HDD Subsystem: SCSI-160, SATA Raid-0 are dogs. Real-world hints and Opinions needed.

[Martin Verstrunk]

Hi All,

I have a fairly decent system built with current, name brand components, but
my HDD sub-system still runs like mud. SATA Raid-0 only gets 85MB/s and
SCSI-160 gets 43MB/s.

I have done all of the usual things to improve HDD performance (no indexing
service, no performance counters, regular defrag with Perfect-Disk, etc.),
but still no luck making real improvements. I am also considering my annual
OS rebuild, which I haven't done in a few years......but first I'd like to
know if my current system is bottlenecked with something stupid that I've
missed.

I'm pretty anal about keeping up-to-date with AV, OS Patches, drivers,
defrag, backups, and cursory performance tuning, but I still don't seem to
get the performance that is capable with this amount of hardware. Any help
and opinions is greeatly appreciated.

Sandra Benckmarks:
SCSI drives = 43MB/s without Win/2K cache, 28MB/s with cache
SATA Raid-0 drives = 85MB/s without Win/2K cache, 33MB/s with cache

OS = Win/2K
MoBo = Intel D865PERL (800Mhz FSB, 400Mhz DDR, Hyper-Thread)
RAM = 1GB Dual-Chan DDR 400Mhz
Proc = Intel P4 - 2.4Ghz (800Mhz FSB)
HDD1 = 36GB Hitachi/IBM 73LZX, 10K, SCSI-160 (Connected to Adaptec 19160 via
68-pin cable)
HDD2 = 36GB Hitachi/IBM 73LZX, 10K, SCSI-160 (Connected to Adaptec 19160 via
68-pin cable)
HDD3 = 240GB Raid-0 SATA (2x 120GB Seagate ST3120026AS) (Connected to MoBo
Intel controller)
File System = NTFS on all drives
RAID = Stripe size - 128K,
There are no other devices on the SCSI or SATA controllers.
My current setup has the OS on SCSI/HDD1 with all of my data on SATA/HDD3.
The 2nd SCSI/HDD2 is used for swap file and \Temp storage.

Even with the limitations of a 32Mhz PCI bus, shouldn't my raw throughput be
better than this with the SCSI-160?

Does anyone get better performance with either of these 2 HDD setups?

I want to configure this box for performance, so I'm re-thinking the
configuration of where I load the OS, Appls, and data. Is it practical, or
even possible to put the Applications ("\Program Files" and "|Documents and
Settings") on a faster drive than the OS? Does separating the OS from the
Appls make any sense? How about creating another Raid-0 with the 2 SCSI
drives, and installing the OS on that setup?

Obviously there's a lot of variables with HDD performance, but I'm not doing
anything outrageous with the configurations, so i'm kind of stumped. Any
help, opinions or tips are greatly appreciated.

TIA

 

[patrick]

Hi All,

I have a fairly decent system built with current, name brand components, but
my HDD sub-system still runs like mud. SATA Raid-0 only gets 85MB/s and
SCSI-160 gets 43MB/s.

I have done all of the usual things to improve HDD performance (no indexing
service, no performance counters, regular defrag with Perfect-Disk, etc.),
but still no luck making real improvements. I am also considering my annual
OS rebuild, which I haven't done in a few years......but first I'd like to
know if my current system is bottlenecked with something stupid that I've
missed.

I'm pretty anal about keeping up-to-date with AV, OS Patches, drivers,
defrag, backups, and cursory performance tuning, but I still don't seem to
get the performance that is capable with this amount of hardware. Any help
and opinions is greeatly appreciated.

Sandra Benckmarks:
SCSI drives = 43MB/s without Win/2K cache, 28MB/s with cache
SATA Raid-0 drives = 85MB/s without Win/2K cache, 33MB/s with cache

OS = Win/2K
MoBo = Intel D865PERL (800Mhz FSB, 400Mhz DDR, Hyper-Thread)
RAM = 1GB Dual-Chan DDR 400Mhz
Proc = Intel P4 - 2.4Ghz (800Mhz FSB)
HDD1 = 36GB Hitachi/IBM 73LZX, 10K, SCSI-160 (Connected to Adaptec 19160 via
68-pin cable)
HDD2 = 36GB Hitachi/IBM 73LZX, 10K, SCSI-160 (Connected to Adaptec 19160 via
68-pin cable)
HDD3 = 240GB Raid-0 SATA (2x 120GB Seagate ST3120026AS) (Connected to MoBo
Intel controller)
File System = NTFS on all drives
RAID = Stripe size - 128K,
There are no other devices on the SCSI or SATA controllers.
My current setup has the OS on SCSI/HDD1 with all of my data on SATA/HDD3.
The 2nd SCSI/HDD2 is used for swap file and \Temp storage.

Even with the limitations of a 32Mhz PCI bus, shouldn't my raw throughput be
better than this with the SCSI-160?

Does anyone get better performance with either of these 2 HDD setups?

I want to configure this box for performance, so I'm re-thinking the
configuration of where I load the OS, Appls, and data. Is it practical, or
even possible to put the Applications ("\Program Files" and "|Documents and
Settings") on a faster drive than the OS? Does separating the OS from the
Appls make any sense? How about creating another Raid-0 with the 2 SCSI
drives, and installing the OS on that setup?

Obviously there's a lot of variables with HDD performance, but I'm not doing
anything outrageous with the configurations, so i'm kind of stumped. Any
help, opinions or tips are greatly appreciated.

TIA

Maybe it's your Operating System!

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

 

[John R Weiss]

I have a fairly decent system built with current, name brand components, but
my HDD sub-system still runs like mud. SATA Raid-0 only gets 85MB/s and
SCSI-160 gets 43MB/s.

The SATA performance is very good; the SCSI about normal for a 32-bit PCI
adapter.

Even with the limitations of a 32Mhz PCI bus, shouldn't my raw throughput be
better than this with the SCSI-160?

Nope. Though U160 has a higher theroetical bandwidth, you cannot expect
anywhere near it with a single HD, especially on a 32-bit bus. PCI-32 has a
max burst bandwidth of 133 MBps shared across the bus. Any other PCI
components will take their share. Even a 15K RPM Cheetah or Atlas has a max
sustained throughput of about 80 MBps for a single HD, and that assumes a
64-bit bus. Your Hitachi HD is rated for 33.8-66.7 MBps sustained
(http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/146z10/146z10.htm), so 43 on a 32-bit
bus is well within the advertised range.

I want to configure this box for performance, so I'm re-thinking the
configuration of where I load the OS, Appls, and data. Is it practical, or
even possible to put the Applications ("\Program Files" and "|Documents and
Settings") on a faster drive than the OS? Does separating the OS from the
Appls make any sense? How about creating another Raid-0 with the 2 SCSI
drives, and installing the OS on that setup?

Put everything that runs often on the faster array (OS, apps, current data),
divided into as many logical drives as you like. Use the slower drives for
data backup.

Otherwise, get a MoBo that has 64-bit PCI, and a better SCSI controller.

 

[Martin Verstrunk]

John,

Thanks for your insight on the capabilities and limitations of my HDD
system(s)...although I was hoping for that magical answer, it appears that
this is something that you've experienced. So much for the vendors'
performance claims...... :-(

I question, however, the opinion of putting all of my system (OS, Apps,
Data) on the same physical device, even tho it's a Raid-0. I have always
been of the mindset that the OS, Swapfile, and Data should be on at least 2
different physical drives (3 being better), for performance considerations
(i ALWAYS keep OS and Data physically separate, for portability and
restoration if necessary). Do you have real-world experience with multiple
logical drives on 1 Raid-0 disk array, or do you make the assumption that
the Raid array will still handle multiple processes faster than my current
setup can? In other words, is this (your opinion) anecdotal or
theoretical?

BTW, since Win/2K can't run on a Raid-0 (afaik), I'd still be limited to
moving just the Swap, Appls, Data.

Thanks,
M.

 

[John R Weiss]

I question, however, the opinion of putting all of my system (OS, Apps,
Data) on the same physical device, even tho it's a Raid-0. I have always
been of the mindset that the OS, Swapfile, and Data should be on at least 2
different physical drives (3 being better), for performance considerations
(i ALWAYS keep OS and Data physically separate, for portability and
restoration if necessary). Do you have real-world experience with multiple
logical drives on 1 Raid-0 disk array, or do you make the assumption that
the Raid array will still handle multiple processes faster than my current
setup can? In other words, is this (your opinion) anecdotal or
theoretical?

Putting the swapfile on a different HD than the OS only applies if you have
2 identically-performing HDs, and you can put the swapfile on a dedicated
partition on the other HD. Otherwise, putting the swapfile with the OS is
likely the best option. Since you apparently have performance issues with
at least 1 of the HDs, putting either the OS or swapfile on a "slow" HD is
NOT a good idea.

I suppose separating apps and OS may have similar issues, but I tend to
doubt it. Once launched/loaded, the app is likely to be in RAM or the
swapfile. I like to keep my OS on a separate partition from my apps and
data, but that's a preference only.

My current workstation has a SATA RAID 0 array with 2 WD Raptors and 3
logical partitions. OS and swapfile are on C:, apps & data on D:, misc
stuff on E:. Backups are on a U160 Cheetah.

Since your SCSI HDs run at about half the speed of the SATA array, there is
little reason to believe the SATA array cannot handle the throughput of the
OS and apps better. Since it is easy to move the swapfile, experiment and
see if you perceive any difference.

BTW, since Win/2K can't run on a Raid-0 (afaik), I'd still be limited to
moving just the Swap, Appls, Data.

Why not? I run XP Pro, so I don't know why Win 2K might be limited. Any
RAID drivers for the controller should be available (likely identical) for
2K as well as XP...

 

[Martin Verstrunk]

John,

According to MS
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303184 a stripe set
cannot hold boot/system partition. Obviously you've got it working, which
is the reason real-world experience is more valuable!

I'm going to re-partition my Raid-0 and see if I can use Drive-Image to load
my System on it. Since my Raid-0 is a hardware based solution, perhaps
Win/2K won't know the difference. I'll report back when I can....

Thanks for your help.

MVS

-- snip--

 

[John R Weiss]

That article appears to address only the software-based stripe set
capability in Win 2K. Note also the note at the bottom that tells you not
to mix hardware- and software-based RAID.

 

[Timothy Drouillard]

A software RAID0 (Win2000) cannot hold a boot/system partition.

No problem if it's a hardware RAID0.

 

[David Maynard]

John,

According to MS
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303184 a stripe set
cannot hold boot/system partition.

This article refers to the built in Windows 2000 *software* striping and
they're just stating the rather obvious; that you can't boot the OS from it
because the software doing the striping, being IN the O.S., isn't loaded
yet. Cart-Horse.