HELP ME IM GOING CRAZY WITH RAID!!!!!!!!

[phenious]

Hey all Im in win ME with a ATA 100 Promise card and 2 30Gb HDDs in RAID When I run sandra my scores are that of a ATA 66 Setup with 7,200RPM http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif these suckers should be running at ATA 100. When i run preformance test I get like a 17MB Write Average and like a 22 Read average........ thats way off........ Ive never set up raid so some basics might help...... they are on 2 different chains both as master. Thx for help http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

-: phenious :-

[Kuasimodem]

First off, if they are Western Digital drives, have you used the utility disk that came with them to make sure that they are running @ ATA 100?

You did set up a RAID 0 array thru the controller card, right? Also check in the setup of the controller card to ensure that the drives are running at ATA100.

The proper steps are-
[list=1]
Install drivers for Promise controller card.
Enter setup and create RAID 0 (striping) array.
Use Fdisk to create partitions on array.
Format partitions
Install OS on RAID array.
[/list=a]

You have the drives connected properly, one on each channel, just make sure that they are jumpered as singles.

Information (http://www.pcmech.com/showdoc/296/)
More info (http://www.pcmech.com/showdoc/296/5/)
Promise setup (http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q99/fasttrak66/fasttrak66-1.html) (it's for the ATA66, but the setup should be pretty close)

[otheos]

How is your array set up? have you placed one drive per channel or both drives on one channel? Have you got anything else hooked up on the Promise?

Forget about sandra for benchmarking disk performance.

Look for hdtach2.61 on google to give you a measure of your hard drives' raw level performance.

For accurate measurement of performance use Atto bench tool. I have a link on my home site (http://www.otheos.clara.net) . Run it to see how your array performs with different size cluster and adjust (if you can) accordingly.

[phenious]

I know about HD Tach but the newest Vers. has that prob with Win ME and the auto insert notice and gets a blue screen when I try to run it http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif I can use an old one but the Burst at 30MB and when it seemed to be working right it went over the burst of 30MB and I couldnt tell what it was http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif When I got it working in win ME I did an upgrade to win2k and it worked until i installed SP2 and then it died and went to like 30MB Read Averages and 40MB Bursts http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif Nothing else is on the promise card other then the Two Hdds. Each on ther OWN chian set as masters. Im gonna reinstall drivers yet agian......hope somthing works....... they are IMB drives so that Western Digital wont work i think..... I do have a Western Digital with that set up..... will it work? The Array was set up in the card Bios for Striping (Raid O) with 64Kb strips.

-: phenious :-

[otheos]

you must try ATTO's benchmark before re-configuring your RAID array.

[phenious]

Ok going to go DL the bench now http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Ill post back later.

-: phenious :-

[phenious]

Well from what I can tell looks like I should be using the 1024k Mode....im using 64 KB strips right now. The 1024K mode gives the highest scores out of the bunch but they still seem low but.....hey.... maybe it will be fixed with the new settings..... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
31.5MB Write http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif and 47MB Read http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif <-- but are those bursts or Averages....... if they are averages GREAT http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif but bursts should be way higher for the read i would think but im not sure about the write burst though.... im trying to upload a pic to my site but it dosnt seem to want to go http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif tell me what you all think please. Thx Oh great site By the way I just book marked it http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

-: phenious :-


[This message has been edited by phenious (edited 07-10-2001).]

[otheos]

47MB/s reads 31.5MB/s writes sound good to me (this is sustained data rate not bursts). What drives are you using?

BTW, set the benchmark as follows:
Trasnfer size: 0.5-1024kb
Total length: 32MB
Direck I/O: yes
Overlapped I/O: yes
Queue depth 4

[This message has been edited by otheos (edited 07-11-2001).]

[phenious]

Im using IBM 30GB Desksars. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Well i loaded up HD TACH but to my dismay you need a Registerd Vers to run HD Tach in a NT/2K OS http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif :: Sigh :: Thx for all the help every one http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif any tips for tweaks for the RAID are welcome http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Im reading through links ive found on your site Otheos

-: phenious :-