# Wd6400aaks - Raid 0



## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 7, 2008)

*UPDATE: Here was the outcome: http://www.pc-pad.com/ (raid article)

Hey, recently I picked up a RAID controller card to put two WD6400AAKS into RAID 0. I benchmarked both in HDTune, here are the results:

Single Drive:







RAID 0:







Is this normal performance for drivers put into RAID 0? I wasn't expecting huge improvements, but its weird that burst rate would actually be lower. I read another thread that said this is normal for a RAID 0 setup though, is this true? What real-world scenarios would be affected by burst rate? Also, could this be caused by using a PCI-e Raid controller like the one I'm using:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008
I know its not the best, but I don't really understand why burst rate would be lower than the normal transfer rate, since it is supposed to be the "the highest speed (in megabytes per second) at which data can be transferred from the drive interface", shouldn't it be at least as high as the maximum transfer rate?


Thanks for any help.


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## Pinchy (Oct 7, 2008)

Yeah you should get better results than that.

Ive never used a RAID card...that could be the problem.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=931389&postcount=62


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## wolf2009 (Oct 7, 2008)

Pinchy said:


> Ive never used a RAID card...that could be the problem.
> 
> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=931389&postcount=62



hows you never having used a raid card a problem for him getting lower rates  ?


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## Pinchy (Oct 7, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> hows you never having used a raid card a problem for him getting lower rates  ?



Lol no what I meant was;

having a cheap RAID card might be the problem. I cant confirm it or anything, never having owned a RAID card myself.

Clearer ?


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 7, 2008)

Well, I'd be willing to install a more expensive raid card, but I don't want to go investing in one unless I'm sure that it is the bottleneck. :\


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## Pinchy (Oct 7, 2008)

Your limited by something.

Although your RAID card was cheap, I dont think it should be performing worse than onboard RAID.


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## niko084 (Oct 7, 2008)

Pinchy said:


> Your limited by something.
> 
> Although your RAID card was cheap, I dont think it should be performing worse than onboard RAID.



Eh I have seen even some of the $75ish cards perform worse than my onboards....
Not by as much as that looks to be but..

Check this out---
Cons: Installing was pretty much a "figure it out yourself" kind of thing. The manual that was included was apparently translated, poorly at that, from another language. I'm not sure weither I was having hardware conflicts or software because I'm using Vista. Anyways there was an actual decrease in speed going from just one 74gb Raptor to two 74gb Raptors in a RAID 0 array! This lasted a month and I took it out, reformated, and put my hard drives how they were before.

Anther problem is a pci-e x1 slot has 2.5 Gbit/s of bandwidth, which is less than your standard port onboard.


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## Steevo (Oct 7, 2008)

Higher aerial density=faster sustained transfer rates
Higher RPM=faster sustained transfer rates+lower access times

A PCI based card will be limited to 133Mbps at the peak theoretical limit, with overhead and other looses 120Mbps is the highest I have ever seen sustained and or peak. But a high quality PCI based card is better than a cheap PCI-e or PCI-x card.


Or in easier terms I am finding it better to buy a higher capacity drive than to RAID smaller drives anymore as the new tech included with SATA drives makes the point of RAID for smaller drives useless.


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 7, 2008)

Pinchy said:


> Your limited by something.
> 
> Although your RAID card was cheap, I dont think it should be performing worse than onboard RAID.



Well that is sorta what I was thinking, because I realize its less expensive, but I have a gigabyte p35-ds3l, and the raid version of the board was no more than $30 over what the ds3l cost. I just didn't plan on doing raid when I was first picking a board, plus I was on a tight budget back when I purchased it.

But yeah, I just figured if it only costs 30 bucks to add raid capability to a mobo, a 30 dollar raid card _should_ work well....


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## DrunkenMafia (Oct 8, 2008)

I have those same 2 drives in my raid and I just tried hdtune then.

Peak transfer is 198mb/s
average transfer is 163mb/s

Hope that helps man


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

I still don't really understand why the higher end RAID controllers are so much more expensive. I understand that they have a dedicated cpu for RAID, but you can get a RAID enabled motherboard for cheaper than most of these higher end RAID cards.


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## niko084 (Oct 8, 2008)

ArmoredCavalry said:


> I still don't really understand why the higher end RAID controllers are so much more expensive. I understand that they have a dedicated cpu for RAID, but you can get a RAID enabled motherboard for cheaper than most of these higher end RAID cards.



Higher end ones are full hardware! You start to get pretty massive differences depending on what else is running on your system and how many drives/ type of raid configuration you have.

You don't really need a card with ram or a separate risk processor, but a better card wouldn't be a bad idea by all means, another option is because a better card is going to run ya $100+ for a decent card, maybe just swap the mobo out for a better board all around.

Lots of people seem to be talking about cheap raid cards in raid 0 slacking off worse than onboard especially when on a nice intel ich**...

Full hardware level raid is used much more often in servers to help offload processors and system ram, allows buffers and error correction etc. Also much more helpful in different arrays "huge differences in raid 5 setups", but being your Raid 0, onboard works great.

If I remember later tonight I'll get you some numbers from my 2x Raptor 150's in Raid 0 on a Nvidia 650i board using onboard nvidia raid.

It's your card----
http://www.overclockerspulse.com/storage-reviews/rosewill-2port-sata-pci-card-review/


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> I have those same 2 drives in my raid and I just tried hdtune then.
> 
> Peak transfer is 198mb/s
> average transfer is 163mb/s
> ...



Can you upload a screen of the benchmark? Also, do you have the entire drive in raid, or did you "short-stroke" it.


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## DrunkenMafia (Oct 8, 2008)

ArmoredCavalry said:


> Can you upload a screen of the benchmark? Also, do you have the entire drive in raid, or did you "short-stroke" it.



Yeah sure man, will do it 2nite when I get home.

I have the entire drive raid 0 and then I have partitioned it into 2 drives. 1 - 240gb (vista) and 1tb media/shit.


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

I have one partition being 700gb (O/S and games) and the rest being for media. I don't see why that would slow down benchmark though,  because it tests the whole disk..


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## niko084 (Oct 8, 2008)

ArmoredCavalry said:


> I have one partition being 700gb (O/S and games) and the rest being for media. I don't see why that would slow down benchmark though,  because it tests the whole disk..



Probably because of the way it handles the burst test, going through your pci, and then into the card and all the way back around on a limited channel on a cheap card..


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## DrunkenMafia (Oct 8, 2008)

here is the bench from my 640gb WD setup i told you about..


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

What block size are you using?

If I was to buy a new raid controller, I was looking at this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115047

Seems like a lot of money to spend on something like this though. :\


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## niko084 (Oct 8, 2008)

ArmoredCavalry said:


> What block size are you using?
> 
> If I was to buy a new raid controller, I was looking at this one:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115047
> ...



It's a lot better...

But again why spend $130 on another card when you could spend a few bucks more and get a far better board all together.

Say--
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299
*Even cheaper after the rebate*

Like Gigabyte more?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128344


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

Well, mostly because my board is not even a year old, and a RAID card would be a lot easier to setup. 

I might just use the drives separately. :\


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## Pinchy (Oct 8, 2008)

ArmoredCavalry said:


> Well, mostly because my board is not even a year old, and a RAID card would be a lot easier to setup.
> 
> I might just use the drives separately. :\



Haha agreed with niko, just buy a brand new, faster board .

No point buying an expensive RAID card unless your gonna use more than say, 4 HDDs. Otherwise onboard is fine


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

Yeah, I actually ended up buying:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128344

I guess I don't really mind taking the time to move everything over, and its less than a raid controller, plus it has crossfire support (not that I have any chance of fitting, or cooling, two 4870's ). Only thing I am nervous about is applying the thermal paste correctly to the cpu, I guess you just clean the old stuff off first, then just apply an even layer? But yeah, seems like a really nice board for the $, and it has the ich10r for raid, which does really well from the benchmarks I have seen.

I think I made the right choice.  Thanks for all the help and advice guys.


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## niko084 (Oct 8, 2008)

ArmoredCavalry said:


> Yeah, I actually ended up buying:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128344
> 
> I guess I don't really mind taking the time to move everything over, and its less than a raid controller, plus it has crossfire support (not that I have any chance of fitting, or cooling, two 4870's ). Only thing I am nervous about is applying the thermal paste correctly to the cpu, I guess you just clean the old stuff off first, then just apply an even layer? But yeah, seems like a really nice board for the $, and it has the ich10r for raid, which does really well from the benchmarks I have seen.
> ...



Eh not really a fan of Gigabytes cheap boards, but it will deffinetely do the trick for you, and since your not overclocking its not a big deal.

In the end you will be far happier I think!

Besides now you have a board you can sell


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 8, 2008)

Yeah, I get yelled at by my buddies for buying Gigabyte (and rosewill ), but meh, my case cost 40 dollars (with shipping ), my powersupply was about the same (550w), and so far I have been going strong for close to a year.  Sometimes it pays to be cheap (sometimes not so much).

Yeah, I'll try selling the p35-ds3l for sure.


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## niko084 (Oct 9, 2008)

If you do post it here, I maybe interested myself.. Gotta few extra computers around the house that its time to upgrade... Few chips laying around too just need some boards and video cards I think.


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 9, 2008)

niko084 said:


> If you do post it here, I maybe interested myself.. Gotta few extra computers around the house that its time to upgrade... Few chips laying around too just need some boards and video cards I think.



I pm'ed you, not sure if it went through as the forums sorta froze...


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## DrunkenMafia (Oct 9, 2008)

Just a FYI -

remember to read the manual when installing XP A.C.  You have to have a floppy drive with drivers on it and hit f6 (from memory) when it asks during initial windows file load. 

I was stoked that vista has the drivers built in and you can make an array straight from the dvd.  It sux having to hook up a floppy drive and then try and find a disk that works!!  

Good luck with it anyways.

As with your question before, i can't remember what chunk size i made the array.  I think it was around 128kb.


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 9, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> Just a FYI -
> 
> remember to read the manual when installing XP A.C.  You have to have a floppy drive with drivers on it and hit f6 (from memory) when it asks during initial windows file load.
> 
> ...



Well I should hopefully be able to just setup an array, and then clone my o/s drive to the array. That's what I did with the raid card anyhow.


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## DrunkenMafia (Oct 10, 2008)

Just found this old thread to mate, its a good little comparison:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=68546


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 10, 2008)

Ah, nice find! Thanks, that is helpful. My new mobo is actually out for delivery as I'm typing this, so once I get everything hooked up and running, I'll be sure to do another test.


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 10, 2008)

So yeah, I unplugged the windows o/s harddrive, and then created a RAID array with the two empty drives. Then when I plugged the windows drive back in, and try to boot from it I get a BSOD, telling me to remove any newly installed hard drive controllers (which would not allow me to use RAID). .

Any clues on how to get past this without reinstalling windows with the raid driver?

*UPDATE: Just for future reference, this guide is pretty helpful:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1...age-controllers-reinstalling-windows#t1749675


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