Raptors running slower than they should be? HD Tach resuls inside

XtAsY · 21 Jan 2007 at 09:09

So I've recently bought myself two new 74GB 16MB Cache Raptors. I have them running in a RAID 0 array. I have the stripe size set to 64K. It just seems that everythime I run HD Tach I cannot get above the 120's for average MB/s. This seems a little low as I've seen people hitting 150MB/s with the drives I would have at least thought I'd manage 130MB/s.

Running an Abit IN9 32X MAX NVIDIA 680I SLI motherboard.

XtAsY · 21 Jan 2007 at 10:01

Well, I've just disabled read caching for the SATA ports. Quite a big different it has made.

Much happier now.

Kaiju · 23 Jan 2007 at 22:32

I only just found out about disabling the option this week too. Definite performance improvement, yet i'm still unsure on the benefits of read caching being enabled.

TomL · 24 Jan 2007 at 21:41

Is read caching on DS3 sata ports as well?

Steves_pc · 24 Jan 2007 at 23:10

I didnt think mine was as fast it should be either then i found an option for
write back cache in the Intel Matrix console so enabled it and now i get
142mb ish so im happy

and thats the old 8mb raptors.

@ TomL
The DS3 uses intel/jmicron for sata same as DS4(mine) different options to the 680i.
In windows device manager is the option for enabling write cache for single drives.

Think the write back cache is playing about with hdtach though, bizarre burst that i doubt is real.

CarlD · 24 Jan 2007 at 23:16

where would i find this 'read caching' thing for the EVGA 680i

joeyjojo · 24 Jan 2007 at 23:39

2300MB/s burst?! How!?

Edit: ah yes, that is bizarre lol

rpstewart · 25 Jan 2007 at 09:08

There's something wierd with the way HDTach interacts with the Intel Matrix RAID controllers, I've seen that huge burst rate on quite a few traces now.

CarlD said:
where would i find this 'read caching' thing for the EVGA 680i

It's in device manager, properties of the NVidia SATA controllers, there are check boxes on the tabs for the two SATA channels.