SLOW!!! RAID5 on nForce 590

crantech

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Apr 25, 2007
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Was wondering if anyone knew of ways to speed up a painfully slow RAID5 array controlled by the NVRAID controller built into the nForce 590 chipset? I know board-based RAIDs are inferior to those lacking a dedicated controller card, and I know RAID5 is going to be inherently slower than RAID10 because of the parity checks. However, I need the extra space the RAID5 provides and I do not have the money to spend on a dedicated controller.

I expect a chipset-based RAID5 to be slow, but not 5.84 MB/s slow!

Any thoughts on how to speed this slug up?

Setup
OS: Windows XP SP2
CPU: Athlon 64X2 5200+
MoBo: ECS KN3 SLI2 (nForce 590 SLI)
RAM: 2 1GB sticks Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800
OS HDD: WD Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 (JMicron JMB363 onboard controller)
Storage: 4 500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 (read cache, write cache, NCQ enabled)
 

crantech

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Apr 25, 2007
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I would try Nvidia's chipset drivers found here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf590_winxp32_9.35.html

This contains the RAID management controllers and works muchs better than those provided with the motherboard. Just installed a mobo with a 570 chipset and the drivers that came with the board were actually the wrong ones. So give that link a try.

Just make sure to uninstall you current drivers.

Already did that one. Thanks though.