Post your HDTach 3 Results!

Judas · Apr 4, 2006, 11:08 PM

You know the name of the game, lets see what you've got.

The program is DAMN small and spywareless... so no worries.

Just got HERE~> http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public...request=HdTach

Click the Download button and download the ity bitty program and run the LONG test (32mb).

Take a snapshot and post it. Use a site like www.imageshack.us for easy quick uploading and posting.

And please, Post JPEGs, bmps are bloated and unnessary.

I'll start.... someone please beat me!

MythicaL · Apr 4, 2006, 11:17 PM

Oh man Judas, I totally pwned yours

:

mkk · Apr 5, 2006, 03:32 AM

An old test of my striped Samsung P80's. Will separate them when I switch motherboard as the benefit is not so great after all. Then again the efficiency might be slightly lower because of the aged VIA raid chip on this Socket-A mobo.

Judas · Apr 5, 2006, 10:57 AM

hey... nothing wrong with nearly 100MB/s sustained read..... that's roughly twice as fast as my samsung 80gb sata 2 drive here.....

grog · Apr 5, 2006, 11:56 PM

The drives.

* Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3300622AS 300GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s x 2 (total 600GB) RAID-0
* Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3160812A 160GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100

PangingJr · May 6, 2006, 09:22 PM

Judas, do you have ULi SATA RAID results on the RAID0 with 2 Maxtor hard drives?
i'm now running a repair installation for adding RAID drivers on one system, i set up Windows using the same image that i use with other system that uses IDE mode on SATA controller, should be able to run the HDTach in about 20 mins. so i like to see your result of a 2 drives RAID0 setup, and see if i can beat you?

The_Neon_Cowboy · May 6, 2006, 10:03 PM

Heres's mine 2X hitchi deskstar T7K250 250GB SATA2

Quote:

Originally Posted by MythicaL

Oh man Judas, I totally pwned yours

:

WTF?? you've somthing running in the background, or?
or useing a strage stripe size? the controler funny?

wierd...... any one explain that one? I always see a basic curve
Raid or no raid....

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkk

An old test of my striped Samsung P80's. Will separate them when I switch
motherboard as the benefit is not so great after all. Then again the efficiency might be slightly lower because of the aged VIA raid chip on this Socket-A mobo.

I'd suspct the controller your useing is "maybe" lacking.... strage you almost flat out
yet the curve is there in the back ground

what stripe sizes you all useing? Wierd results....

Quote:

Originally Posted by PangingJr

Judas, do you have ULi SATA RAID results on the RAID0 with 2 Maxtor hard drives?
i'm now running a repair installation for adding RAID drivers on one system, i set up Windows using the same image that i use with other system that uses IDE mode on SATA controller, should be able to run the HDTach in about 20 mins. so i like to see your result of a 2 drives RAID0 setup, and see if i can beat you?

well, hurry up! i'm going to bed soon...

GNetX · May 6, 2006, 10:23 PM

Here's mine...

The drives are 2 Samsung Spinpoint SP2004C drives in R0 through an Intel ICH7R.

PangingJr · May 6, 2006, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Neon_Cowboy

well, hurry up! i'm going to bed soon...

lol neon go to bed i don't want to beat you i thought JD still around...

about your comments on how the HDTach's curve...
the curve of sequentail read speed on the HDTach window just came out like that on some systems, just as long as the average read's readouts still decent (not too low), i think the RAID setups are okay...

PangingJr · May 7, 2006, 04:14 AM

Seagate ST3808110AS RAID0 (2 hard drives),
2 RAID volumes were created during the firmware RAID set up.

real-time AV scan is on, all Windows and other services (except Remote Registry, System Restore, Automatic Updates, Windows Time and UPnP Device Host) are using default settings.

Two Windows OSes (XP Pro and XP x64 Pro) were installed by using a partition images restoring in mode DOS (Paragon Drive Backup) followed by Windows repair installation to add RAID drivers and then after that the Windows's have been reupdated. and then create a new backup image (Paragon Drive Backup Server edition). some of these partition image will go to my friend who asks me to create them, he also wants me to test the server edition of Paragon Drive Backup program.

anyway, i'll probably check with Seagate to see if they have any suggestion or can help improve the RAID performance, they might be able to help improving those curved shapes abit.

PangingJr · May 8, 2006, 07:00 AM

3xSeagate ST3808110AS firmware 3.AAE (P/N xxxx-303) in RAID0, 223.6 GB.

Vol_0 size = 32 GB (2 primary partitions for 2 Windows XP's),
Vol_1 size = 191.6 GB.
>

HD Tach... for Vol_0...
>

HD Tach... for Vol_1...
>

and here is HD Tach... for 1x Seagate ST3808110AS 80 GB (firmware 2AAA P/N xxxx-301) under SATA controller in IDE mode.
>

Judas · May 8, 2006, 02:31 PM

i think i've got 2 of these maxtors in raid 0 and 3 in raid 0 as well ....somewhere.... benchmarks i mean..

but HDTach i've noticed so far favors lower blocks sizes

However i'm a bit confused on how your setting up the volumes and getting HDTach to see it like that.

If they are indeed raid..... should it combine it into a single large hardrive....

When i load up HDTach, it sees only one available drive.

Course i miss my HighPoint Tech controller, with IDE ATA100 drives, i was getting nearly 1/2 of what i'm getting now... and they were 2mb cache 7200rpm.. generic maxtor (only 2 of them)....

PangingJr · May 8, 2006, 03:01 PM

that's the "Intel Matrix RAID", under ICH7R, RAID0 and RAID1 or RAID5 (Parity) can be combined. suppose to be RAID10 also...

about the RAID subsystem, in some cases... it has to do with hard drives's firmware, not just the controller.
if you want to have the best SATA RAID preformance you might want to consult and work with the hard drives tach supports.

PangingJr · May 8, 2006, 03:46 PM

Judas, have a look here... http://forums.storagereview.net/inde...35&hl=firmware
the link is not working atm, but check it out later. you would see that hard drive's firmware help correcting a 4x 500GB RAID5 performance problem.

anyway, i think i beat your results a little already. you might think i did cheat you a little, since the RAID0 volume size was only 32 GB?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

nicnik · May 8, 2006, 06:26 PM

so what strip size are u guys with raid-0 using, im using 16k and obtaining 105mb average read, seagate 7200.8 x2 raid-0 (too lazy to post screen hehe)
I do believe strip size makes a difference in hdtach

PangingJr · May 8, 2006, 11:07 PM

i've noticed that too. 16K strip size gives best benchmark results,
in many cases, 16K is good for sequential transfer under real-world performance.
the benchmark results can also give indication of real-world performance.

how about when you try a larger strip size like 128K, the benchmark results came out very poor,
so what about the real-world performance?

BWX · May 9, 2006, 12:10 AM

good ole ATA 100...

160GB 8mb cache...

EDit- oops here's the long test..

old 40BG 2mb cache...

Still fast enough for me.

PangingJr · May 9, 2006, 04:20 AM

here's a better HD Tach benchmark results for 3xSeagate ST3808110AS RAID0, 223.6 GB

Vol_0 = 32 GB, strip size = 16 KB
Vol_1 = 191.6 GB, , strip size = 16 KB

i took about 10 minutes to delete/rebuild RAID array using RAID BIOS utility, and restore a Windows partition via mode DOS...
Judas, i like to see the results of your 2x or 3x, can you find them?

nicnik · May 9, 2006, 09:10 AM

raid 16k makes a difference when i load games and levels. Though i havent tried 64k (which most recommend) to see the differences.
So what strip size are u using judus ?

Judas · May 9, 2006, 11:43 AM

i'm using 64k atm.. it's the largest ULi raid controller supports atm
Running nero Speed test or PcPitstop's HD tests (uncached/cached).. it says i've sustained anywhere from 200-300Mb/s reads..

Still fiddling..

but i know some more recent HD benchmarks that use much much larger files to write/read from, seem really show an accurate result. Benifitting the larger block sizes.

With Raid on my Highpoint tech with 2x 160gb 8mb cache WD hardrives with 2MB block size, transfering videos and recording high def videos was REALLY benificial, 64kb and lower (even 128kb block size) wasn't able to keep up.

HD tach showed good results.. nothing amazing.. but sandras large 1gb file transfering and test should excellent results.

Still fiddling here, but i'm guessing that the intel raid controller and those drives giving hdtach exactly what they need.... and i don't doubt that the raid controller is most likely a fair bit better.

nicnik · May 9, 2006, 10:55 PM

i guess the strip size depends on what u do. I'll maybe give 64k size a go some day, but right now raid-0 16k strip size is giving me increased speed in most of the things i use my hd for.

Retarp · May 10, 2006, 01:41 PM

2x WD2500YD 250Gig 16M cache western digital caviar re RAID 0 32k strip

I think they should go faster, probably just the raid controler is lousy.

Judas · May 10, 2006, 01:46 PM

yeah i think the uli isn't bad.. but it's not top preforming....

I'd still like to see Abit or other company get ahold of HighPoint Technologies chipsets... they are the fastest i've ever seen.

PangingJr · May 10, 2006, 04:17 PM

8K/16K stripe sizes work best with benchmarking tools, but it might be misleading.
the benchmark results could be just the hard drive's and controller's raw performance capabilites,
but a poor indication of real-world system performance.

128K or 64K strip sizes for RAID0 is usually recommended or set as default on the onboard controllers,
but anyway, the best strip size for each system is really based on and depends on the panned drive usage.

best benchmark results, but poor real-world system performance.
[/img]http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/4907/4xr0poorperformance4kc.png[/img]

PangingJr · May 26, 2006, 08:07 AM

i just finished setup RAID0 and Windows's on another machine and i just found that with the new Intel Matrix Storage Manager Console 5.7 and RAID AHCI Software 5.7.0.1011 (both 32-bit/64-bit versions) i can enable "Volume Write Back Cache" under RAID0.

according to the help file (see below) i can only enable this option in RAID5 only,
so i don't know what's going to be because this is my first time using the option on RAID0.

but i noticed quite an improvement in both the real-world applications test and HD Tach figures (for some reason it shows a very high burst speed, but i've never seen this high score when using the largest available stripe size before).

Long bench

Quick bench
[/img]http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/9164/2006052623fc.png[/img]

Intel Matrix Storage Manager Help (\Program Files\Intel\Intel Matrix Storage Manager\Shell_ENU.html)

Glossary

Volume Write Back Cache: This is used with RAID 5 only. The Write-Back Cache feature is supported by the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver to enhance read/write performance of a RAID 5 array.

Multiple I/O requests from the host are grouped into fewer requests and written from the cache to the volumes at defined intervals. The Write Back Cache can be enabled or disabled at any time without the need to reboot the system.

Hard Drive Write Cache: A cache memory within a hard drive, which temporarily stores data before that data is copied to non-volatile storage.