XP Pro SP2 on RAID 0

[shsurury]

Hello,

I am new to this forum. I have been trying to Install XP Pro SP2 on a RAID 0 (2+0) and it takes atleast 2-3 hrs to install. After installing when I do a benchmark on Sis Sandra 2005 I get an average read/write speed of 16MB/s. Am I doing some thing wrong.

Firstly my system configeration is as follows:

Motherboard: Asus P4P800-E Deluxe with Promise Fasttrak 378 Raid Controller with Fastrak 378 RAID Bios 1.00.0.37 with motherboared BIOS P4P8E007

CPU: P4 3.0GHZ Prescot

RAM Kingston 256MB x 2 DDR 3200 as paired

Harddisk: 2 x Seagate U Series 5 on RAID 0 with 1.00.1.37 Fasttrak 378 drivers, set as master/slave on single RAID controller

Model Number:ST320413A

Capacity: 20.02 GB

Speed:5400 rpm

Average Seek Time:9.9 ms

Buffer: 512KB

1x Seagate Barracuda ATA IV as Master on Primery IDE

Model Number:ST340016A

Capacity:40 GB

Speed:7200 rpm

Seek time:9 ms avg

Interface:Ultra ATA/100

Buffer: 2MB

1x IBM IC35L040AVVN07-0 as slave on Primery IDE

Speed: 7200 rpm

Size: 40 GB

Buffer: 2MB

1x Pioneer DVR 109 as master on Secondary IDE

Graphic Card: Geforce FX5200 128Mb graphics.

Firstly I slipstreamed the above RAID driver to my Win XP pro sp2 CD. Then I selected the Promise RAID 378 controller in the BIOS as RAID then selected the CDROM as my first boot drive.

I then rebooted the computer and waited till the Fastbuild utility appear and pressed ctr-f to get in the utility. I the created a RAID 0 (2+0) with 16kib stripe block.

once i create the RAID i start the process of installing Win XP Pro. I get the start up screen then it askes if I want to press F6 to load other drivers. I leave it as it is and allow the windows driver to load. I press F8 to accept the licence agreement and I notice one drive. (I havent connected my other drives on the IDE controller yet). I sellect it and allow it to formate in NTFS. Then it loades all the files and restart. All is well. Now from here it takes atleast 2-3 hrs to install XP. After installing XP I run a Sis Sandra 2005 hard disk test and it gives me an average read/write of 16MB/s. which is wey below the value I got for my single 40GB harddrive (30MB/s). Can any one be able to help me with this,

Any help will be highly appreciated

Thanks in advance

shsurury

[ironfist241]

The problem sounds very bizarre, i have the same RAID controller but in a different motherboard. there are only two things that i can think of:

-a RAID 1 array was created by accident instead of RAID 0 (doublecheck in the utility)

-a faulty drive (check the drives individually for problems)

[shsurury]

Hello ironfist241,

I checked the drive using segate disk diagnostic tool and I found no errors on both the disk. I did both the quick test as well as comphrensive tests, but no error and both passed. The average transfer rate in the test for DMA mode was between 65-75MB/s in the diagnostics.

At the time of booting it displays the fastrak utility as follows:

Fasttrak 378 Bios Version 1.00.0.37

© 2003 Promise Technologies, Inc All rights reserved

ID Mode Size Track Mapping State

1 2+0 Stripe 40040M 4868/255/63 Functional

Press Ctr+f to enter the utility................

I have checked the RAID utility and the RAID is defined correctly

It says

Array No. RAID Mode Total Drv Capacity State

1 Stripe 2 40040M Functional

Stripe Block = 16KB Gigabyte Boundry= off

any more ideas. I just dont know what I am doing wrong

Please help.

shsurury

[ironfist241]

Hmm this is really mystifying. All of the other RAID issues i know of cause complete failures, yet in this youre just getting reduced performance... the only thing i could suggest is that the RAID driver you are using couldve been corrupted at some stage, also there is some confusion when integrating drivers whether its textmode or not.. but again problems with the RAID driver should cause a full failure so im not 100% sure. for now you could try installing an "untouched" copy of XP and using a non-integrated method of installing the RAID driver (in other words having the driver on a floppy and pressing F6), if this fails and your still stuck with the reduced speed then id suspect faulty hardware (the RAID controller) and id advise you to either RMA the board or get a RAID controller that sits as an expansion card.

[shsurury]

Thanks ironfist241

When I first started installing XP on raid I had tried the floppy method but XP would not take my drivers from the floppy no matter what I do. That is the reason I went for the slipstreaming method. Is there any way to ascertain if the RAID controller is faulty. I dont know if I am still in the warenty period as I bought this motherboard last year. I will have to check. I have even downgraded my motherboard bios to see if that helps but with no luck. Any help will be highly appreciated.

shsurury

[ironfist241]

over a year is pushing it in terms of warranty - you could try tho. btw when you try the floppy what sort of error are you getting? i remember when i first started using floppies to load mass storage drivers the thing that first confused me is that after you press F6 the install continues as normal for a few minutes and only then prompts you to select a driver.

btw without the testing kits etc that techs use there is no concrete way of proving the RAID controller is at fault.

[shsurury]

This is what happens when using the floppy option.

The initial "F6" worked, and picked up the .INF files etc. I could choose the "Promise FastTrack 376/378" storage device to add support for.

The system goes and loads all the drivers it thinks it needs, prints "Starting Windows", gets me to choose F8 to accept, selects the partition to install to (So I CAN see the device), and then goes into the "Insert the disk" loop.

[ironfist241]

and this is with a perfectly standard copy of XP + SP2? if so then i cant say much more apart from return/replace the motherboard or install a PCI RAID controller...

[shsurury]

I wrote to Asus with this issue and they got back to me with this

"sir ,i also have tested like that .

the result is similiar .

Promise dc20378 has 2 sata ports and 1 IDE ports ,

the ide port can connect 2 IDE harddisk ,

you can use the 2 disks in raid0 or raid 1 mode ,but ,

due to the 2 disks are in same IDE channel ,

the disk ! performance will be very poor ,even a bit lower than single harddisk .

if you use a sata harddisk to replace one ide disk,

then use sata+pata disk as raid0 ,the disk performance is very high ,

almost double the single disk score .

and you also know that ,the Seagate U5/U6 disk are all low cost low speed disk ,

so your disk performance is bad .

i contacted the Promise before ,

they told my they don't recommend to build RAID0 on that only IDE port too"

I guess I will try some other faster drives and see if it does the same. If not I will go for SATA drive as it has 2 seperate channels. By the way thank you very much for all your help ironfist241.

Cheers

shsurury