Post your hard drive benchmarks!

helmutcheese said:
Shouldn't make any difference today if the Lappy had a 7.2K HDD as it will be SATA 150 or SATA 300 anyhow.
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I don't think interface speed is a limiting factor yet on normal mechanical drives... laptop (2.5") drives just are slower... even the modern ones I believe fall a long way behind their desktop relatives.

Interface speed does not mean drive speed. For example, a modern 2.5" mechanical drive with a ATA133 PATA interface will only be limited by the actual drive. (though a fast iface would be good for a drive with large cache I guess)

AFAIK only the new SSD on laptops are pushing iface speeds...and thats a guess as I don't find hardware that interesting any more :)
 
2.5" HDD's are actually faster (look at VelicoRaptors) its the fact they used to be 5.4K or lower on Laptops.

And SATA150 should cover it apart from lower Burst but the newer SATA300 HDD's are newer Tech/Gen so faster overall.

If you ever used the 1st SATA HDD's going from ATA100 or ATA133 (Both on a Shared PCI Bus with 133MB to be shared with all other hardware on Mobo inc Sound/NIC's etc) then you would know they still felt faster/snappier even though the HDD's then only did about 55MB/Sec.

A lappy today with a newish 7.2K SATA 300 HDD and interface should be fast as. ;)
 
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helmutcheese said:
2.5" HDD's are actually faster (look at VelicoRaptors) its the fact they used to be 5.4K or lower on Laptops.

And SATA150 should cover it apart from lower Burst but the newer SATA300 HDD's are newer Tech/gen so faster overall.

If you ever used the 1st SATA HDD's going from ATA100 or ATA133 (Both on a Shared PCI Bus with 133MB to be shared with all other hardware on Mobo inc Sound/NIC's etc) then you would know they still felt faster/snappier even though the HDD's then only did about 55MB/Sec.

A lappy today with a newish 7.2K SATA 300 HDD and interface should be fast as. ;)
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hum yeah good point... funny how laptops, even new ones always feel slow.. I guess most stock lappys still have poo HDs in :)
 
helmutcheese said:
Yip most will have non 7.2K HDD or if they do have the faster RPM one they could be 55-65MB/sec max.
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More like 35MB/sec!

hdtachlaptopkg8.png
 
MB/Sec m8, lets not confuse peeps with Mb/Sec. ;)

That a very crap slow speed IMO, the replacement My Book WD send me gets a full 35MB/Sec on USB2.0, my older one did not reach 30MB/Sec.

I use the ESATA anyhow.
 
After killing raid (unstable overclock), done benchmark on a fresh 'settled' system.... Here is result.

2 * WD640AAKS ICH9R RAID1 128 stripe.

raid0.jpg



A word of warning to people messing with RAID, make sure your system is 110% stable .. take it for granted and software raid will fail and you may lose data through corruption.
 
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It isn't software Raid on that Mobo its using a Raid Controller (yes XP can do Raid even on any old Mobo with no Raid Controller). :)

Software Raid is Windows based Raid with no Raid Controllers period.
 
helmutcheese said:
It isn't software Raid on that Mobo its using a Raid Controller (yes XP can do Raid even on any old Mobo with no Raid Controller). :)

Software Raid is Windows based Raid with no Raid Controllers period.
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I always thought all cheap raid solutions were software raid, except when a dedicated processor is doing the job on a expensive card (like servers use)

controllers like ICH9R and SIL3112 are not hardware raid afaik...they are simply the hardware interface, erm.......

it's abit like onboard sound, it's using a software codec / driver through a interface (that handles multiple digital to audio streams) rather a dedicated processor

who knows...

edit: on reading about this your right I think... need to pay more attention lol


here is last bench, got a nice increase by enabling write back cache in intel until....feels dam fast

raid00.jpg
 
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Flukester said:
I always thought all cheap raid solutions were software raid, except when a dedicated processor is doing the job on a expensive card (like servers use)

controllers like ICH9R and SIL3112 are not hardware raid afaik...they are simply the hardware interface, erm.......

it's abit like onboard sound, it's using a software codec / driver through a interface (that handles multiple digital to audio streams) rather a dedicated processor

who knows...

edit: on reading about this your right I think... need to pay more attention lol


here is last bench, got a nice increase by enabling write back cache in intel until....feels dam fast

raid00.jpg
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Yes they are Hardware, that's confusion caused by peeps who use Cards with built in CPU's etc.

Modern Mobos have Hardware Raid on-board that's good enough and I would guess they do have processors and the Modern Desktop CPU's we have can cope anyhow.

There is no way anyone can call a Silicon Image SATA Controller software based (picked that Manu as pure example).

If you want to know what Software Raid is I will show you . :)



http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=149


QUOTED :


" Conclusion

This seems to be a good way to squeeze some extra performance from one of the slowest parts of your PC. I have noticed a significant improvement in load time, especially for games. The performance improves greatly with three and four drives, but I’m sure that is getting close to or exceeding the limits of the current PCI bus. Have fun and enjoy your new found performance boost.

Pros:

Inexpensive
Good performance increase
Easy to configure
No need for matched drives
Can do spanning and mirroring also


Cons:

Dynamic disks are only recognized by Windows 2000 or later
Small increase in CPU loading "
 
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I just done a lot more research and both SIL3112 and ICH*R are all software raid...along with all other cheap / onboard solutions.

This is why if you push your overclocks and are unstable you can kill your raid array... on a card with a CPU it wouldn't be a issue. (they cost to much though for my liking, like Perc / Adaptec SAS / SATA controllers)

By software raid I mean your CPU is doing a lot of the work rather than the raid hardware itself. (though many people say it's hardware raid as not dependant on the OS, but the raid features in ICH steal cycles from main CPU to achieve their results..)

I guess we both right ;), and I know what true software raid is and it's terrible.. these cheap solutions though just cut out the OS from the equation and do a ok job. I guess many call it software raid as the raid function is dependant on other hardware to do the dirty work rather than dedicated processors, and that ultimately is using software / firmware to farm out the job.


I think it should be renamed 'cheapskate raid' to save confusion
 
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I do not agree with above (would guess from Wiki) ;)

It a Hardware Chip that uses Software Drivers same as a full blown Raid Car needs Drivers.

You corrupt the SATA HDD's as your overclocking the PCI/PCI-E bus if its not locked, the same goes for a Card plugged into these slots.

There is benefits to using a Add In Card but CPU usage is not an issue today so I would not even count that.

Again Software Raid IMO and many others is when you have a plain vanilla Mobo that's years old, it has no Raid on it at all, it can be EIDE or SATA and its is Windows XP that makes the RAID up.

Try it for yourself, although its faster than 1 HDD its slower than a Onboard Raid Chip from Silicon/Nvidia/Intel and has a tad higher CPU usage.

I agree the topic is confusing as peeps over the years have mislabeled it same as there is no such a device as SATA2 but peeps keep calling it that.
 
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Well hands up I'm one of those mislabelers, ever since I first did a raid0 on a old Abit BX board with onboard Highpoint controller.

Now if intel could just create a ICH*R with a built in processor for raid function, and not rely on our main CPU that would be very welcome, and dam fast. (even if only a small % on main CPU, it would be faster no doubt as designed and dedicated for job in hand)
 
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Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB nice drive am impressed at how quiet it is literally haven't heard it since I plugged it in.

Clipboard01-1.jpg
 
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