WD1001FALS 1TB in RAID 0

[alevasseur14]

I just rebuilt my computer using two of WDs new TB drives in RAID 0. I thought I'd notice a definite speed increase in Vista and in game loads but I'm starting to wonder if my computer is actually slower?? Maybe it's because I'm almost done with the game but GTA IV takes FOREVER to load now.

I seem to remember reading in Newegg reviews that some people were experiencing slower performance with these drives in RAID configurations due to a bug in the firmware. Has anyone ever heard this? If so, are there firmware updates available and how do I get a hold of them?

I'm not 100 percent sure it's not my motherboard, now that I've been using this 680i for a while, I'm starting to think it's a touch buggy.

Thanks!

 

[rarebear]

Download a trial of HD Tune and check your Benchmarks
http://www.hdtune.com/

I have two 1TB Blacks in 0Raid
My Benchs are
Xfer rate
Min. 106
Max 201
Avr 166

Access Time 9.8

Burst 143

Edit:
Try HD Tach maybe that will run on Vista x64

 

[alevasseur14]

Great! I'll try that when I get home. I tried HD Tune but it doesn't run on Vista 64.

Thanks again!

 

[alevasseur14]

Wow, something is certainly wrong here. I just didn't know how wrong until I saw the graph building in HD Tune while loading GTA IV.

Min: 2.1 MB/sec
Max: 159.3 MB/sec
Average: 72.7 MB/sec

Access: 18.3
Burst: 111.5 MB/sec

So, now I need to figure out what my next step is. I have a new ASUS motherboard on the way. I'd like to keep the RAID 0 as I have no need to keep the drives seperated. I just want one large storage pool. Should I put the new motherboard in and try the RAID 0 again to rule out a slow controller on my EVGA board or should I just try one HD for now?

Wow, that graph is ugly. The line spends well over half the test below 100 MB/sec. Really disappointing.

 

[alevasseur14]

I have the picture of the graph saved to my desktop and on my mobileme page but I'm not sure how I get it to show up here?

Try this: http://gallery.me.com/alevasseur14/100018

 

[Shmee]

I have heard that blacks dont do well in raid, which is why I bought samsung spinpoint F1's. My max was around there, though I never got such low minimums. I believe my min was around 90 MB/s.

It also depends on which stripe size you select.

 

[alevasseur14]

Yeah, I'd heard that too. I don't remember where though. Maybe I'll just try one of the drives when I get my new motherboard installed and see what happens there. Chances are good I'll be happy with that.

I'll keep you posted - thanks for the advice!

 

[bigsnyder]

I posted over at Hardforum about the Black 1TB Raid performance a few months ago. I never did get a clear cut answer. This article over at extremetech also confirms the performance hit in RAID 0, which is why I posted the question over there in the first place. I decided to stick with the 640GB versions since they don't exhibit the same problem.

 

[alevasseur14]

Thanks for jumping in, bigsnyder. I was thinking about what I should do with the other drive if I just go down to a single drive. Both options I've been been playing with in my head are a little bit redundant. First, I figured I'd just get another external enclosure and hook another drive up to my WHS. This really isn't necessary as my WHS is already at 2.6 TB usable and a little under half of that is free. Then I thought I'd just switch over to RAID 1 and have a little redundancy built into my main system. It quickly dawned on me that this also is unnecessary as that's the whole point of having WHS to begin with. Now I'm not sure what I'll do.

I saw some graphs of the 640s in RAID 1 and they do look good. Maybe I'll just hang on to the extra 1TB and try to sell it at some point. Then when I'm out of school and working full time again, I can buy two 640s and sell the other 1TB. At the end of the day I'll probably just stick with 1 1TB drive. The thought of all those Windows installs makes me dizzy!

What to do, what to do...

 

[rarebear]

I just read the Artical at ExtremeTech and it says you should NOT use 0 Raid for a OS

Other than one of two drives are more likely to fail than one whats the down side???????

 

[alevasseur14]

2 hard drives means 2 critical failure points as there is no redundancy on RAID 0. Not an issue for me as I'm totally backed up on my WHS and other machine.

 

[WinWiz]

"I saw the graph building in HD Tune while loading GTA IV"
Did you load GTA while benchmarking? If so this would cause the ugly spikes.

 

[alevasseur14]

Yeah, I did run the benchmark while loading. I thought about that causing the spikes but all the way down to 2.1 MB/sec?

 

[alevasseur14]

I went crazy with the shopping cart at Newegg again... The server will be getting the 1TB drives and I'm going to RAID 0 two of the Black 640s. Should work out alright. I definitely won't need to upgrade the HDs in the server any time soon after this!

Thanks guys!

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: rarebear
I just read the Artical at ExtremeTech and it says you should NOT use 0 Raid for a OS

Other than one of two drives are more likely to fail than one whats the down side???????

Yeah that sounds scary especially for a server. Raid 0 + 1 maybe. But at that point you've spent enough that you're wondering if you should have just gotten an Intel X25-E or even Intel X25-M if you really need that extra space for a server OS.

For a gaming system I could understand a need for large fast array since games take up a lot of space.

But then again I don't know what your use of the server will be.

 

[alevasseur14]

Originally posted by: sxr7171
Yeah that sounds scary especially for a server. Raid 0 + 1 maybe. But at that point you've spent enough that you're wondering if you should have just gotten an Intel X25-E or even Intel X25-M if you really need that extra space for a server OS.

For a gaming system I could understand a need for large fast array since games take up a lot of space.

But then again I don't know what your use of the server will be.

I can't spend that kind of money and get such little space in return. I really wish I could, though!

The computers the TB drives are in right now serves as a gaming machine sometimes but is most often used as a Media Center PC and PVR. That's why I went as large with the HDs as I did.

The server sits around and runs Windows Home Server. It's been built and operational for almost 2 years now. It's a handy backup/storage solution but it has this nasty habit of sucking up all my old drives for it's storage pool! LOL.

It just occurred to me this morning that I won't be able to move the existing array over to the new motherboard in order to transfer all my files. Bummer. Now I'll have to use the server and that takes so much longer than a direct hook up!!! Good things school's out now...