2Mb and 8Mb cache size on HDs tested in RAID
 

http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=69

Would have been nice to see some ATTO benchmarks and maybe copying of ISO size files and or large AVI files.

Mind copying from your source drive (you say 20Mb maxtor) probably isn't a good idea as it'll be slower that the destination drive depending which way around your doing it. so that really becomes the limitation. It should have been a faster drive that the tested (say some SCSI's).

But it is a good general review of stripesize effect.

Oh could you explain how you did the timeing of file transfers and Map loadup?

for the file copying I used a small VB app that times the time it takes to copy the whole folder
UT2003 maploading however doesn't have such a function, so I used my trusty chronometer for that one, repeating each test 3 times

I didn't have any faster disk available, as I know it was a limiting factor during the tests, but still shows the performances differences. I was unable to run ATTO benchmark due to time constraints as I already had to hurry up alot to get the drives back to their owner (Comtech).

In the future, HD tests will be more complete, we are here to learn :)
thanks for your comments!

Different RAID Controllers would have been a very useful comparison. A few IDE RAID cards actually use some sort of software RAID instead of a true hardware RAID.
The controller you mentioned doesn't include info on the chipset, so that could say a lot.
Also, the major vendors like Promise and HighPoint should be considered. Their products may out perform other cards, or may be the same. That would be very useful.

indeed, but that's a whole different review you're talking about!

The chipset used was a silicon image 680 chip. It's not slower than a comparable promise/highpoint chip.

Well, I'm the first unregistered user (post No.2), not the rest.
As you gave a nice clear reply with no skipping the issue I thought I'd register.

One reason I actually read the articel was becuase I have 2x80Gb DM9+ 8Mb in RAID0 config on my onboard Higpoint Controller (also using a simialr 1800+ CPU. I like the fact you didn't use the latest greatest and more a more common CPU, although I bet it's because that's what you had ;))

Thing is my single IBM 180GXP outperforms it :mad:
Well i'll look into it someday and figure out why...

I chose to run the XP1700+ @ default speeds, to keep everything running as it should. The CPU can easily reach 2.2ghz on aircooling and 2.5 now in my Prometeia ;)

thanks for registering,

What stripe size are you using on the RAID 0 array?

To be honest I've forgotten :o but will check Block Size = 64K (default) haven't had a play with them yet.

What I would also be interested in as I use the NTFS file system would be how the block size/clister size does to the equation for different files and if it actually makes a difference.

That last post was me but for some reason even though logged in it posted as unreged

I thought so =)
maybe in the future we will do another roundup using SATA drives
will extend the list of tests to include a wider range of possible scenario's

I'm using two (2) Maxtor 80g SATA's w/the 8m buffer. I used to run two (2) 20g ATA133 2m buffer Maxtors. With those I ran them in Raid0 & used 32k chunk size for the best performance. Well as told by a friend in the know. My question is, will the same 32k chunk size be the best for performance (i.e. gaming & such) w/my new SATA HDD's ??? I will list system specs:
A-bit (NF7-S v2.0)[uses the SiliconImage SI3112a SATA Raid controller]
AMD (XP2100) @2.5Ghz
Corsair (XMS3500)(11.5x218)2x512mb
Maxtor (6Y080MO) (2) 80g 7200rpm 8m buffer SATA HDD's
Sony 52x34x52 CD/RW
ATI Radeon 9800XT
SB Audigy X-Gamer
TTGI 520w PSU
The one thing I noticed is my current ATA is set @ ATA100, & my highest is @ ATA133 ?? I thought the SATA interface would @ least show ATA150. I have the latest BIOS & drivers, for everything. Just wanting to know, what Kb chunk-size to go with on these new HDD's for performance. Thanx again.

only way to know your best "chunk size" is to experiment, if you copy large files on those drives = large stripe size, if you want to install your OS on it, then a smaller stripe size will improve the performance

Well yes I use the two SATA's as my boot drives. I do transfer large files on my network & burn music & data. (i.e.-like that new DesertCombat 0.7) That was about a 600mb file. Mostly looking for the fastest game & map loads I can get w/these. Also read & write speeds as well. As you can probably tell, I play D.C. So maybe that can give you some more info. But yes, I will experiment w/them some more. Like I said, they're @ 32kb size now & it seems faster. Maybe 16k or 64k will be faster for me. We'll see. Thanx for such a speed reply. Must be a nite-owl like me. ;)

more like an early bird :)
was 8am over here

32K should be good already, but watch out with that RAID-0

What's best for gaming purposes: raid 0 or raid 1?

By reading the article I would of thought raid 1 would be best but you guys all seem to use raid 0 ...

raid0 is the fastest :)

RAID 1 provide fail safe, lower write speed, and higher cost.

RAID 0 can provide faster read/write speeds then RAID 1 but it is a risk, if you put your save-games on a none-RAID partition however you can have lightening fast hard drives where the games data files are :)

wait, let me see if I get this: what you are saying is that I should have a number of disk in raid 0 with all the normal files on and keep the save games on a seperate disk that's not in the raid array?

correct :)

so where do you keep your windows partition and your paging file partition?

On the raid disks or on the non-raid disk?

paging and windows on the RAID disk, ghost image of Windows install on CD/backupHD :)

I'd like to have a RAID setup, too bad it's not affordable. and then you have spent e.g. 150€ on 2 80GB drives. it's faster but not very reliable :/

buying 2 20GB drives would be perfect, but those drives are slower and make a LOT of noise :/

isn't there an other way to speed up HD acces, e.g. like using the faster, outer rings of HDD's to store windows/games, and the slower, inner rings for movies/music/etc. ?

it's called defrag ;)
OODefrag can move most used files to the beginning the disk for faster access.

sure, but how does that work with different partitions?

don't use partitions, no advantage.

I have to use partitions, check my HDD

in a HDD there are multiple platters, isn't it possible to optimize your partitions for this?

platter1: first winxp, then win2000, then a piece of the archive
platter2: user files and games
platter3: linux + rest of archive

I guess not

HDD layout:

tweak xp mentioned that the best place to put your paging file is on the first partition because in theory, windows is supposed to put the first data on the fastest reachable spot on the platters (I thought it was on the inner side of the platters but since TeuS says it's on the outer side I'll go with that ;)), offcourse, this is windows so it's very well possible that the first partition won't be on the fastest reachable spot on the platters.

I don't know if this still works with two disks in RAID 0 though :?

it should be the same with raid

thing is and I once got this of a Adaptec engineer, anyhow as you look on it, Single drive configuration is always the fastest !