RAID-0 Performance Under Windows 7

[halo200]

Hi

Im considering installing Windows 7, well technically its still downloading from Microsoft but its getting there so while its going I was just curious how it performs on a RAID-0 system, right now I have 2x 500GB Seagate Drives at 7200rpm and was wondering if A) The increase is speed is definatly noticable and B) what the Vista rating is for having 2x 7200rpm Drives in there under Vista its a 5.9.

Also the RAID controller is hardware based and setup through BIOS on my P5Q-PRO, I didnt have to install the drivers so am I correct to assume the same on Windows 7

Thanks Guys

 

[Jacee]

I had the same set up with Vista Ultimate. It continually crashed on me and it had to keep repairing itself. I finally got tired of that arraingement and pulled the plug on one of the 500GB hard drives. (disabled it in BIOS)

If this has worked for you with Vista, it may also work just fine with Win7.

 

[zigzag3143]

Raid-0

Hi

Im considering installing Windows 7, well technically its still downloading from Microsoft but its getting there so while its going I was just curious how it performs on a RAID-0 system, right now I have 2x 500GB Seagate Drives at 7200rpm and was wondering if A) The increase is speed is definatly noticable and B) what the Vista rating is for having 2x 7200rpm Drives in there under Vista its a 5.9.

Also the RAID controller is hardware based and setup through BIOS on my P5Q-PRO, I didnt have to install the drivers so am I correct to assume the same on Windows 7

Thanks Guys

Hi first let me welcome you to SF.
win7 overall is faster than vista. I dont have raid experience in vista so I have no comparison the drivers for my raid were installed by default. It was painless.

Hope this gives you some reassurance and thanks for filling out your system specs it really helps.

Hope this helped somewhat and ask questions we all learn

Ken

 

[digitalrurouni]

I have a raid 0 setup with raptors...what is the question you are trying to ask?

 

[halo200]

Just finished installing 7 and on the RAID 0 it boots so much faster than Vista did, also like Vista it automatically picked up the drive no problem on the Raid. I find it funny how my scores have gone up, like my CPU was at 5.7 in Vista and then it went up to 6.5 in 7 and then up to 7.0 after an overclock.

Thanks Guys

 

[zigzag3143]

Raid-0

Just finished installing 7 and on the RAID 0 it boots so much faster than Vista did, also like Vista it automatically picked up the drive no problem on the Raid. I find it funny how my scores have gone up, like my CPU was at 5.7 in Vista and then it went up to 6.5 in 7 and then up to 7.0 after an overclock.

Thanks Guys

I knew you wouldn't have a problem. The WEI upgrade is just Bill G's way of saying thank you for installing our newest. Lots of people find their WEI varying with no changes at all

Glad it wirked so easily

Ken

 

[digitalrurouni]

I think the WEI scores are a better reflection now...there is no way that my vid cards would have had a 6.6 considering they are 285s and quite overclocked. 7.4 all around except for my hard drive which is at 5.9 sounds more correct to me.

 

[rook]

If this helps - I've been running Win 7 on a raid 0 set-up for a couple of weeks now with no problems. I just updated to build 7229 with no issues to report!

 

[Antman]

Go RAIDers!

...Also the RAID controller is hardware based and setup through BIOS on my P5Q-PRO...

That is still software RAID. Hardware RAID has it's own CPU and memory. Hardware RAID is expensive.

5.9 is Win7 WEI peak for non-SSD drives (I am advised).

In Vista, the WEI scale peaked at 5.9. Peaks at 7.9 in Win7. Navy math= Your score dropped from .966 to .822 (5.7/5.9 vs 6.5/7.9)

I can't imagine ever dropping RAID0 for my OS without replacing it with SSD. I even ran 4 WD 250's in RAID0 for a while. Internet throughput was absolutely blazing on that config.

 

[DJG]

That is still software RAID. Hardware RAID has it's own CPU and memory. Hardware RAID is expensive.

Antman, I would classify on-board RAID such as implemented by the ICH10R chipset as hardware based. They run off their own firmware and processing capacity and do not use the system CPU. Not as powerful as a dedicated outboard PCI-E card controller, sure, but hardware based never-the-less, and far preferable to a RAID set up in the Windows Disk Manager, which is what I would term a software-based RAID. Not to mention almost free .

Unless I misinterpreted your post? Or are we getting into shades of grey here ?

 

[Antman]

I have grey hair

I have a Highpoint RocketRAID 2300 controller. It is software RAID. I am planning on acquiring a Highpoint RocketRAID 3320 (or similar, for RAID6 on 8 drives). It is hardware RAID.

If the controller is in the southbridge, it is software RAID. A software layer sits above the disk device drivers and provides an abstraction layer between the logical drives and physical drives.

Where exactly do you think the processor is located for the ICH10R chipset?

 

[itznfb]

They run off their own firmware and processing capacity and do not use the system CPU.

^^ this is 100% incorrect.

as for issues in win7/vista. i haven't seen any. i've used about 15 different hardware cards, and ICH7R-10R. i haven't used the nvidia raid chipset though.

 

[DJG]

Antman, I stand corrected .

I got fooled by having BIOS options at boot time and being able to configure the RAID array there. So although there is some level of hardware control, the low level RAID functions are actually performed by the driver loaded in the OS. I always thought there was some amount of logic / microprocessor in the chipset that performed the lower level RAID functions while the OS ran the management / configuration options side.

I doublechecked and saw that there IS CPU activity while running HDTune on the ICH10R array, even though HDTune reports -1.0 :huh:. So I'm actually quite impressed I'm getting ~450MBs from that RAID 0 from 4x Seagate 1.5TB, which is a better than the 400MBs I get from my Areca 1220 that has an Intel IOP333 and 6x Seagate 500GB, same series. The different platter configuration may play some part there though.

Thanks for the new insights!

 

[Antman]

...Thanks for the new insights!

Your challenge did motivate me to a bit of reading. It seems that a new terminology has emerged to address advances in technology. MOBO RAID can be labeled Firmware/Driver RAID. Wikipedia made me wikilaugh at the term "fake RAID" - because there are those that consider RAID0 as not being true RAID due to its lack of fault tolerance. I count myself among that number. I remain old school, nonetheless - it is either soft or hard, 0 or 1.

Sweet website. An Eritrean friend of mine has introduced me to roasting my own coffee over an open flame, one pan at a time.

 

[DJG]

Thanks! I do use a small programable roaster for my roasting. You may want to check this place out:

Home Coffee Roasting Supplies - Sweet Maria's

So, maybe we can have as generic (RAID) flavors:

TRAID - True RAID (with its own CPU),
HARAID - Half-A$$ed RAID (Mobo-hardware-assisted), and
FRAID - Fake RAID (basic drives RAIDed by the OS)

They do have a point with RAID 0. Handy as it is, there's no redundancy to be found in that (non) Redundant Array. So what could we call it??? OTOH, RAID 0 would seem to imply Zero Redundancy. Ahh, the eternal semantical discussions .

 

[Antman]

...RAID 0 would seem to imply Zero Redundancy...

Since a single drive also offers null redundancy, I recommend RAID0 for all OS installs that will support it. Now for the evil reveal -

I get paid to fix things.

And, and thank you so much for showing me home roasting equipment?!? Did I mention that we have a one-year old? Did I mention that I am shoppping for a 8 port RAID card? Now I have to figure out out to budget for those two completely unnecessary things now that I am about to spend $1000 on a roaster.

 

[itznfb]

technically RAID0 offers negative redundancy since it increases your risk of fault/failure x2. i still recommend using it though...
1. because its sweet
2. because you should be backing up your data anyway

 

[swarfega]

One piece of advice I have would be to install the drivers by the manufacturer of the motherboard rather than use the ones installed by microsoft. At least in my case I noticed improved stability.

 

[DJG]

Since a single drive also offers null redundancy, I recommend RAID0 for all OS installs that will support it. Now for the evil reveal -

I get paid to fix things.

And, and thank you so much for showing me home roasting equipment?!? Did I mention that we have a one-year old? Did I mention that I am shoppping for a 8 port RAID card? Now I have to figure out out to budget for those two completely unnecessary things now that I am about to spend $1000 on a roaster.

Always glad to help! Do check out the Areca boards in your shopping spree.

I should add, I've been running my system partition on RAID 0 for quite a while in several incarnations of my workstation, and have never had a disater. I have had the array go into check mode after a couple of BSODs, but nothing unrecoverable, and no problems even after most of the BSODs I've incurred while tweaking my overclocking. And of course there are those handy backup images - just in case.

So you're getting no money from me, pal (knock on silicon). But I will help you spend it .

 

[Antman]

So you're getting no money from me, pal (knock on silicon). But I will help you spend it.

Ain't it funny, a fool and his money, always seem to find those real good friends
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhQJE7AUdxI"]YouTube - Robin Trower - Too Rolling Stoned - 1975[/ame]