Bonuses of raid and setup.

[laovniux]

Hello,

I was thinking of setting up RAID out of 2 x 1TB hdd because utorrent maxes out the writing capacity of my seagate 1TB 7200RPM 6GB/S/64MB hdd at 4 MB/s while I have 12.5 MB/s (or 100 Mb/s) internet connection (The error I get is disk overload along with a % value). This array would be basically only used for data storage. My OS is on a separate SSD.

My mother board is gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H it supports SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, and JBOD.

So I was wondering how much of a writing speed increase would RAID get me and what RAID level should I use?
And some other upsides/downsides and basic info on raid would be appreciated.

 

[j2j663]

The problem for you is that RAID was not designed to increase write speeds. It was also not designed to increase random read times. RAID was created mostly for data avaliability and to help, in some cases, with large file, sequential reading.

If you are truly getting an error because you are writing info too fast (I am skeptical about this) then just point uTorrent to save things onto you sad first and then transfer them off once they are finished downloading.

 

[RetiredChief]

If "1TB 7200RPM 6GB/S/64MB hdd at 4 MB/s" is true then You need to fix problem. What mode is your HDD in almost sounds like PIO mode. The HDD is far faster than 4 MB/s.

However I suspect it is related to the "TRUE" download speed. You said "12.5 MB/s (or 100 Mb/s) internet connection", That is maxium, and real download is often less then you have to add the throughput of the drive. And raid 0 WOULD NOT improve.

Raid0 does improver Sequencial read/write speeds, But being limited by your internet connection, you might go from 4 MB/s to 4.5 MBs - NOT worth it, as raid0 also increase possibility of failure. ONE drive fails, you loss ALL data on both drives.

 

[laovniux]

If "1TB 7200RPM 6GB/S/64MB hdd at 4 MB/s" is true then You need to fix problem. What mode is your HDD in almost sounds like PIO mode. The HDD is far faster than 4 MB/s.

However I suspect it is related to the "TRUE" download speed. You said "12.5 MB/s (or 100 Mb/s) internet connection", That is maxium, and real download is often less then you have to add the throughput of the drive. And raid 0 WOULD NOT improve.

Raid0 does improver Sequencial read/write speeds, But being limited by your internet connection, you might go from 4 MB/s to 4.5 MBs - NOT worth it, as raid0 also increase possibility of failure. ONE drive fails, you loss ALL data on both drives.

How to find out what mode is my HDD in?

Perhaps this is the problem? the HDD was originally a OS + storage + retarded atempt to extend OS partition disk.

And no its not about the true download speed. When I get the Disk Overload message the download speed whatever it would be instantly drops. So I'm pretty sure the problem is due to HDD settings or something.

So... RAID is really not meant to increase write speed? :/ I don't know from where but I had this assumption that raid is meant to bypass the physical limitation of HDD not being able to spin any faster by writing into 2 different disks at one time thus increasing the write speed...

 

[RetiredChief]

Raid0 Does Improve sequencial read/writes.
Does Nothing for Access time and Very little for random 4 K read writes.
The Primary use today for Raid0 is to improve working with large file structures where Sequencial performance is very important. Increase is some wheres around 0.7 x 2 X HDD throughput for Sequencial read/writes.

Been awhile. Normally with SATA Drives this rarely pops up. The first thing is to check in bios, is the HDD control set to ahci, or IDE. My be wrong but I think this PIO only happens with Bios set to IDE.
So If Ahci, this is not the problem.
If IDE then to check transfer mode.
.. Go to Control Panel, System & Security.
.. Select Device manager.
.. Click on IDE ATA/ATAPI to expand.
Should have a list (mine shows ATA Channel x)
.. Go down the list, by right clicking, select properties, then advance settings (at top)
I selected ATA Channel 1 (for My CDrom)
and it shows Ultra DMA Mode 5 and 6 (This is where if in PIO mode it would show up.

NOTE if set to IDE recommend changing to AHCI.
DO NOT Change in BIOS, must perform a registry edit first (or let MS fix it). See Link, scroll about half way down and you will see "fix it for Me" or little farther down "let me fix it"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

 

[laovniux]

Raid0 Does Improve sequencial read/writes.
Does Nothing for Access time and Very little for random 4 K read writes.
The Primary use today for Raid0 is to improve working with large file structures where Sequencial performance is very important. Increase is some wheres around 0.7 x 2 X HDD throughput for Sequencial read/writes.

Been awhile. Normally with SATA Drives this rarely pops up. The first thing is to check in bios, is the HDD control set to ahci, or IDE. My be wrong but I think this PIO only happens with Bios set to IDE.
So If Ahci, this is not the problem.
If IDE then to check transfer mode.
.. Go to Control Panel, System & Security.
.. Select Device manager.
.. Click on IDE ATA/ATAPI to expand.
Should have a list (mine shows ATA Channel x)
.. Go down the list, by right clicking, select properties, then advance settings (at top)
I selected ATA Channel 1 (for My CDrom)
and it shows Ultra DMA Mode 5 and 6 (This is where if in PIO mode it would show up.

NOTE if set to IDE recommend changing to AHCI.
DO NOT Change in BIOS, must perform a registry edit first (or let MS fix it). See Link, scroll about half way down and you will see "fix it for Me" or little farther down "let me fix it"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

For me it shows

Can't make any assumptions based on that :/