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Computer help: Best RAID 0 setup?
Best RAID 0 setup?
by Brett Cherrington - 6/2/04 3:47 PMI am interested in increasing my hard drive capacity and performance to enhance video storage and processing.
I have an ATI All-in-Wonder 9700PRO which I use as a PVR and also a Sony DCR-TRV103 digital camcorder that I use to input video that I process with Pinnacle Studio8 and burn to DVD on an Optorite DD0401.
These two functions combine to fill up my 125G of storage and leave little room for overhead necessary to process efficiently. I am interested in the concept of a RAID 0 array as the way to upgrade the system, and am thinking of purchasing 2 hard drives for that purpose. I am currently full up on my IDE ports (2 ATA100 hard drives plus the DVD burner and a CD burner.
My FIC AU13 motherboard has two SATA ports and a Silicon Image 3112A chip so I was considering a SATA RAID 0, but after reading ...
http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7588-0.html?forumID=70&threadID=21725&start=0
...Ihave my doubts about that choice. I specifically got this mobo when I built my system looking forward to this day and I guess I was scammed by XP's lack of support.
I have an old Promise Ultra100 PCI card that I am not using and plenty of open slots.
Questions:
1)Would I be better off using the Promise Ultra100 PCI card and going with two ATA100 drives?
2) Am I correct that the 3112A will run the RAID 0 on this card?
3)Would this be slower than a SATA RAID 0?
4)Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Brett
Computer Build:
Processor: AMD AthlonXP-A 2500+ Barton
1833MHz (5.5 x 333)
L2 cache 512 KB (On-Die, Full-Speed)
Motherboard: FIC AU13 Chameleon Max nForce2 ATX
nVIDIA® nFORCE2 ® SPP(SPP=Ultra 400) MCP-T Chipset
FSB 400 Mhz
DDR 400/333 memory with DualDDR channel
AGP 8X
Realtek ALC650 5.1 Channel Codec Sound
Serial ATA Silicon Image 3112A with RAID feature
Onboard LAN Broadcom®® AC101L 10/100Mbps LAN Chip
3COM 3C920B-EMB Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller IEEE 1394 - Firewire
6 USB2.0 ports
3 DIMM slots
Memory: 1+GB (2x 512MB) Crucial DDRAM PC-2700
Video Card: ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB
Operating System: Windows XP Home SP1
Hard Drives: Western Digital Special Edition 80GB 7200RPM 8MB
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 45GB 7200RPM 2MB
Keyboard / Mouse: Logitech RF Cordless MX Duo optical
Mouse (secondary): Logitech Trackman Wheel
Webcam: Creative USB PD1001
Microphone: Dell OEM
CD Drive: Micro Advantage 52x24x52 CD-RW
DVD Drive: Optorite DD0401 - 8x4x2x40x24 DVD+RW
Floppy Drive: Samsung SFD321B
Case: Just4PC 766ATX W\ 485W Power Supply
Printer: Hewlett Packard Deskjet 722C
Scanner: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 4470C
Camcorder: Sony Digital8 DCR TRV-103
Digital Camera: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P10 5MP
Modem: Motorola Surfboard SB4200
Router: D-link DI-604
Connections:
Secondary Win98SE computer
Sony Playstation 2
Speakers: generic desktop stereo
Audio receiver: JVC RX-9010VBK w/USB interface
Video/Audio Hardware:
ATI Remote Wonder w/USB RF controller V.2.36
Monster Cable S-Video cable (video to TV)
USB cable (audio to JVC receiver)
ISP: Comcast cable
Monitors: Desktop : Micron 17" CRT
Television: Sony Trinitron 20" Flatscreen CRT
PCI Cards: 5 Port USB2 Expansion Card (4 External - 1 Internal)
2 PortUSB2 ; 1 Port IEEE 1394 Firewire - Front Panel Connector
Partitions:
A: Removable Disk
C: (Operating System)Local Disk NTFS 10001 MB
D: (Page File) Local Disk NTFS 1498 MB
E: (Documents) Local Disk NTFS 10001 MB
F: (Downloads) Local Disk NTFS 1498 MB
G: (Temp Files) Local Disk NTFS 502 MB
H: (Programs) Local Disk NTFS 10001 MB
I: (Storage) Local Disk NTFS 44304 MB
J: (Video) Local Disk NTFS 42468 MB
K: Optical Drive
L: Optical Drive
Re:Best RAID 0 setup?
by Brett Cherrington - 6/3/04 2:10 AM In reply to: Best RAID 0 setup? by Brett CherringtonAnyone able to help?
Re:Best RAID 0 setup?
by bob b - 6/3/04 6:42 AM In reply to: Best RAID 0 setup? by Brett CherringtonSince I do not use this machine to do anything like that I do not have a clue how to answer your question.
However I do have a question.
When you say
"These two functions combine to fill up my 125G of storage and leave little room for overhead necessary to process efficiently."
Does this mean?
These two functions combine to fill up one or more of my many partions and leave little room for overhead necessary to process efficiently.
Re:Re:Best RAID 0 setup?
by Brett Cherrington - 6/3/04 11:54 AM In reply to: Re:Best RAID 0 setup? by bob bMy original intention was to have Drive J: as my video processing partition and then copy to store on I:
Drive J is the major partition of my 45G drive (a 1.5G page file partition being the only other)
Problem is, between PVR and home movie production, I: fills up fast and J: doubles as extra storage. Not good.
My partitions as of right now
c: (on drive 0) OS 10.49 GB 6.05 GB free
d: (on drive 1) Page File 1.57 GB 302 MB free
e: (on drive 0) Docs 10.49 GB 2.76 GB free
f: (on drive 0) Downloads 1.57 GB 789 MB free
g: (on drive 0) Temp 526 MB 439 MB free
h: (on drive 0) Programs 10.49 GB 5.01 GB free
i: (on drive 0) Storage 46.46 GB 9.53 GB free
j: (on drive 1) Video 44.53 GB 20.96 GB free
Having read Bob Proffitt's reply will probably get one (and another later as needed) large hard drive to supplement my system, save some cash flow over the 2 drive RAID and go from there.
Thank you for your response.
Brett
Re:Best RAID 0 setup? Only way to tell is to setup and benchmark it.
by R. Proffitt
- 6/3/04 7:14 AM
In reply to: Best RAID 0 setup? by Brett Cherrington
Your collection of hardware is yours and yours alone. While it seems uncaring for me to write such, the brutal truth is that all configurations are not benchmarked or will work the same from some benchmark to today's install by you.
As such, no "Best" can be offered, but I will give some advice.
1. Use the right cables.
Today, for IDE, with the prices being so low, only use 80 conductor cables. Even on IDE-33 (MHz) connections, the extra signal integrity is worth the $1.19 I pay for the cable.
2. Use supersized power supplies.
Light reading at http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/ and followup with http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/ to see why I oversize the PSU to just stay out of trouble.
3. RAID 0 is (most of the time) faster. But in video work, outside of the occasional "copy" of a file from here to there, the encoding still takes up 99% of the waiting time. I found no real percentage points in time saved in RAID vs. no-RAID setups. In fact, a 6 hour DVD encoding run on exact duplicate machines found a 5 minute savings on a 6 hour run when one machine had 1 GigaByte (GB) of RAM and the other "only" 512 MegaBytes (MB.)
4. Drives slow as they fill.
A well measured effect is that a drive 1/2 full runs at a much slower speed than an empty drive.
Lesson? Use an empty drive for "work", move the finished file to "storage."
Bob
Re:Re:Best RAID 0 setup? Only way to tell is to setup and benchmark it.
by Brett Cherrington - 6/3/04 11:55 AM In reply to: Re:Best RAID 0 setup? Only way to tell is to setup and benchmark it. by R. Proffitt
Thank you for your response.
Regarding your advice.
1. I only use 80 conductor cables.
2. I have a JustPC(USA)Inc 485W power supply. I realize this isn't a top shelf unit but thought the 485 would provide plenty of overhead. I am no engineer and I haven't done the math on my system but it should be adequate, no?
3. Based on your explanation, I am more than happy to bail out on the RAID option in favor of separate hard drives. And I do have 1GB of RAM. That being the case, can I achieve similar results using the Promise Ultra100 card and 7200rpm ATA100 drives (much less expensive) or do I get a worthwhile boost going 7200rpm SATA ("raptors" are out of my budget $/G)?
4. This time I really WILL keep a separate drive empty for video "work", I promise.
I truly appreciate all of the advice.
Brett
Re: Best RAID 0 setup?
by jogren - 6/13/04 1:49 AM In reply to: Best RAID 0 setup? by Brett Cherringtoncan't imagine XP not supporting SATA....I just built a system and use WIN 2K and have a RAID setup with two SATA hard disks and it works exceedingly well...much faster than my IDE drive.....with all due respect I think someone is peddling CACA!
''Happy campter''
by Cursorcowboy - 6/13/04 9:28 AM In reply to: Re: Best RAID 0 setup? by jogrenSince the use of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)] referred to as SATA and specifications published in August 2001, and finally updated July 18, 2003 in the link you're most likely reading, I consider this quite new. Perhaps the hardware vendors (IHVs) who design systems and devices with Serial ATA support will get it together but I wouldn't lay any wagers on Microsoft until I see it work reliably on a system I use.
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