time.

Well, the machine crashes after the 2nd reboot. And it does it every single time. I re-try the Win98 install 4 times (because I had time and I wanted to see if it was going to crash always after the 2nd reboot).
I though that the PC was a bit hot (the 5 PCI slots being used). But, the CPU temp was always around 38-40 degrees Celsius.

So, the PC crashes after the 2nd reboot... I had to reset the PC, the wizard resumed and Win98 insallation was succesful...
The 1st thing to do when in 98 is to update the RAID drivers.
Apart from that glitch, the PC is stable. Not a single crash in 2 days and the PC is on 10h a day (and I play a lot of games).

WinNT install is OK (on the same PC).

Gordon:
I will test a PC with a IBM 22Gxp 13.5Gb tomorrow. It has the same spec as the one I am using appart form the size (I have 9.1Gb)
I'll post the benchmarks.

If you want to set up RAID0 with 4 disks, you can have 4 diks on one controller (2 masters or 2 slaves) or 2 controllers with 2 HD each (4 masters).
Unfortunately, the documentation I received with the RAID card does not say which one the the most effective...

Stan

Stan

08-01-1999, 05:45 AM

BTW, I will also test a SCSI PC :PII 350, IBM 9LZX U2W, 4Mb cache, 10rpm, with Adaptec 2940U2W.

Stan

Gordon

08-01-1999, 11:26 AM

Thanks.

Stan

08-02-1999, 06:57 AM

Check this out !
This is a SCSI PC (IBM 9LZX 4Mb cache U2W, with Adaptec 2940 controller)

WinTune98 1.0.39

CPU (1) Intel Pentium II with MMX@351 MHz
Video Board SiS 6326
Video Mode 1024x768@24bits/pixel
RAM 128 MB
OS Windows NT 4.0.1381 Service Pack 5

Area Tested Value
CPU Integer 1020.308 MIPS
CPU Floating Point 409.3671 MFLOPS
Video(2D) 11.57077 MPixels/s
Direct3D 21.20311 MPixels/s
OpenGL 6.445639 MPixels/s
Memory 624.549 MB/s
Cached Disk 229.789 MB/s
Uncached Disk 1.101236 MB/s

NBench results (2.60)

Disk performance Mb/s
File size 10Mb
thread 0
write 8.83Mb/s
read 19.57Mb/s

File size 100Mb
thread 0
write 8.76Mb/s
read 18.12Mb/s

My RAID0 system is FASTER !!!!!!!

Stan

Stan

08-02-1999, 07:19 AM

Gordon: this is the test with a PIII with an IBM 22Gxp 13.5Gb

WinTune98 1.0.39

CPU (1) Intel Pentium III@451 MHz
Video Board Matrox Graphics Millennium G200 AGP
Video Mode 1600x1200@24bits/pixel
RAM 128 MB
OS Windows NT 4.0.1381 Service Pack 5

Area Tested Value
CPU Integer 1314.512 MIPS
CPU Floating Point 526.9618 MFLOPS
Video(2D) 41.05151 MPixels/s
Direct3D 23.90487 MPixels/s
OpenGL 9.122014 MPixels/s
Memory 789.1089 MB/s
Cached Disk 260.8844 MB/s
Uncached Disk 1.753075 MB/s

NBench 2.60

Disk Performance, MBytes/sec
File size: 10.0 MBytes

thread: 0
write: 4.27
read: 4.52

Disk Performance, MBytes/sec
File size: 100.0 MBytes

thread: 0
write: 4.46
read: 4.83

This seems really low comparing to the 27Mb/s I get with my RAID0 config...

Stan