P5Q Pro Turbo and RAID
in [Asus]
|
From: Bill Anderson on 12 Jun 2010 11:00 I finally gave up on getting my old P5K Deluxe WiFi AP board to run reliably and switched my processor and memory and all the other hardware over to a P5Q Pro Turbo. Nice board -- it's running without problems. Should have done this ages ago. One of the features of the P5Q is something called Drive Xpert, which involves plugging identical HDDs into an orange SATA socket and a white SATA socket and allowing an onboard Silicon Image Sil5723 controller to configure RAID. You can set them up as EZ Backup (RAID 1 mirroring) or Super Speed (RAID 0 striping) with none of that nasty configuration stuff to worry about. Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about? Well, I don't. I've never been able to 1) figure out or 2) trust RAID, but this morning I find myself tinkering around with it once again. See, Newegg had a reasonable deal on Seagate 1.5 terabyte drives so I picked up a couple, thinking I'd try out Drive Xpert, and if it worked, I'd have a nice super-fast almost 3Tb drive that would be perfect for storing HD movies and heck, with all that space, maybe I could even make the RAID drives my only drives and boot from the RAID array as well. That oughta make a super fast system, right? Maybe? So yesterday, taking no chances, I disconnected all my drives and then hooked up the two new drives to the Drive Xpert sockets. I told BIOS to make them Super Speed and then installed Win7. It all worked OK, except I ended up with three partitions on the RAID array. The first was a 100Mb partition apparently for booting, the next a 2048Gb partition and the third a 765Gb partition, or thereabouts -- don't remember the exact number but it was seven hundred something. But Win7 was running great. And out of curiosity, I decided to check the Windows Experience Index now that I was running on "Super Speed" drives. The best I'd ever been able to do before was 5.9 because the Windows Experience Index score reflects the score of the lowest-rating hardware in the system, and for me that had always been disk data transfer rate. Everything else always scores 6.5 or 7.1. But to my surprise, after waiting waiting waiting for the Windows Experience Index to recalculate, I ended up with 5.9 again, for exactly the same reason. Hmmmm, none of this was what I expected to see. So what next? I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and reconnected all my other drives and booted into my previous, fully functional Win7 with all the apps and such. I went to Disk Manager in Win7 and found the RAID array with the three partitions. I tried to delete them and in fact I was able to get rid of the 100Mb partition plus the Win7 installation I'd been playing with, but even though I tried everything I could think of I remained stuck with a 2048Gb partition and a 700somethingGB partition on the RAID array, both unallocated space. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's good enough -- just format 'em and move on. Maybe I don't need a 3Tb (almost) drive. But that's not the point. If I want it all in one partition, why can't I have it that way? Is it a BIOS limitation? I am running what is apparently the latest BIOS for the P5Q - v. 0602. That's the latest on the Asus website, anyway. Maybe running two 1.5Tb drives in Drive Xpert is too much for 0602? And why, I wonder, didn't my Windows Experience Index improve when the only drives running in the system were a striped RAID array? A "Super Speed" array? I'm going to post this and while I'm waiting for any response somebody might have I'll try installing the drives in a conventional RAID configuration, not Drive Xpert. Maybe that'll work better. Always learning. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog
From: Bill Anderson on 12 Jun 2010 14:59 Bill Anderson wrote: > I finally gave up on getting my old P5K Deluxe WiFi AP board to run > reliably and switched my processor and memory and all the other hardware > over to a P5Q Pro Turbo. Nice board -- it's running without problems. > Should have done this ages ago. > > One of the features of the P5Q is something called Drive Xpert, which > involves plugging identical HDDs into an orange SATA socket and a white > SATA socket and allowing an onboard Silicon Image Sil5723 controller to > configure RAID. You can set them up as EZ Backup (RAID 1 mirroring) or > Super Speed (RAID 0 striping) with none of that nasty configuration > stuff to worry about. > > Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about? Well, I don't. I've > never been able to 1) figure out or 2) trust RAID, but this morning I > find myself tinkering around with it once again. > > See, Newegg had a reasonable deal on Seagate 1.5 terabyte drives so I > picked up a couple, thinking I'd try out Drive Xpert, and if it worked, > I'd have a nice super-fast almost 3Tb drive that would be perfect for > storing HD movies and heck, with all that space, maybe I could even make > the RAID drives my only drives and boot from the RAID array as well. > That oughta make a super fast system, right? Maybe? > > So yesterday, taking no chances, I disconnected all my drives and then > hooked up the two new drives to the Drive Xpert sockets. I told BIOS to > make them Super Speed and then installed Win7. It all worked OK, except > I ended up with three partitions on the RAID array. The first was a > 100Mb partition apparently for booting, the next a 2048Gb partition and > the third a 765Gb partition, or thereabouts -- don't remember the exact > number but it was seven hundred something. > > But Win7 was running great. And out of curiosity, I decided to check > the Windows Experience Index now that I was running on "Super Speed" > drives. The best I'd ever been able to do before was 5.9 because the > Windows Experience Index score reflects the score of the lowest-rating > hardware in the system, and for me that had always been disk data > transfer rate. Everything else always scores 6.5 or 7.1. But to my > surprise, after waiting waiting waiting for the Windows Experience Index > to recalculate, I ended up with 5.9 again, for exactly the same reason. > > Hmmmm, none of this was what I expected to see. So what next? > > I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and reconnected all my other > drives and booted into my previous, fully functional Win7 with all the > apps and such. I went to Disk Manager in Win7 and found the RAID array > with the three partitions. I tried to delete them and in fact I was > able to get rid of the 100Mb partition plus the Win7 installation I'd > been playing with, but even though I tried everything I could think of I > remained stuck with a 2048Gb partition and a 700somethingGB partition on > the RAID array, both unallocated space. > > Yeah, yeah, maybe that's good enough -- just format 'em and move on. > Maybe I don't need a 3Tb (almost) drive. But that's not the point. If > I want it all in one partition, why can't I have it that way? > > Is it a BIOS limitation? I am running what is apparently the latest > BIOS for the P5Q - v. 0602. That's the latest on the Asus website, > anyway. Maybe running two 1.5Tb drives in Drive Xpert is too much for > 0602? > > And why, I wonder, didn't my Windows Experience Index improve when the > only drives running in the system were a striped RAID array? A "Super > Speed" array? > > I'm going to post this and while I'm waiting for any response somebody > might have I'll try installing the drives in a conventional RAID > configuration, not Drive Xpert. Maybe that'll work better. > > Always learning. > And I did learn a few things. It appears you can't boot from RAID 0 Stripe but you can boot from RAID 1 mirror. You definitely can have a 3TB (nearly) RAID set in Win7 if you just install the boot OS on a separate non-RAID drive and tell it to look at the RAID set. Works great. Just forget about Drive Xpert and use the regular RAID controller. You apparently can't use Drive Xpert to build a 3TB (nearly) RAID set. With two 1.5TB drives it'll always divide things up into two partitions - one 2048GB and the other 746.5GB. If you've installed your OS with BIOS set to SATA - IDE, you can't come back later and change things to RAID. Even if you're leaving the drive on which Win7 is installed as non-RAID, it still won't load. It'll boot and you can choose Win7 from the boot loader, but as the little sparklies begin flying in, the system will hang. Put BIOS back to SATA - IDE and you're fine. Maybe I learned a few other things, but I don't remember right now. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog
From: Paul on 12 Jun 2010 16:44 Bill Anderson wrote: > Bill Anderson wrote: >> I finally gave up on getting my old P5K Deluxe WiFi AP board to run >> reliably and switched my processor and memory and all the other >> hardware over to a P5Q Pro Turbo. Nice board -- it's running without >> problems. Should have done this ages ago. >> >> One of the features of the P5Q is something called Drive Xpert, which >> involves plugging identical HDDs into an orange SATA socket and a >> white SATA socket and allowing an onboard Silicon Image Sil5723 >> controller to configure RAID. You can set them up as EZ Backup (RAID >> 1 mirroring) or Super Speed (RAID 0 striping) with none of that nasty >> configuration stuff to worry about. >> >> Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about? Well, I don't. I've >> never been able to 1) figure out or 2) trust RAID, but this morning I >> find myself tinkering around with it once again. >> >> See, Newegg had a reasonable deal on Seagate 1.5 terabyte drives so I >> picked up a couple, thinking I'd try out Drive Xpert, and if it >> worked, I'd have a nice super-fast almost 3Tb drive that would be >> perfect for storing HD movies and heck, with all that space, maybe I >> could even make the RAID drives my only drives and boot from the RAID >> array as well. That oughta make a super fast system, right? Maybe? >> >> So yesterday, taking no chances, I disconnected all my drives and then >> hooked up the two new drives to the Drive Xpert sockets. I told BIOS >> to make them Super Speed and then installed Win7. It all worked OK, >> except I ended up with three partitions on the RAID array. The first >> was a 100Mb partition apparently for booting, the next a 2048Gb >> partition and the third a 765Gb partition, or thereabouts -- don't >> remember the exact number but it was seven hundred something. >> >> But Win7 was running great. And out of curiosity, I decided to check >> the Windows Experience Index now that I was running on "Super Speed" >> drives. The best I'd ever been able to do before was 5.9 because the >> Windows Experience Index score reflects the score of the lowest-rating >> hardware in the system, and for me that had always been disk data >> transfer rate. Everything else always scores 6.5 or 7.1. But to my >> surprise, after waiting waiting waiting for the Windows Experience >> Index to recalculate, I ended up with 5.9 again, for exactly the same >> reason. >> >> Hmmmm, none of this was what I expected to see. So what next? >> >> I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and reconnected all my other >> drives and booted into my previous, fully functional Win7 with all the >> apps and such. I went to Disk Manager in Win7 and found the RAID >> array with the three partitions. I tried to delete them and in fact I >> was able to get rid of the 100Mb partition plus the Win7 installation >> I'd been playing with, but even though I tried everything I could >> think of I remained stuck with a 2048Gb partition and a 700somethingGB >> partition on the RAID array, both unallocated space. >> >> Yeah, yeah, maybe that's good enough -- just format 'em and move on. >> Maybe I don't need a 3Tb (almost) drive. But that's not the point. >> If I want it all in one partition, why can't I have it that way? >> >> Is it a BIOS limitation? I am running what is apparently the latest >> BIOS for the P5Q - v. 0602. That's the latest on the Asus website, >> anyway. Maybe running two 1.5Tb drives in Drive Xpert is too much for >> 0602? >> >> And why, I wonder, didn't my Windows Experience Index improve when the >> only drives running in the system were a striped RAID array? A "Super >> Speed" array? >> >> I'm going to post this and while I'm waiting for any response somebody >> might have I'll try installing the drives in a conventional RAID >> configuration, not Drive Xpert. Maybe that'll work better. >> >> Always learning. >> > > And I did learn a few things. > > It appears you can't boot from RAID 0 Stripe but you can boot from RAID > 1 mirror. > > You definitely can have a 3TB (nearly) RAID set in Win7 if you just > install the boot OS on a separate non-RAID drive and tell it to look at > the RAID set. Works great. Just forget about Drive Xpert and use the > regular RAID controller. > > You apparently can't use Drive Xpert to build a 3TB (nearly) RAID set. > With two 1.5TB drives it'll always divide things up into two partitions > - one 2048GB and the other 746.5GB. > > If you've installed your OS with BIOS set to SATA - IDE, you can't come > back later and change things to RAID. Even if you're leaving the drive > on which Win7 is installed as non-RAID, it still won't load. It'll boot > and you can choose Win7 from the boot loader, but as the little > sparklies begin flying in, the system will hang. Put BIOS back to SATA > - IDE and you're fine. > > Maybe I learned a few other things, but I don't remember right now. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table "it is also used on some BIOS systems because of the limitations of MBR partition tables, which restrict a disk partition's size to a maximum of 2.2 TB." A 3TB RAID0 stripe exceeds the 2.2 TB value. Windows 7 has done a nice job of looking out for you, preventing problems. ******* Within a couple years time (I didn't bookmark a link to the article), all new drives will switch to 4KB sectors. It's possible the MBR limitation is based on sector count, rather than absolute size, so a 4KB sector could raise the limit on the partition size for bootability. If you'd purchased an "Advanced Format" 1.5TB drive, with 4KB sectors, it is possible you'd get yet another partitioning result from Windows 7. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2888 That article mentions a misalignment issue, which is where those drives will be a constant source of annoyance for people with older OSes, like me. The drives you have in your hand, are likely still 512 byte sectors, so there should be no issues using them in a mixed or legacy OS environment. ******* To benchmark the performance of your array, you should try something like HDTune, rather than a Windows Experisnce thing. First, test a single drive on a Southbridge port, to establish a baseline result. Then, build your RAID 0 array on the SIL5723, and run a second benchmark. Did the result double ? Or is the result "bus limited", with a flat line portion of the HDTune graph, on the left hand side of the graph ? (You can use http://imageshack.us if you want to post pictures of your HDTune results.) The SIL5723 has an internal "processor" to run the controller. (Free version, suitable for read testing) http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe Running RAID 0 may double the bandwidth, but will do nothing for seek time. Now, according to this, WEI measures disk bandwidth, whereas I as a user, would also want it to be assigning some value to reduced seek times. That would make my SSD look better for example. So the WEI is hardly an "Experience" metric, if it misses seek time. I expect we can't really find a truthful article about WEI. http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/archive/b/windowsvista/archive/2006/09/22/windows-experience-index-an-in-depth-look.aspx As you can see here, WEI is garbage. Even the dedicated benchmarking utilities like HDTach, HDTune, ATTO, and the like, may not agree with each other. The benchmarks need constant attention, because the risk is large of them screwing up. For example, if you look at SSD benchmarking, you can still see articles where the benchmark tools used, are having problems giving the same answers. But the WEI appears to be two steps behind everyone else, in terms of getting it right, if you look at the results people are getting here. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprohardware/thread/59563779-ce5f-4620-883e-541d2a9e1fe5 Paul
From: Bill Anderson on 12 Jun 2010 18:23 Paul wrote: > Bill Anderson wrote: >> >> It appears you can't boot from RAID 0 Stripe but you can boot from >> RAID 1 mirror. >> >> You definitely can have a 3TB (nearly) RAID set in Win7 if you just >> install the boot OS on a separate non-RAID drive and tell it to look >> at the RAID set. Works great. Just forget about Drive Xpert and use >> the regular RAID controller. >> >> You apparently can't use Drive Xpert to build a 3TB (nearly) RAID set. >> With two 1.5TB drives it'll always divide things up into two >> partitions - one 2048GB and the other 746.5GB. >> >> If you've installed your OS with BIOS set to SATA - IDE, you can't >> come back later and change things to RAID. Even if you're leaving the >> drive on which Win7 is installed as non-RAID, it still won't load. >> It'll boot and you can choose Win7 from the boot loader, but as the >> little sparklies begin flying in, the system will hang. Put BIOS back >> to SATA - IDE and you're fine. >> >> Maybe I learned a few other things, but I don't remember right now. >> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table > > "it is also used on some BIOS systems because of the limitations of > MBR partition tables, which restrict a disk partition's size to a > maximum of 2.2 TB." > > A 3TB RAID0 stripe exceeds the 2.2 TB value. Windows 7 has done a nice > job of looking out for you, preventing problems. Yes, it was only when I chose GUID while setting up the RAID set that I could get Win7 to recognize a 3TB drive. Apparently Drive Xpert doesn't allow for GUID, but the P5Q's regular RAID setup does. I have no idea what would have happened if I'd installed WinXP instead of WIN7. Would it recognize a GUID RAID set? I may experiment. The trouble is that I'll have to install WinXP from scratch using my old original WinXP installation disk. With all the subsequent patches and Service Packs, that takes quite a while. Still, hmmm, I may experiment. Thanks, Paul, for all the suggestions. I'm having so much fun with this that I think I'll try the benchmarking progs you suggested. Ah, wait... A little Googling reveals: GPT disks are supported only by Windows XP 64-Bit Edition. You cannot move GPT disks to computers running the 32-bit versions of Windows XP. From Disk Management on computers running a 32-bit version of Windows XP, GPT disks appear as basic MBR disks with a single partition covering the whole disk, but the data on the partition cannot be accessed. Darn. I have at least one absolutely necessary application with drivers that require 32-bit. But then there's this: The operating system loader and boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. I think that's not true. At least apparently not true for the 32-bit Win7 installation I set up earlier today. I put Win7 on a 500GB HDD that was certainly MBR, and it could see the 1.5TB GUID RAID set easily. Maybe it's true only for WinXP 64-bit. http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/guid_partition_table.mspx?mfr=true This is all very interesting. So far, though, I haven't been able to figure out how to make my multi-boot WinXP 32-bit, Win7 32-bit, Win7 64-bit co-exist with a 3TB RAID set. Will I have to give up XP? Settle for no partition larger than 2TB? We'll see. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog
From: Bill Anderson on 12 Jun 2010 18:38 Bill Anderson wrote: > > I think that's not true. At least apparently not true for the 32-bit > Win7 installation I set up earlier today. I put Win7 on a 500GB HDD > that was certainly MBR, and it could see the 1.5TB GUID RAID set easily. I meant it could see the 3TB set easily. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog
|
Next
|
Last
Pages: 1 2 Prev: P5VD2-MX Asus SoundMAX Audio Driver Next: M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 -- O.C. Tuner problem |