36GB Raptors Raid0

Catman05 · 10 Jun 2006 at 21:56

Hi
I am having a problem with my two raptors they seem to be performing worse than my 2 Hitachi 40GB drives me it is puzzling me why it is doing this.

I have tested both drives with WD tools and other and both drives seem to be fine hardware wise.
Also just wondering how I should set the jumpers as both drives have different labels one say ssc disabled the other does not mention ssc.

Can someone please help me with these problems?

Thanks
Chris

Zefan · 10 Jun 2006 at 22:04

Can't remember what it's called, but there's something turned on or off (three letters I think, like PMA or something) that you need to change. Have seen it before. Someone should come and confirm this and hopefully tell you what I'm talking about!

Mikey1280 · 10 Jun 2006 at 22:40

Zefan said:
Can't remember what it's called, but there's something turned on or off (three letters I think, like PMA or something) that you need to change. Have seen it before. Someone should come and confirm this and hopefully tell you what I'm talking about!

Do you mean PIO? It could be this. Go to the device manager, open up the sata/ide controller entry and check the transfer mode.

Catman05 · 10 Jun 2006 at 23:05

Hi
Thanks for the quick replies
Have checked the device manager and can't find any settings about transfer modes.

Both drive have been set to pin 1-2 but both have different labels

Sorry about the bad picture quality drive 2 basically says pin 1-2 ssc disabled and pin 2-3 PM2 enabled

Thanks
Chris

Mikey1280 · 10 Jun 2006 at 23:09

There must be something in the device manager controlling the sata/ide controllers? I dont think those jumper settings have anything to do with it although I may be wrong

Zefan · 10 Jun 2006 at 23:11

It's the controller you wanna be looking at, nothing to do with the drives themselves.

Messiah Khan · 10 Jun 2006 at 23:14

I highly doubt its PIO mode affecting you there, as you cpu usage is too low and the transfer rate is too high(With PIO mode you would be getting about 15mbps) You shouldnt need to do anything wit the jumpers. They should be set to whatever the factory default is. It seems that the reason why the transfer rate is so low is that its going up and down massively, dropping the overall average. You shouldnt be seing those massive troughs and peaks. Try disabling anything not essential in the background.. ie virus scanners etc, as they may be interfearing with the results.

Edit; Although check the Transfer mode. Im not sure if it could happen, but if one of the drives was in PIO mode and the other in SATA mode it might produce weird results.

smids · 11 Jun 2006 at 00:14

Are we sure it's not just a maxed out PCI bus? The peaks and troughs are weird - looks like a controller issue though.

leezer3 · 11 Jun 2006 at 00:22

What stripe size?
You haven't set that to something stupid have you?
I'd also update the mobo bios for good measure- If updated SATA controller firmware is included it might do something :confused:

-Leezer-

Catman05 · 11 Jun 2006 at 00:45

Thanks for your replies guys
I have no options in device manager for the controller apart from the 4 default tabs. (General, driver, details, resources).

I can't say that the jumpers where like that when they were new.

I have just run another test with all programs and background items off and I get the same results apart from CPU is now at 11%.

Drivers are latest for both controllers also the mobo and Adaptec card have the latest bios versions.

Stripe size is 64k.

I am going to test these drives on the Adaptec card (which the Hitachi’s are on) but last time I did it the results looked the same as this.

Raptors are empty I don’t know if that makes any difference?

EDIT:

benchmark from the adaptec contoller. The Raptors are in red

Both raptors on the adaptec card in a non raid config.

thanks
chris

Catman05 · 17 Jun 2006 at 17:58

Hi guys
Been playing around and installed win 2000 on an ide disk as a second boot and to my surprise win 2000 see's 2 raptors as separate drives but xp see's 1 raid drive which is rather confusing me. Raid is setup in the bios not with the raid utility in windows.

Is this normal?

Thanks
Chris

Jay_t · 19 Jun 2006 at 12:44

Why have you put your jumper in a different place on one of the raptors? I presume these drives have different firmware?

Catman05 · 19 Jun 2006 at 21:29

Jay_t said:
Why have you put your jumper in a different place on one of the raptors? I presume these drives have different firmware?

Hi
I have not owned the drives from new and I was just going on the WD default jumper setting page that indicates 2 default positions for default and I have 2 drives with different labels.
If I set the stripe size to 32 all seems well with hardly any of the saw tooth effect but now I seem to get like 30-60% CPU usage on hdtach?

Thanks

smids · 20 Jun 2006 at 00:40

Never use jumpers on a SATA drive unless it is related to 150Mb/s or 300Mb/s external transfer rate setting - you don't need them otherwise.