How to get 160Mb/s with RAID0?

Seraphic

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I was looking to buy four of these "Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA-300" hard-drives and set them in a raid 0 using an on-board raid-0 controller. However, some new reviews were just posted and they seem to only get around a 100MB/s with four drives? Does that seem right? I thought it be a lot more then that with four drives. Also, this is for uncompressed HD video work.

[cpp]Pros: All 4 came with firmware SD15 from Thailand, no problems, average 105MB/sec as singles, about 109.8MB/sec in RAID5 using a Sil 3124 controller. They probably would run better if I had a better controller but they do work nicely as is.[/cpp]

[cpp]Pros: I benchmarked 4 of these controlled by a sil3124 controller, in various RAID structures. The RAID0 set benchmarked at around 109.8 MB/sec, RAID5 came in about 65MB/sec. I caused the RAID5 set to fail a member by shutting down improperly, and it rebuilt in 45 minutes. It is a good idea when building the original RAID set to check the sil3124 RAID Manager software has actually completed the build before using the set. Using the set before it is built is sure way to keep getting failed RAID sets. Other than user error, these drives are working very well, and there is no other product offering 32MB cache for this price PLUS! a 5 year warranty!!!!! Name one source that does better, if you can, you better buy it, or you are probably not being truthful.[/cpp]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288

What I need at least:

1280x720p/59.94pfps = 106.8 MB per second
1920x1080/59.94ifps = 120 MB per second
1920x1080/59.94pfps = About 180 MB per second
 

Seraphic

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I called Seagate and they said the sustained write speed for one drive should be around 110MB/s. With four drives in raid0, you should expect a about 30% boost for each drive. So 110 + (3 more drives in raid0) 90% = 209MBs sustained write speed. Does that sound right?
 

Seraphic

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Don't have the system built yet as I'm still waiting for the assholes at Intel to release the Q9450. Anyway, not really sure what kind of controller I will use. I had planned on using the on-board motherboard raid controller on the Gigabyte X48-DQ6. However, I hear using the on-board will add some stress to the CPU so I might go with a card, but I rather not spend a lot of the on-board will due.
 

mobo57

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Are you doing NLE with AE or PP? Think there is a better way, not so dangerous as a 4 way RAID. I did that in the past, after a power outage while working and a broken stripe, I am down to a 2 way RAID 0 for working files, a dedicated single SATA II for caching, another 2 for os and programs. Even with my system, never got to real time frame rates with even the 4 way. Just a FYI to compare, my system:
Q6600 at 3.2 to 3.6 (depending on need)
IP35 Pro mobo
8 gig Patriot 6400, 1:1, 12-4-4-4
8800 GTX
Seagate HD's, various, 16m cache
Now quad boot, XP and Fista 32 & 64.
 
since its about top speed for video(and SIZE not latency, thats where raptors shine) the Seagate Barracuda's are best(price and performance in this case).

Since you seem to be recording video, you will should have windows on a normal drive and your capturing to this raid setup(this will eliminate fragmentation, fragmentation while writing can lead to dropped frames....)

This is what you can expect from 4 drives(in this case they ARE raptors), As you can see INTEL is a MUST for onboard raid0 performance
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/03/the_southbridge_battle/page11.html#raid_0_transferdiagrams

here is a list of average write speeds for each drive listed from fastest to slowest...
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=280&model2=1087&chart=37

As you see several drives read and write faster then raptors both for average and max speed. raptors do win hands down for low latency(Windows drive and fragmented drives with files all over)

Since you appear to be doing video, Make sure you get large drives.

Drives record fastest on the outer edge where the platter is spinning nearly 2x faster. As such, you should record your video. then transfer it to another large drive for compression(at least when the drive gets 75% full). at the slower end of a the drives

I can not stress enough how important it is to have nothing else writing to the drive at the same time(turn off system restore for it)....fragmentation can make frames drop.

Are you going to be compressing after? if so, you can use smaller drives since the raid setup will just be temporary space....

EDIT...

Please note, Raid0 has ZERO redundancy, so backup often. The way I see it, if a drive in a single system fails all data is gone too.....
 

The_Monkey_Man

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I can confirm that intel raid is better than nvidia raid, alot of people are having problems with nvidia onboard raid, i.e. raid 0 is nearly as slow as a single hard drive and I've got 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS.

Also if you get Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS check this website:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/other_downloads/cuda-fw

My disks were not affected but it is good to check, and to be quite honest this disks are the bees knees, they are the business and worth the money.
 

raptorxt

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maybe they only meant a 30% increase with all four drives not 30% increase per drive
i had 2 7200.10 drives in a raid 0 and had 100mb/s

but i can verify that the SAS drives own all
i have two of them in a raid 0
2x147gb 15.5k seagate cheetah SAS drives
on HDtach
burst speed: 381mb/s
average read: 214mb/s
random access: 5.7ms

and to answer the SSD question.
ssd are great for random access but absolutely blow for high average reads or burst speeds.
 

Seraphic

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The 10k/15k drives are fast yes, but I also need large amount of disk-space to work with. After all, uncompressed HD video can be about a 1GB per minute. The Gigabyte X48-DQ6 uses the ICH9R Southbridge as the main raid controller with a 2TB limit. I was thinking of seeing what kind of speeds the on-board will over before I buy a raid card. Good raid cards look to cost $300 or so.



Yeah, what is the deal with the firmware with these drives? Looking around the web I find that you should flash all the drives with AD14, is that true? Did you buy from newegg? They seem to sell the ST3500320AS version, would those be okay?



This is for uncompressed HD video work. You need a minimum data write speed so not to drop frames or lose video/audio sync.



I'm sure he meant 30% boost per drive. First he said ideally you should get 100% per drive, but in real world, it is only about 30%.
 

The_Monkey_Man

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Yeah I bought them from newegg, but it had the correct firmware on them anyway, it's easy to check. You can connect the drives into an existing computer and check them easily using the Seatools (on seagate website) software, that'll tell you the firmware version. Changing the firmware is very easy, instructions are on the seagate website also. Essentially what you don't want is on the hd case it says ST3500320AS and in windows it says ST3500820AS.
 

Seraphic

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What firmware did your drives come with and what firmware did you flash to? I keep hearing you should flash to AD14, but should you stay with what comes with it? Also, do your drives show up with 32MB of cache? I hear some people only see like 8MB.
 

The_Monkey_Man

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Yeah mine had 32mb of cache, can't remember what the firmware version it is, think it was SD15, i'll check when i get home. You could always change the firmware anyway to the latest version when you get it just for peace of mind, only takes afew minutes to change firmware, I regularly upgrade firmware on components that need them.
 
ST3750640NS_transfer.png

ST3300655LW_transfer.png


SAS wins