Hello!
Having browsed numerous pages in the other official ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe threads, I decided to create this thread focusing on the Silicon Image / RAID features of this motherboard.
I do a lot of digital photography and have been gathering quite a lot of images during the past years. The risk of loosing the images due to disk failure has recently made me realize I was looking for a RAID5 system (either software or hardware based). I also do backups of my data, but I like to keep everything online for browsing .. don't ask.
I therefore purchased the A8N-SLI Deluxe because of its capabilities to do RAID5 with the Silicon Image chip to check the software RAID5 performance.
Installation:
I flashed the motherboard to BIOS version 1008 before initiating OS install.
I decided to try to install Windows 2003 Server on a RAID5 legacy set (that I had configured in the BIOS GUI) and loaded the drivers using F6 during install boot with no problems. I created a 100 gigabyte partition from the available 750 gigabytes and completed installation with succes.
I updated the Sililcon Image driver from Windows Update, along with all other drivers for the NForce4 chipset and all units seemed to be working (USB, FireWire, LAN etc.).
It was then time for the real install, using the 73 gigabyte ULTRA160 disk from my previous workstation as system partition (always favoured a snap system drive and didn't trust the RAID5 software setup enough).
Soon after, I had completed the last install of Windows 2003 Server and updated all drivers and wanted to check the Silicon Image documentation on the ASUS Motherboard CD.
I entered the CD in the Plextor PX716SA tray, and after a few seconds of inspection Windows froze. Didn't like that from a fresh install so I naturally flipped the switch and tried again - same story, Windows froze.
I then removed all harddrives from the setup, disabled almost everything but the Adaptec ULTRA160 controller and the Plextor PX716SA - but windows still froze.
A bit annoyed, I started searching the web using google and quickly came to the conclusion (using a few hours on this forum), that the Plextor PX716SA somehow wasn't supported by the NVidia SATA controller in Windows (things are probably different during install of Windows - as I used the Plextor PX716SA in the NVidia SATA port 1).
Once I plugged the Plextor PX716SA to port 4 of the Silicon Image controller, the drive worked perfectly - reading, writing etc. with no problem (I tested using NERO).
Any suggestions to the NVidia SATA + Plextor PX716SA problem so far?
..
Apparently the RAID5 set I had created (using the Silicon Image JAVA GUI) was causing problems after I had flipped the powerswitch to bring the system back up. My RAID group was not yellow and the third disk was missing (orphaned - shown in yellow).
As I didn't have any data on the RAID5 set, I deleted the RAID group and created a new RAID5 set (now shown in green). Once completed, I created a 750GB partition, quick formatted it and started to copy data from my 2 x 200GB disks.
As far as I'm concerned the RAID5 is software based, hence all parity calculation takes place on the CPU - but my CPU is doing nothing - sitting idle. Maybe it's just be expecting too much, but more than 6 hours for copying 200GB of data?
I thought I'd check the performance using a stripe set and created a 1,2TB RAID group.
The situation is that I need data security and was hoping for the Silicon Image chip to provide a viable RAID5 solution for me (although software based). From the instability I have seen, I don't trust it - at all - and an hence looking at a hardware RAID5 controller instead.
The ARECA ARC-1210 PCIe card (4 x SATA, sold by TEKRAM) with a hardware XOR processor seems like the "best in test" solution according to google. Price is approx. $500 and fits the second PCIe slot (I don't plan on using SLI anyway - just wanted the option).
..
In general, while copying data to the Silicon Image controller, I am experiencing lag when starting some applications - for some reason they seem to be waiting for a "go" signal for a few seconds before starting.
I'm considering flashing to beta ASUS BIOS versions but would like to wait for official releases.
Comments are most welcome!
I have the following setup (no overclocking):
Lian Li PC1000 Case
AMD64 3800+ Venice core
NorthQ NQ4775-400, ATX PSU, 17db
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (BIOS version 1008)
ASUS GT6800 PCIe
Adaptech 19160 Ultra160 PCI
Plextor PX716SA (BIOS version 1.07)
2 x 1GB GeIL DDR RAM
1 x 73GB Maxtor Atlas IV Ultra160 (Windows 2003 Server, SP1)
3 x 400GB Seagate SATA discs (RAID5 on Silicon Image controller)
2 x 200GB Maxtor IDE discs (on primary IDE controller)
21" Samsung 213T
With regards
Anders Borum / Denmark
Having browsed numerous pages in the other official ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe threads, I decided to create this thread focusing on the Silicon Image / RAID features of this motherboard.
I do a lot of digital photography and have been gathering quite a lot of images during the past years. The risk of loosing the images due to disk failure has recently made me realize I was looking for a RAID5 system (either software or hardware based). I also do backups of my data, but I like to keep everything online for browsing .. don't ask.
I therefore purchased the A8N-SLI Deluxe because of its capabilities to do RAID5 with the Silicon Image chip to check the software RAID5 performance.
Installation:
I flashed the motherboard to BIOS version 1008 before initiating OS install.
I decided to try to install Windows 2003 Server on a RAID5 legacy set (that I had configured in the BIOS GUI) and loaded the drivers using F6 during install boot with no problems. I created a 100 gigabyte partition from the available 750 gigabytes and completed installation with succes.
I updated the Sililcon Image driver from Windows Update, along with all other drivers for the NForce4 chipset and all units seemed to be working (USB, FireWire, LAN etc.).
It was then time for the real install, using the 73 gigabyte ULTRA160 disk from my previous workstation as system partition (always favoured a snap system drive and didn't trust the RAID5 software setup enough).
Soon after, I had completed the last install of Windows 2003 Server and updated all drivers and wanted to check the Silicon Image documentation on the ASUS Motherboard CD.
I entered the CD in the Plextor PX716SA tray, and after a few seconds of inspection Windows froze. Didn't like that from a fresh install so I naturally flipped the switch and tried again - same story, Windows froze.
I then removed all harddrives from the setup, disabled almost everything but the Adaptec ULTRA160 controller and the Plextor PX716SA - but windows still froze.
A bit annoyed, I started searching the web using google and quickly came to the conclusion (using a few hours on this forum), that the Plextor PX716SA somehow wasn't supported by the NVidia SATA controller in Windows (things are probably different during install of Windows - as I used the Plextor PX716SA in the NVidia SATA port 1).
Once I plugged the Plextor PX716SA to port 4 of the Silicon Image controller, the drive worked perfectly - reading, writing etc. with no problem (I tested using NERO).
Any suggestions to the NVidia SATA + Plextor PX716SA problem so far?
..
Apparently the RAID5 set I had created (using the Silicon Image JAVA GUI) was causing problems after I had flipped the powerswitch to bring the system back up. My RAID group was not yellow and the third disk was missing (orphaned - shown in yellow).
As I didn't have any data on the RAID5 set, I deleted the RAID group and created a new RAID5 set (now shown in green). Once completed, I created a 750GB partition, quick formatted it and started to copy data from my 2 x 200GB disks.
- Write performance was quite slow. Windows had been copying data for more than 6 hours and only managed to copy about 100GB of data.
- Entering the Silicon Image JAVA GUI now showed my RAID group in yellow, with the third device as orphaned .. simply because I was copying data? I wasn't too sure about this RAID5 solution ..
As far as I'm concerned the RAID5 is software based, hence all parity calculation takes place on the CPU - but my CPU is doing nothing - sitting idle. Maybe it's just be expecting too much, but more than 6 hours for copying 200GB of data?
I thought I'd check the performance using a stripe set and created a 1,2TB RAID group.
- Performance was clearly up by a factor of 5 compared to the RAID5 setup
- First time I see Windows use the word "1,2TB" when describing my disks
- No data security - dang!
The situation is that I need data security and was hoping for the Silicon Image chip to provide a viable RAID5 solution for me (although software based). From the instability I have seen, I don't trust it - at all - and an hence looking at a hardware RAID5 controller instead.
The ARECA ARC-1210 PCIe card (4 x SATA, sold by TEKRAM) with a hardware XOR processor seems like the "best in test" solution according to google. Price is approx. $500 and fits the second PCIe slot (I don't plan on using SLI anyway - just wanted the option).
..
In general, while copying data to the Silicon Image controller, I am experiencing lag when starting some applications - for some reason they seem to be waiting for a "go" signal for a few seconds before starting.
I'm considering flashing to beta ASUS BIOS versions but would like to wait for official releases.
Comments are most welcome!
I have the following setup (no overclocking):
Lian Li PC1000 Case
AMD64 3800+ Venice core
NorthQ NQ4775-400, ATX PSU, 17db
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (BIOS version 1008)
ASUS GT6800 PCIe
Adaptech 19160 Ultra160 PCI
Plextor PX716SA (BIOS version 1.07)
2 x 1GB GeIL DDR RAM
1 x 73GB Maxtor Atlas IV Ultra160 (Windows 2003 Server, SP1)
3 x 400GB Seagate SATA discs (RAID5 on Silicon Image controller)
2 x 200GB Maxtor IDE discs (on primary IDE controller)
21" Samsung 213T
With regards
Anders Borum / Denmark