ga-965P-s3 Raid 0 Issues

[cubsfan24]

I just got two 500gb Seagate 7200.12 to put into Raid 0. I am running a Gigabyte ga-965P-s3 motherboard. Looking online other people have gotten around 250MB max, 200MB average, and 124MB min transfer speeds with two of these drives. Here is a screenshot of what I am getting http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/7827/capturemyd.jpg. I am getting what looks like a ceiling of 173MB that it cannot go above and then at around 70% it gets below that level and starts tapering off like it should. HD tune does not show any drive health information for the raid array. I have reinstalled Windows 7 twice with different drivers but does the same thing. I have reset my bios settings to optimized defaults and tried changing the sata settings but nothing helps. One weird thing that might hold the clue to the problem is that I have another 750GB drive in the system. HD tune says this drive is running in UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100) while UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133) is supported. Is my raid array stuck in Mode 5 too which is causing my max transfer to stop at 173MB? Any ideas what is causing this bottleneck?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: ga-965P-s3 Raid 0 Issues

Well what you see by others may also have to do with the Motherboard, ICH Chip Version, Memory and CPU they have, and what speeds they are running at.

Do you have Volume Write Back Cache enabled in the Matrix software? And do you have write caching enabled in the drive policy properties in Device manager? If you do not have both of those enabled then that could also be the cause of some speed differences.

You do also have to keep in mind, they may be using a different size of stripe then you are. They also may have been using different chunk sizes in the tests ran then you may be using.

Your RAID is not stuck in Mode 5, I can assure you of that. How do you score with this (Note, Vista or XP Compatibility mode may be needed for Win7, not sure) >>>
HdTach

[cubsfan24]

Re: ga-965P-s3 Raid 0 Issues

First off, I understand I am not going to get the same speeds as this guy:
Link
But others around the internet are reporting similar speeds to what he got. I do not have the matrix software installed because my motherboard does not have intel raid. I do have write caching enabled in the device manager. I am using the GSATA purple ports with the JMicron chip. I ran a test with HDtach and had similar results as with HD tune. Here is a screenshot:
Link
I reinstalled windows 7 this morning with the newest JMicron drivers that came out last night.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: ga-965P-s3 Raid 0 Issues

Sorry about the Matrix comment, I Overlooked your setup I think!!!

Well the whole deal is that controller is Very slow and he and others you likely see are using newer controllers and faster ones (Intel VS GA)

And he is using more then two drives as well as a much newer setup. You have good speeds for that board and that controller. If you want faster you will have to buy a P35 or P45 with the ICH9R or ICH10R and use it, then you will see much better performance

"You cannot compare Apples to Oranges"

And that is just what this is. Your speeds are good for that controller. I have some posted speeds I got with that controller on P35 and they are about the same I think. I'd have to hunt the posts down, but I can if you like. They are posted here somewhere a year or so ago

[cubsfan24]

Re: ga-965P-s3 Raid 0 Issues

I bought a cheap Silicon Image SIL3132 raid card from monoprice for $16.87 shipped. It has good reviews from newegg with people saying they are getting the same speeds as with there Intel onboard raid. For 17 bucks I thought I would give it a try if not I have another toy to play with lol. Also, does anyone have any idea why HD Tune shows my 750gb seagate 7200.11 drive as Mode 5 ATA/100 while Mode 6 is supported?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: ga-965P-s3 Raid 0 Issues

That may be due to a vista issue if you are using vista? Did you remove the jumper off the back of the drive if there is one?