Low harddrive throughput - any suggestions?

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Zolar1

I was running a RAID 0 array with 2 WD 36gb Raptor Harddrives, 10,000 rpm, SATA.
My harddrive throughput was 50Mb/sec. So I added another WD Raptor 36 Gb to the array.
I tried changing the volume striping from 64K to 32K, which helped marginally.

I don't have any movies or music or games on my system, nor do I run any databases. The wife, however, uses Paint Shop Pro programs, and her average filesize is around 256K. I do have to defragment every 2-3 days to keep fragmentation below 5%.

All 3 harddrives are rated at 150Mb/sec each, but I can only get 100Mb/sec through the array as measured by PCPITSTOP.COM .

Why can't I get the full throughput of 450Mb/sec??

I can't seem to find any bottleneck or mis-setting anywhere.
What did I miss?

How can I fix this problem?

I have a small fortune invested in this machine. It should knock my socks off, but it doesn't.

I'm running XP Pro SP2 (with all the updates) on an MSI motherboard, 865 PE Neo2-P, Platinum Edition (with most recent BIOS Flashing), with a P4 3.0Gb Northbridge sporting 2 Gb of fully matched 400Mhz DDR memory (POST screen says I'm running my memory in Dual Channel, Liner (Linear?) mode. My Video Card is a GE Force 6200 (256Mb DDR) AGP (1 week old).

The RAID Adapter is a High Point RocketRaid 1810A, 4 channel PCI-X (compatable) with a HPT601 XOR Optimized, RAID 0,1,5, 1 0, JBOD available settings, on IRQ 7. The adapter is rated at 1Gb+ throughput.

I tried XTEQ, and Tune-XP, but little or no improvement in throughput.

I have about 43 processes running, which I can't reduce as they are needed. (i.e. Antivirus, firewall, spysweeper, Weatherbug (2.7), printer & scanner drivers, AutoUpdates, RAID Drivers, etc...)

The system runs fine, but for what I have recently invested in the RAID Array, it really should be extremely fast.

If I thought putting a Hamster in there would speed it up, I would go buy TWO tomorrow! LOL

Just really annoyed here, can anyone help?

Feel free to email me if desired.

Thank you!
Zolar
 
PC Wizard 2005 has some benchmarks of interest to you.
... L1 Cache, L2 Cache, HD thruput

see re dual channel linear mode


Just to be sure we're talking apples/apples: you're implementing RAID-0, not -5, 10, or JBOD, right?


An excerpt
Driver vs OS-Based Software RAID also comes in two flavors. While software RAID systems are
limited in performance and are not as reliable as hardware RAID, they are also much cheaper.
This makes them especially useful in non-critical applications where high performance isn't
needed. Software RAID can be implemented either in the disk controller driver or by the
operating system itself.

Driver-based RAID is implemented in the drivers of the hard disk controllers. It offers an
inexpensive version of RAID that is independent of the operating system, but relies on the
specific make of controller for RAID functionality. OS-based RAID includes a RAID engine in
the operating system. It is controller-independent, but OS-dependent. Both kinds of software
RAID rely on system processor and memory resources to function, which means they can
significantly affect performance in a highly loaded environment.
Click to expand...

hum; memory and paging may be interacting here! What kind of CPU usage are you seeing?

P4 3.0Gb Northbridge sporting 2 Gb of fully matched 400Mhz DDR memory
Click to expand...
Are you allowing the SWAP file to be placed on the RAID?
Is the entire system running from the sole HD/RAID config or is the RAID for your
special interest data files?

If you're swapping on the RAID, I would add a 10gb IDE drive, reduce the swap on C: to as
little as possible and build a swap file on the new ide at least 4gb.
{note: w/o multiple HDs on my platform, I can't demonstrate it works, but on prior
systems, this was effective}
 
I put my entire swapfile on the IDE harddrive. My OS is on the RAID 0 array.
My CPU Usage runs between 0% and 8% (typically), and 65% when doing an antivirus check.

I'm posting a copy of Task Manager for your review (if it will upload).
 
hum; did you try the PC Wizard 2005? It will tell you the cycles required
for L1 & L2 Cache, as well as disk thruput.

You're likely aware, but I'll mention it just in case; Systems with many small
files being updated will perform better with smaller RAID block sizes.
It's a big waste to ask for 512 bytes and wait for the full 32k. The wife's
Photoshop work @256k is on the smallish side for graphic files.

You mentioned frequent defrags to keep it at or below 5%. Can you determine
which files are causing the fragmentation? Norton Speed Disk will list'em for you.

One other query: is poor performance PRIMARILY at boot time or just poor
all the time? Remember you can change the Prefetch to system boot only
and save a ton of I/O that can be deferred until really needed.

Another observation: I/O really can be too fast! Here's why.
We want serveral blocks and start to transfer BK-1. When done, we need
BK-2 but the disk has rotated past it and we have to suffer the latency delay
on one rotation until BK-2 is available again. In this case, we want to use
READ-AHEAD features and multiple buffers to keep the data flowing w/o
latency impacts. Check your BIOS and the RAID controls for these settings.
 
The poor performance is listed inPC Pitstop's testing information.

I have 3 WD Raptors, each with a rated throughput of 150Mb/sec.

When all 3 are in a RAID 0 array, my throughput is only 100Mb/sec, or about 20% of the rated speeds (additive).

You mention multiple buffers....OK, It makes sense,but how would I make and configure them?

RAID & MOBO documentation is nonexistant at best. There are No BK anything settings anywhere.

I can see no read-ahead optimization settings like Win98 has.

Basically, my computer is OK, but for what I spent on it to obtain the rocket propelled speed, I'm being shortchanged by either the hardware or software.

I will check out the program I just d/l to test my system.
I'll post the info as soon as I can complete the testing.
 
OK, the utility states things VERY differently that what BIOS/CMOS reports.

In BIOS, the FSB for the CPU is reported as 200Mhz.

The config utility says my memory is configured at 266Mhz, whereas the BIOS reports it as 400Mhz.

Both report the cpu speed as 3.0Ghz

Which one is correct???
 
The Benchmarks are in.

My regular SATA WD Raptor is faster than my RAID 0 array with 3 Raptors.

And my memory efficiency is 63% - hmmm...not sure why.

And the Intel program apparently erroneously reports the wrong FSB and Memory Mhz.
 
Grrrrrr....!!!
Getting really frustrated here.

The Intel Program says I have no L2 cache. I know for a fact that I do! I made sure the P4 had the 1024Kb L2 cache instead of the 512Kb L2 that the other one's came with.

Even the factory sealed box the CPU came in stated the cpu was a P4 3.0 Ghz with a 1024 L2 cache.

Something's not right.

Could I have a bad BIOS or Motherboard?
 
can you get the L1+L2 Cache numbers?
FSB vs Processor has some info
on the multipliers. you should always try to get whole integer or the nearest 0.5 else the processor will wait for data.

hum; my ram and global mem latency is much lower and consistent
than yours; you should investigate.

here's my trival Toshiba Laptop 1.3gb system
Mainboard : TOSHIBA (EAL20)
Chipset : Intel i855GME
Processor : Intel Celeron M 350 @ 1299 MHz
Physical Memory :512 MB (1 x 512 DDR-SDRAM PC2700 @ 166 MHz)
Hard Disk : IC25N060ATMR04-0 (60 GB)
Operating System :Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2

and the reports
Report Date: Saturday 27 August 2005 at 15:22

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
L1 Latency : 3 cycles

L2 Latency : 10 cycles

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HD Thruput
Sequential Write : 16.47 MB/s
Sequential Read : 21.89 MB/s
Buffered Write : 68.74 MB/s
Buffered Read : 85.92 MB/s

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RAM
Bandwidth (Write Float) - Prefetch) : 563.27 MB/s
Bandwidth (Write Int.) - Prefetch) : 551.99 MB/s
Latency : 105 ns (137 cycles) <<<<<
Bandwidth Efficiency : 75%

----------------------------------------------------------
global memory
Bandwidth 1 KB : 9268.77 MB/s
Bandwidth 2 KB : 9476.69 MB/s
Bandwidth 4 KB : 9598.24 MB/s
Bandwidth 8 KB : 9522.41 MB/s
Bandwidth 16 KB : 9606.37 MB/s
Bandwidth 32 KB : 9352.08 MB/s
Bandwidth 64 KB : 5436.87 MB/s
Bandwidth 128 KB : 4918.64 MB/s
Bandwidth 256 KB : 5082.97 MB/s
Bandwidth 512 KB : 5472.57 MB/s
Bandwidth 1 MB : 5319.68 MB/s
Bandwidth 2 MB : 1960.8 MB/s
Bandwidth 4 MB : 1879.67 MB/s
Bandwidth 8 MB : 1879.79 MB/s
Bandwidth 16 MB : 1880.33 MB/s
Bandwidth 32 MB : 1880.59 MB/s
Bandwidth 64 MB : 1880.56 MB/s
Bandwidth 128 MB : 1880.66 MB/s
Bandwidth 256 MB : 1880.59 MB/s
Latency : 105.47 ns (137 cycles) <<<<<
 
Zolar1 said:
Grrrrrr....!!!
Getting really frustrated here.

The Intel Program says I have no L2 cache. I know for a fact that I do! I made sure the P4 had the 1024Kb L2 cache instead of the 512Kb L2 that the other one's came with.

Even the factory sealed box the CPU came in stated the cpu was a P4 3.0 Ghz with a 1024 L2 cache.

Something's not right.

Could I have a bad BIOS or Motherboard?
Click to expand...

saw this after my post today. my suggestion is to resolve the L1,L2 without
your RAID environment, even if it means getting back to 'normal'.

Typically, the BIOS can enable/disable L1/L2 caches so try to solve this first.
I recall you've updated the BIOS before going to RAID. Can you get any doc
for it?
 
My L1 cache is 16K I think, and my L2 cache is 1024K for sure.
I flashed my BIOS because my system was slow, not the other way around.

Are you assuming my Mobo is bad or the RAID card?
 
Question:

If I unplug my RAID 0 array, how am I supposed to determine if anything has changed?

Perhaps someone could steer me to a freeware version of a program that will let me custom edit my own BIOS then flash the new file?

Unfortunately, I don't speak BIONESE (binary) lol
And I don't know how to do anything in Hex, even with an editor.
 
let's go thru the matrix.

hardware cache is controlled by the BIOS.
there was a firmware update before the RAID install
and another after the install

sure would be nice to know the status without the RAID, as then
we could determine the mobo or BIOS status. if this isn't correct,
then it's unlikely that adding the RAID change will improve it.

1) if the native system w/o raid still fails, investigate BIOS and mobo
2) else if it fails only with the presence of raid, investigate the
raid bios update. The raid card itself is unlikely to be the issue.
 
I just tried to physically move the RAID card from Slot 2 to Slot 3 on my motherboard. The screen goes through the steps, but when I expect the XP boot screen to show, the screen remains blank.

I put the card back and everything works again, but still slow.

My RAID card is sharing IRQ 17 with my Realtek 97 Audio card (built into the mobo).

There was no firmware update other than the drivers for XP to work with, and a management program to make changes to the RAID array IF the array isn't used for booting.

I tried all 4 floppy disks that came with the card, and nothing changes.

Still, no one has replied to my previous questions - which is correct - BIOS or the other programs in reference to the DDR Memory frequency.
 
Zolar1 said:
My RAID card is sharing IRQ 17 with my Realtek 97 Audio card (built into the mobo).
Click to expand...

I would think it important to isolate the RAID from the sound card :suspiciou
Using the Pc Wizard tool, you can get a list via the Resource button on the left
and the magnifier ICON. Then move the RAID as low as possible OR
the sound card higher; eg:

01 : Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
08 : System CMOS/real time clock
09 : Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
0C : Alps Pointing-device
0E : Primary IDE Channel
0F : Secondary IDE Channel
10 : Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
10 : Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C2
10 : ENE CB1410 Cardbus Controller
11 : Realtek AC97 Audio
11 : TOSHIBA Software Modem
12 : Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C7
13 : Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C4
14 : VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
15 : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
17 : Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD
 
I moved the RAID card to a different Slot, and not the conflict is between the RAID card and one of the USB ports. I went into Device Manager and disabled the offending USB port.

Things seem a little different. :eek:

Also, I went to a RAID 5 with a 256k Stripe. Most things seem normal, and other things seems fast.
:suspiciou

I think I had 2 problems - hardware conflicts and too small of a stripe size.

Still, I can't get consistant info out of the reporting/benchmark programs I used.
 
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