New RAID System, Painfully Slow

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CopywriterAlan

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My old (5 months!!) HP machine just died, so desperately need a new machine for work.

This time I've gone for a RAID 1 system, with 2 X 120 SSD drives. For now only 4 GB of RAM, as limited funds

The shop put it all together, with my watching over to make sure it was set for RAID - but really it's been 20 years since I built a PC so I'm clueless here really.

The only building part I did myself was installing Windows 7 Home Basic. Seems to be installed OK and running RAID. So all should be good..

But it's STUPIDLY slow.

It can take 20 seconds to get a right-click menu. Clicking almost anything results in a spinning circle and a 2 or 3 minute wait.

Please note that I'm in Malaysia; parts tend to be budget level at best.

This is my first RAID system, could it be the RAID thing causing this stupidity?

Something else?

Motherboard is Asus HP9-Pro Gamer

i3 Intel CPU - again, I'm on a budget here, as just need to replace a dead machine and get back to work

The tech guy said the drives were in SATA 1 and 2, with the CD as SATA 3. I noticed while setting up the RAID thing that the CD drive is actually SATA 2, so it's SATA 1 and 3 for the RAID. Could that cause this?

Anybody any idea? Thanks
 
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McHenryB
Honestly, I wouldn't bother with RAID 1. Use the second disk to keep backups rather than as a mirror - you still need backups with RAID 1 and it really provides you with very little benefit.
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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First, I don't recommend using RAID for SSDs because the TRIM command does not get passed to the drive to allow garbage collection to happen in the background. You would do much better to use one SSD as your C: drive and the other as D: . Create a system image backup to a USB disk and practice good backup processes.

4GB RAM could be the culprit, depending on what is running, some of that RAM is being taken by the integrated graphics if you are using them.
 
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CopywriterAlan

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Thanks for the replies guys. The graphic card is an add-on, a nvidia Geforce 210, with 1 GB of it's own memory.

I don't know if it's the humidity here in Malaysia, or my habit of having dozens of windows and tabs open at once or quite what, but my PCs rarely last more than a year. I've lived here 10 years and this is my 10th PC. My last one was a brand name, HP Pavilion 500 - it died in 5 months. These things always happen when I've just got a new client and don't have time to mess around trying to troubleshoot or repair; I just end up buying yet another PC.

I really like the concept of RAID 1, if it works it would be perfect for me. Thing is, it's not just slow writing to the disk, it's slow at everything.

I read something somewhere about "building the array", is that relevant with a new install of Windows? Is it likely to be faster tomorrow, if I just leave it on?

*gnashing of teeth*

 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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Is it likely to be better tomorrow ? NO. RAID (0 or 1) is not worth the hassle with desktop hardware in most cases. Too many things go wrong, especially when you do have a disk failure and think you can rebuild, and it fails, and you lose everything because you haven't been doing backups because you though you were "protected".

My recommendation is to use the RAID tools in the BIOS, remove the drives from the mirrored volume and start over with a single SSD Windows install. Don't even have the second drive connected during the Windows install.
 
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CopywriterAlan

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I have a spare 500 GB HDD, looks like I'll be using that for data..

OK, first thing to try is go into the BIOS and tell it to un-raid (I did see an option for that). That should confirm if it's the RAID system slowing it down so much.

Presuming it is, any recommendations for a *bootable* backup? Is it possible yet to boot from a flashdrive? Can I create a 120 GB partition on the 2nd drive and make it bootable?

All I want is some system that if, scratch that, WHEN the hard drive fails, I can just boot up anyway. That should be the purpose of RAID but that machine is so slow it is impossible to use. I tried "Acronis" years ago, it was supposed to create a mirror backup. I forget what happened exactly but I know when I needed it it was useless.

Backup option recommendations would be appreciated, in the meantime I'll try switching off the RAID thing, see what happens... I don't really have any choice at this stage.
 
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McHenryB

McHenryB

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What attracts you about the concept of RAiD 1? What benefit do you think it provides?

If you expect a short lifetime then all the more reason to concentrate on backups rather than unnecessary frippery like RAID; it's just another thing to go wrong.
 
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CopywriterAlan

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I work from home, freelancing. Typically most projects take around 4 to 6 weeks. All too often I'll be a week or two into a new project - and the PC won't start. Might be the Master Boot Record, might be hardware, I don't know, I don't have time to find out and end up grabbing a new computer. I can download recent files from Dropbox but (again!!) I lose all my software and settings, files etc.

To some extent I can recover most things, sloooowly and painfully via DVDs (and paying through the nose for some software that is tied to hardware..) but it can easily set me back a week or more with all the messing around. Not to mention the expense.

What I want is to hit the start button and if.. when there is a problem to be able to go "Oh, never mind, I've prepared for this, I'll just..."

What?

RAID would be perfect - just get a message "Your C drive died again, but no worries, there's another one, ha ha!" However actually running RAID was stupidly slow. I've disabled it, so now have 2 pathetic and puny little 120 GB drives. If I'd known they'd be so useless I'd have just got a couple of 500 GB HHDs, and saved a lot of money. *sigh*

Anyway, yes, disabled RAID, yes it now acts like a normal computer. A bit sluggish as only 4 GB RAM and an i3 but it's usable.

All the articles out there preaching the benefits of RAID should add a disclaimer "BTW, your machine will then run so slow you might as well throw it out the window, because you'll never use it like that." I wasn't expecting an increase in speed and if a bit slower at writing then fine - but EVERYTHING was slow, reading from the drive, the internet, everything.

New problem - the sound volume is crazy low. All devices and levels I can find anywhere in Windows are maxed out, but the cooling fan is louder than any music. I guess I should post that as a different question?

And again, thanks for the help :)
 
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