New SSD - RAID Help

rhysduck · 15 May 2010 at 11:09

New SSD - Help!

Before I setup the new SSD I need some help regarding the current RAID setup prior to installation.

I have a RAID1 setup currently (2 x 640gb WD CB Drives) all working lovely.
Do I need to "degrade" / stop the RAID before I setup the SSD or can I just go ahead and setup and install the new SSD with the OS?

I'll be eventually formatting the two RAID'ed drives are re-RAIDING them (taken the OS off and will be using them for data mainly along side the SSD).

I know how RAID's work - but not sure on the best way to do this?

Malkavian Prime · 15 May 2010 at 17:20

This has interested me aswel because i want to buy two intel 80gb ssd and raid0 them but dont know much about the details and i heard raid in ssd isnt great right now. Any details guys?

rhysduck · 15 May 2010 at 17:38

But I'm not on about RAID'ing SSD's.
I want to know if I setup the new SSD with the OS on, will it interfere with the CURRENT RAID SETUP on the normal 2x 640Gb Mechanical HDD's?

Malkavian Prime · 15 May 2010 at 18:02

my bad lol

rhysduck · 15 May 2010 at 20:06

Ok so - I went ahead and setup the SSD with W7 and all installed and up and running

Did some bench's with CrystalDiskMark & HDTUNEPRO.
Didn't get the performance I expected - boot times arent as good as I'd imagined:

I double checked the BIOS for my "Sata RAID/AHCI Mode" setting and it was set to "RAID". Bugger. Reason being was that I have a RAID1 for 2x WD Caviar Blacks.

If I set this to AHCI mode then my RAID disappears (Drive appears in Windows as a normal drive, access to files is fine) but usual RAID config screen after post doesnt display its usual RAID: HEALTHY and MEMBER DISK info.
The SSD has been connected to the GSATA (2x Sata Ports (white) controlled by the Gigabyte Sata controller) in Port 0.
The 2x RAID'ed drives are on the Sata port controlled by the P55 chipset. Port 0 & 1.

Any advice guys? I'm a bit lost now

I won't be putting anything more on the SSD until I get some kind of reply - may I have to reinstall under AHCI mode? (I've booted into the SSD W7 install after changing to AHCI mode fine)
Thanks

MB: Gigabyte P55 UD3
Edit: Pics of BIOS: Pic 1 Pic 2

rpstewart · 15 May 2010 at 21:11

The Intel RAID driver implements AHCI as well so there's no need to change the controller mode.

Personally I'd run the SSD on an Intel port rather than the GSATA one, the JMicron controller isn't up to much

Zarf · 16 May 2010 at 01:59

Connect the SSD to one of the Intel Ports, you might have to create a new RAID0 with just the single SSD and then set that to bootable.
What boot times were you seeing? You should get around 10-15 seconds from the start of the windows animation to a fully usable desktop. Amusingly since I went RAID0 SSD my boots are now CPU limited (Q6600 @ 3GHz) - I have loads of services, gadgets, firefox autorun etc, and my cpu monitor gadget shows all 4 cores maxed out for a few seconds. Boot times still less than 20s from start of animation.

rhysduck · 16 May 2010 at 10:52

rpstewart said:
The Intel RAID driver implements AHCI as well so there's no need to change the controller mode.
Personally I'd run the SSD on an Intel port rather than the GSATA one, the JMicron controller isn't up to much

Ok thanks for that - I'll change back to RAID mode and pop the ssd onto one of the Intel Ports.

Zarf said:
Connect the SSD to one of the Intel Ports, you might have to create a new RAID0 with just the single SSD and then set that to bootable.
What boot times were you seeing? You should get around 10-15 seconds from the start of the windows animation to a fully usable desktop. Amusingly since I went RAID0 SSD my boots are now CPU limited (Q6600 @ 3GHz) - I have loads of services, gadgets, firefox autorun etc, and my cpu monitor gadget shows all 4 cores maxed out for a few seconds. Boot times still less than 20s from start of animation.

Boot times were about that yes - 10to15 seconds.
I'll run a boot timer program later and see what I get.
Why will I need to create a RAID for SSD?

Zarf · 16 May 2010 at 15:57

rhysduck said:
Ok thanks for that - I'll change back to RAID mode and pop the ssd onto one of the Intel Ports.

Boot times were about that yes - 10to15 seconds.
I'll run a boot timer program later and see what I get.
Why will I need to create a RAID for SSD?

I can't remember exactly how the Intel Bios works, you might not need to. Some controllers need you to make an array for every volume, even if there's only one drive in the volume.

rhysduck · 16 May 2010 at 16:40

Will changing to the Intel controller and running in RAID (other than AHCI) affect the speed of the SSD?

I'm thinking of having the SSD and the Dvd Drive on the Intel controller - and the 2x WesternDigital Drives on the Gigabyte controller in RAID1? ??? ???

SiriusB · 16 May 2010 at 20:53

I am using an Intel Controller on my server machine with 4 HDDs attached. 3 are in RAID5 and the 4th is on its own. I did not need to make it a part of a 1 disk array.

rhysduck · 16 May 2010 at 22:55

Well I've set it up as as I outlined above (SSD & DVDDrive on Intel controller) and the 2x WD's on the Gigabyte Controller.
W7 installed and running fine. I'll post some Benchmarks tomorrow after work.
RAID CONTROLLER is showing in Device Manager with a Yellow Triangle but that's for tomorrow (am guessing its referring to the Gigabyte RAID Controller).

rhysduck · 17 May 2010 at 18:31

As promised here are some more bench's; much speeds since running in AHCi and installing the Intel RST Drivers.

My SCORE on the 3rd picture doesn't seem to be very high.

Thoughts?

SiriusB · 17 May 2010 at 18:56

Have you searched for and compared your results to other's benchies for your SSD?

rhysduck · 17 May 2010 at 19:06

I'm having trouble finding some at the moment.

Zarf · 18 May 2010 at 01:25

Score is probably fine, AS-SSD heavily weights 4k performance and your SSD doesn't use NCQ so it gets buried on the High queue depth 4k test.

In practice 15MB/s reads and 9MB/s writes are plenty unless you're running a database, An SSD scoring >500 points certainly wouldn't feel 5 times faster, in fact you'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference.

rhysduck · 18 May 2010 at 09:09

Thanks Zarf

My Seq Read/Write speeds some good.
Any idea the drastic drop in performance at about 9Gb is ? - it's worrying me

(1st picture)

DIABLO · 18 May 2010 at 11:10

something writing or reading to the disk as you were benching caused it.

rhysduck · 18 May 2010 at 11:48

Thanks - happens more or less most times I run a bench. Must be Windows doing something.

OspreyO · 18 May 2010 at 17:15

Zarf said:
Score is probably fine, AS-SSD heavily weights 4k performance and your SSD doesn't use NCQ so it gets buried on the High queue depth 4k test.

In practice 15MB/s reads and 9MB/s writes are plenty unless you're running a database, An SSD scoring >500 points certainly wouldn't feel 5 times faster, in fact you'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference.

What would you need for a database?