250GB Maxtor Maxline Plus II raid

[eva2000]

I have 2x 250GB Maxtor Maxline Plus II PATA hard drives and have them using Abit Serillel2 PATA to SATA adaptors on Abit AI7's 2x SATA ports.

Now if i want to raid them, i'd need to install the IAAR drivers

1. before or after i setup the raid in bios ?
2. later, if i want to unraid them in bios, do i need to uninstall IAAR drivers ?

Also seems on AI7, the PowerMax 4.06 diagnostic utility isn't detecting my Maxtor drives at all.. i tried master and cable select jumper settings and no drive detected. But WinXP PRO SP1 is fine in recognising the drives.

Edit: found out PowerMax 4.06 doesn't support SATA drives or SATA mode.. guess i need to hook them up on PATA controllers

The 2 Maxtor drives aren't OS drives

PATA1 = 80GB WD 800JB (OS disk)
SATA1 = 250GB Maxtor Maxline Plus2
SATA2 = 250GB Maxtor Maxline Plus2

[Hawk]

I guess you could install the drivers first, but it might give errors. I would setup the RAID in the BIOS first, then install the drivers for the RAID array.

BTW, nice drives. ;)

[eva2000]

thanks these drives are bloody fast

single drive using PATA-SATA adaptor on AI7 with default 4k cluster

sandra 2004 filesystem benchmark = 39,600 KB/s
ATTO and drivebench
read speeds = 57-60MB/s
write speeds = 54-59MB/s

[eva2000]

Bloody fast huh ? :)

Single 250GB Maxline Plus II PATA drive

HDTach 2.61 (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/hdtach2_4K.jpg)
Max: 65,255 kps
Min: 24,259 kps
Avg: 48,821 kps

Sandra 2004 Filesystem Benchmark (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/sandra2004_filesystem_4k.jpg) = 39,223 kB/s

Aida32 Disk Benchmark - Buffered Read (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/aida-buffered_read_4k.jpg)
Current: 80.2 MB/s
Min: 78.9 MB/s
Max: 80.2 MB/s
Avg: 80.2 MB/s

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/atto_4k_4MB.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/atto_4k_32MB.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/drivebench_4k_128MB.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/winbench99_1.jpg

[pointreyes]

Yeah, my Maxtors 160GB RAID0 on ICH5R are bloody fast as well. :D

I have actually removed a RAID configuration through the IAAR. I have not even bothered to uninstall the IAAR but it is a bummer that it now fails to work since there is no RAID on that ICH5R (different computer with Seagate drives).

[eva2000]

Raid 0 now

2x 250GB Maxtor Maxline Plus II 8MB PATA

HDTach 2.61 (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_hdtach_4k_16kcluster.jpg)
Max: 113,578 kps
Min: 5,102 kps
Avg: 92,144.6 kps
Burst: 133.1 mbps

Sandra 2004 Filesystem Benchmark (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/sandra2004_filesystem_4k_raid0_16k.jpg) = 73,812 kB/s

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_atto_4k_4MB.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_atto_4k_32MB.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_drivebench_4k_128MB.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_winbench99_16k_4k_1.jpg

[dbwillis]

Nice setup there Eva.

Im hoping to get some Sata drives that large soon...

[pointreyes]

From a month ago:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=587930

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=589751

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=589757

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=589933

[eva2000]

nice.. seems the latest batch of new drive models are all pretty fast..

I changed the stripe size in raid 0 from stripe of 16K to 128K and 64K, seems 64K gave the best benchies in ATTO, but as expected real world performance in Iometer sees 128K stripe size excel.

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_atto_4k_4MB_64kcluster.jpg

http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/raid0_atto_4k_32MB_64kcluster.jpg


Sandra 2004 Filsystem benchmark
Raid 0 - 16K stripe = 73,812 (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/sandra2004_filesystem_4k_raid0_16k.jpg)
Raid 0 - 64K stripe = 74,830 (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/sandra2004_filesystem_4k_raid0_64k.jpg)
Single drive 4k cluster = 39,223 (http://www.fileshosts.com/pentium4/D1/abit/AI7/results/2.4C_Q322A285/Corsair/xms3500c2/2x512/dimm_2-4/217-217-2337-AAAAA-1.525v-2.9v-1.65v/maxline/sandra2004_filesystem_4k.jpg)

[pointreyes]

Originally posted by eva2000
nice.. seems the latest batch of new drive models are all pretty fast..

I changed the stripe size in raid 0 from stripe of 16K to 128K and 64K, seems 64K gave the best benchies in ATTO, but as expected real world performance in Iometer sees 128K stripe size excel.

Yup. :) Very fast indeed. But what I did find interesting was slower speeds I get on the ICH5R. Notice how I took one of my EIDE drives and shown how it got slower on the ICH5R. I have noticed this before but wanted to provide examples of it. I still prefer the ICH5R over other controllers on the 32-bit PCI platform.

I'm using 128k stripe mainly due to encoding. Are you now up to >2 TB with these drives? :)

[eva2000]

yeah should be over 2TB total for all pcs... the current file/encoding server 2.4B/P4G8X/2GB XMS3200C2 is being stripped and rebuilt with an Epox 4PCA3+ and 2.8C cpu

[eva2000]

Hitachi's new 250GB hdd http://www.envynews.com/index.php?ID=615&page=3 benchies don't even compare to these blazing Maxtors PATA drives hehe