Windows 7: Poor Raid-0 Performance

Greetings,

I recently had the opportunity to purchase a matching WD Raptor ADFD 74GB hard drive and set them up in a RAID-0 array to to host Windows 7. I downloaded the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver and enabled Write-Back Caching, but I don't seem to get the same results some others have posted. Before I setup the Raid-0 array, Windows was installed on a single Seagate Barracuda 500GB and Windows Experience Index gave it a rating of 5.9, but the new Raid-0 array only scores 5.7.

I have attached a copy of the HD Tune Pro benchmark results that shows the Raid-0 array is indeed faster than the single Seagate drive, but not by that much. Here is some basic system info:



- Intel ICH10R Raid Controller on Gigabyte GA-E45-UD3LR Motherboard.
- Raid-0 Stripe set at 32k
- Write-Back Caching Enabled
- Windows 7 64bit

I would sincerely appreciate any advice anyone can offer.

Performance on average went up 70%...and your access times went down which is expected. What sort of numbers were you hoping to see?

Raptors are very much overrated, not to mention higher density is automatically faster as the arm has to move less within GB increments.

When Raptors first came out, there performance was great. As time has gone on, other hard drive technologies have pushed standard 7,200 RPM drives to higher and higher levels...thus making the Raptors less impressive.

However, I wouldn't call a Raptor overrated. They delivered great performance. Of course, a modern SSD destroys it.

2 1TB Caviar Blacks (for less cash) on Raid perform within the same range or there abouts as 2 300GB Velociraptors.

Like I said, other drives have caught up. But I wouldn't say that the raptor reputation is unwarranted as they were the clear performance leader for quite some time.

I'm running an SSD for my OS...so even without RAID, I'm destroying raptors in a RAID 0 or Caviar Blacks in a RAID 0

I have the same setup and used the 128 bit stripe which was the setup default. Is it better to use 32 bit? My HD WEI went from 5.9 to 6.3 with RAID 0. Good-bad??

I used the 128k stripe as that was the default. After some time I changed it to 64k just for fun.

The larger 128k stripe had better performance than did the 64k. Never tried the 32k. Back to 128k now.

I have 2 150 Gig Velociraptors on a RocketRAID 3510 and I get a 6.2 for a rating on Win 7 64-bit... Is that good?