Vista VERY SLOW with RAID 0?

[Guest]

Hi -

I've migrated my home network to Windows Vista (2 Laptops with Business, the
Server/Media Center with Home Premium). Everything works fine except my
Media-Center, which has 2 160GB hard drives in RAID 0 configuration. The HD
performance was lightning fast under Windows XP MCE but is the disk drive
performance index for Vista is only 2.3, and the system is VERY SLOW.

Has anyone else experienced such a slowdown after migrating an XP
environment to Vista? Has anyone been able to fix it? Any help is appreciated!

Just in case it helps, the machine in question Sony Vaio VGC-RA830G.

Thanks for reading, and be blessed for any help!

 

[kirk jim]

does that sony machine have any updated drivers for vista on the sony site?

 

[Guest]

There are only very limited drivers available on the Sony site (basically the
TV tuner drivers, that's it). Do I need to have drivers to have RAID working
with Vista?

Thanks for the quick reply!!

 

[Doris Day]

Hi -

I've migrated my home network to Windows Vista (2 Laptops with Business,
the Server/Media Center with Home Premium). Everything works fine except
my Media-Center, which has 2 160GB hard drives in RAID 0 configuration.
The HD performance was lightning fast under Windows XP MCE but is the disk
drive performance index for Vista is only 2.3, and the system is VERY
SLOW.

Has anyone else experienced such a slowdown after migrating an XP
environment to Vista? Has anyone been able to fix it? Any help is
appreciated!

Just in case it helps, the machine in question Sony Vaio VGC-RA830G.

Thanks for reading, and be blessed for any help!

Just curious why in the world you'd be using RAID 0? You've effectively
doubled your chances of losing all your data on those striped drives.

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[Frankster]

Just curious why in the world you'd be using RAID 0? You've effectively

doubled your chances of losing all your data on those striped drives.

The reason RAID 0 exists at all is for speed. Some configurations don't
really have any data.... just apps and caching. Like streaming video. There
is no data to lose. Speed is the prime consideration in some systems.

-Frank

 

[cvp]

Yes - you do (just like you did with MCE)

If you look under Device Manager either under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Conrollers" or
"Srorage Controllers" you should see the RAID adapter identified (I suspect
it'll be either Intel or Promise). Then you'll need to get the latest
drivers from one of those sites.

You shouldn't have a poor index with the correct drivers - should be more
like 5.x

 

[Robert Moir]

The reason RAID 0 exists at all is for speed. Some configurations don't
really have any data.... just apps and caching. Like streaming video.
There is no data to lose. Speed is the prime consideration in some
systems.

Yeah but the OP may not realise that and have their PhD thesis stored on
this drive so I think it's a fair point to make. Now if *all* this machine
is doing is living under the TV and acting as no more than a VCR/DVD player
then no problem, but otherwise...

I always cringe whenever I see someone mentioning they use RAID0 on a home
system because people typically keep important data all over the place and
the backup routine for the average home computer is usually inadequate at
best.

 

[Guest]

Frankster. All a striped volume (RAID 0) does is use 2 or more disks to
increases the disk space available for a single volume. And the diff between
spanned and striped is that striped writes to the physical disks evenly, and
access time is quicker then spanned volume. Spanned fills one drive, then
starts on the next
Striped volumes are unnecessary in these times due to the size of modern
hard drives available.
If people do it, do it the right way, RAID 5 hardware; hang the cost!

Mick Murphy in Australia(QLD)

 

[Guest]

I have the same PC RA830g with the same problem, it is just a Sony failure to
provide drivers for Vista, I gave up and sent vista back for a refund. I'm
happier with XP MCE on that PC.

 

[cvp]

Well, in all honesty, I cringe too! However, with the right backup strategy
(which you'd really need for 2 separate disks anyway) it does offer the
benefits of both a single large space and higher performance. Heck, even
raid-5 needs a backup strategy.

I've come across a number of these vaio systems that are set up that way
(often with 2 logical drives to negate the benefits of the single large disk
space).

 

[Guest]

The reason RAID 0 exists at all is for speed. Some configurations don't
really have any data.... just apps and caching. Like streaming video. There
is no data to lose. Speed is the prime consideration in some systems.

Then you should know you haven't really done anything to speed it up.
Real world numbers don't backup the drive performance increase compared to
non raid on home computers.

and like someone else said you have effectively doubled you chance of
loosing everything. one drive dies the whole raid is gone

I found it all more trouble than it was worth and I noticed NO increase when
I went RAID and no decrease once I ditched it.

Now I don't have to worry about drivers during OS install, drivers for my
recovery software so that it can see my drives, etc etc. Life is much simpler
now and it's just as fast.

But to each his own.

 

[Doris Day]

The reason RAID 0 exists at all is for speed. Some configurations don't
really have any data.... just apps and caching. Like streaming video.
There is no data to lose. Speed is the prime consideration in some
systems.

-Frank

Frankie, what a bunch of bullshit. The OP said "has 2 160GB hard drives in
RAID 0 configuration". Why would he be striping 2 hard drives like that if
he had no data? And if someone wasn't interested in storing data, the use
of RAID 0 or any other raid would be totally senseless to start with.
Especially using software raid, that comes with most of these toy raid
controllers in low end desktop computers.

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[seany]

Hmmm. I've noticed a BIG difference in app/os bootimes with a raid 0 array
(1 terab via 2 550 g HD's), and in working with large audio/video files, esp
during rendering/sampling operations. I The "you'll lose data from both
disks" argument doesn't really hold given the fact that you're equally
f******* if one of your drives - let's say the "data" drive -
fails....data's gone/corrupted, raid or no raid. Fact is, raid 0 makes sense
when you've got lots of storage (>500 g), decent HD's, and need quick access
to large A/V/database files. True - it doesn't help gaming, at all - but it
does enhance brute HP if you require real, sustained processing, esp with a
dual proc. Also - I've find that indexing in Vista with raid 0 is lightening
fast.