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Low performace Raid
Hi, I purchased a Norco DS-500 Sata array enclosure with 4 Seagate ST31000528AS Sata installed that I’ll use HD for video capture and edit.
I’m using a BlackMagic Decklink board and I tested the performance of the hard drives using the included program test and I get only around 120MB/s transfer rate.For Raid I striped the drives using the Windows disk management.
Update the lastest Bios for the Sil3132 controller.
My system is a Asus P6T DeLuxe V2 with a Intel Core i7 920 2.67Ghz 4GB ram running Windows 7 64-bit.What I’m doing wrong, how can I get the transfer rates up to 230MB/s described in Norco manual?
Regards,
Allby -
6 Replies
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1. That rate is based on 5 drives striped in RAID-0.
2. You will want to use the RAID controller to create the RAID, not Windows Disk Management. You should have some kind of RAID management software that came with it, or you can manage the RAID when you are booting up.
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Thank you, Tood.
So I need to 1 more drive in the box, right?
Yes, it came with a RAID management software.
I must use Raid-0 or Raid-5?Cheers,
Allby -
Todd,
I was rereading the manual and look what I found about using the Windows Disk Management:
“The SATARAID5 utility software provides advanced
RAID configurations (please refer to Appendix I) including Disk Striping (RAID0), Disk Mirroring (RAID1), Disk
Mirroring and Striping (RAID 0+1), Parity RAID (RAID5), Concatenated and JBOD. However, the data transfer performance may be lower than setting RAID using the OS Disk Management.”Cheers,
Allby -
Yes. To get the speeds they are talking about (230MB/s) you would need the same as what they got that speed with, which on their site says:
“Sustained Transfer Rates: Up to 230MB/s*
* The peak DS-500 data transfer rate descried is based on a five SATA II drive setup in a RAID 0 configuration; Average NAS system data transfer speed is based on 20Mbytes/sec.”You also have the NORCO-4618 controller, right? The site on that says you CAN ALSO setup RAID in BASE mode using OS Disc Management:
“The NORCO-4618 controller is set to RAID mode (default: jumper 1-2). You need install
SATARAID5 utility software to detect the hard drives installed and set up RAID group. If
you change the jumper to BASE mode (2-3), the host system will recognize all the hard
drives installed in the external system as individual drives. You can also use your OS Disk
Management to setup RAID in BASE mode (refer to your OS manual).”Having the OS control the RAID will give you less performance. Keep in mind, setting the array up in RAID-0 will give the fastest performance, but no protection. You will want some sort of backup plan because you will have a drive fail at some point in time.
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Todd,
Yes, I have the NORCO-4618 controller.
Well I’ll install one more hard drive and try a RAID made using the SATARAID5 utility software.Thanks.
Allby -
Hi Todd,
I’m still fighting with this box.
Now I have 5 drives in the array but still the same.
I actually got the card that came with the DS-500, a Sil3132 controller not the NORCO-4618 controller that I told you before.
Somebody told me that controller with only one port multiplication doesn’t raid well. The 300 MB/sec bandwidth of a single data cable through which the port multiplier connects will hold back simultaneous transfers as you add more drives to it.
This is correct?
Cheers,
Allby
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