Show us your hard drive performance

pparks1 said:

What block size are you guys using when you test your drives. My tests have all been with 64k blocks...which is the default I believe.

I run 64KB Strip Size for my RAID 0 array of two drives, but by block size, I assume you're talking about when you partition a drive with NTFS? If so, just leave it default. The block size won't affect performance too much unless you go with extreme values here. Typically, 128KB to 64KB block/strip size is fine and default.

pparks1 said:

I took the HD out of the Intel SATA controllers and plugged into the JMicron Gigabyte SATA controllers and tested and got same results. I then loaded the Gigabyte SATA 2 driver for Vista 64 for that controller and tested and still got 25ms-30ms access times on this drive with HDTune.

I'll put Vista on the computer tomorrow and load up the tools and see what happens. The real question is "if" performance is better under Vista....would I stick with Vista...or go with slower access times and use Windows 7 instead. My gut tells me Win7...as I have never been particularly fond of Vista.

Oh well, no more time to play tonight. This has got to wait.

That's interesting that you noticed normal access/seek times on another PC. It's telling that the drivers aren't quite right on your Windows 7 install.

I'd still try to push those Vista 64-bit drivers through if possible. Run the setup for it as Administrator, use the driver update option in Device Manger, of force the drivers by right clicking on the inf files that are part of the installer and choosing "install". It's Gigabyte's fault that they haven't updated their drivers for Windows 7. They shouldn't complain since Windows 7 is supposed to show itself as kernel 6.1 (to be compatible with software looking for a Vista kernel). But perhaps the Gigabyte driver installer is verifying the O/S incorrectly by a hard-coded, sloppy detection method?

pparks1 said:

I actually was having some trouble sleeping, so I am in the process of installing Vista right now on the box and will benchmark soon. I've got a system image of the Windows 7 install...so I can get back to that pretty quickly.

Good luck on it! I hope you're able to narrow down this problem. If it's reasonable access times in Vista, then it's an issues with the Windows 7 drivers you're running. If it's still too high in Vista, then it's an issue with your motherboard.

Well, I'm afraid to report that moving to Vista did NOT rectify the problem that I was having with high access times. The Intel chipset drivers did install, but when I tried the install the SATA RAID drivers I got the same result that my computer did not meet the requirements....so I am starting to wonder if you have to be running in RAID/AHCI mode to actually use that driver.

Edit: Upon closer inspection of the readme...you do have to be in RAID or AHCI mode...which I am presently not using. Guess I could test under that.

I guess I will go dig around a bit in my BIOS and see if I come across anything...but I've spent a fair amount of time there...so I don't anticipate seeing much.

Guess it's time to get in touch with Gigabyte and see if they have any suggestions. I went to their website and filled out a support request. Time will tell.

pparks1 said:

Edit: Upon closer inspection of the readme...you do have to be in RAID or AHCI mode...which I am presently not using. Guess I could test under that.

I guess I will go dig around a bit in my BIOS and see if I come across anything...but I've spent a fair amount of time there...so I don't anticipate seeing much.

I think you've identified the problem.

If you're getting these high access times in IDE/Compatibility mode, chances are your Windows driver for the SATA controller chip is running in PIO mode or a low-level DMA mode instead of SATA bus speeds.

If you change your drive to AHCI mode, you'll be better off. But this might require a new install of Windows. Sometimes switching forth from IDE to AHCI mode (or vice versa) will cause an install of Windows to complain and fail to load/bluescreen, even though the data is still fine.

Try to change this in the BIOS to AHCI then do a clean install of Windows 7 and benchmark the drive's speed before installing any other chipset drivers.

Here's my Patriot 128GB Torqx drive with the new v1571 firmware on it. I can't wait for RAID 0 in a couple of months.

And with the firmware that came on it. Pretty close...this one has no OS installed.

And here's what I had last (and am still using sometimes)

Phenom said:

My results.

1.Vista 32 bit
2.W7RC 64 bit
3.XP 32 bit

I think i need to install W7 on the Vista drive
Although the W7 drive is mu newest.

Any recommendation on SATA2 Drives that would perform even better ?

I would like to know HOW you go those results on W7 64 Bit WDC 500GB AAKS...

Here are mine: