Is there a way to speed up read/write speeds?

[noahscorp]

Hello everyone

I have a set of Sata HDD's in a single RAID array but would like to know if there is a way to allow them to go faster or write in bigger blocks etc?

Any help on that would be great but if not then not 😀

Thanks all

 

[jitpublisher]

There are many variables to this question depending on a great many things. There is no way possible to give you anything useful with such vague information.

 

[noahscorp]

okay, i have 6 sata hard drives in raid 0, erm, any other information you need please ask and ill give 😉

 

[jitpublisher]

okay, i have 6 sata hard drives in raid 0, erm, any other information you need please ask and ill give 😉

Exactly what are the drives, name and model numbers, the Controller make and type, Driver version, OS, and exactly what you are doing that needs 6 drives in RAID 0. What did you set the block size to when the array was created? What does the array score right now when you run a benchmark tool like Hard Drive Tune? What is the rest of your hardware, motherboard, CPU, network information, memory, all this too. It might not even be the array that is the root of your problem.

 

[noahscorp]

Oh there's no problem XD I was just wondering if there WAS a way and if so which.
Im using 6 HDD's and have been for nearly 2 years now, at the time it was cheep to get 2 250GB HDD's, then i just got another untill i filled my case and now i have 6, which is awesome when it's booted, the sounds are really cool.

I didnt know you could change the block size or what it actually was when creating the arrays, is it possible to change them now? And if so what would be an ideal number? Im guessing by default it's on 64KB so would 1MB blocks enhance performance?

As for hardware:
Watercooling on CPU
GTX580 Matrix ROG version
AMD970 BE CPU
Asus Crosshair V Formula ROG version motherboard
16Gb Ripjaws X 7-8-7-24 RAM
And an 850W power supply.
6 x Seagate 250GB Barracuda Hard Drive - 3.5" SATA-II - 7200RPM 8MB Cache HDD's

 

[noahscorp]

after reading a little on it (never heard of this before now 😉 ) Im mainly gaming on this computer, not much else, all my music is here too and a fair few films.

 

[Chainzsaw]

The best way to speed up read and write speeds? Get an SSD.

The second best way? Get a RAID card. A good raid card will set you back at least $600.

Besides that, any modification of your stripe size will most likely result in negligable performance increase (think of less that 5%).

 

[noahscorp]

The best way to speed up read and write speeds? Get an SSD.

The second best way? Get a RAID card. A good raid card will set you back at least $600.

Besides that, any modification of your stripe size will most likely result in negligable performance increase (think of less that 5%).

As my 6 HDDs are now, they are currently faster than an SSD

But after reading about the stripe size and being able to change it, if it was at 1MB, my Write speeds would be around 462MB/s and read at 386MB/s
on a 1GB file
At the moment as i left it on default 64KB, write is at 220MBs and reads at 246MB/s

 

[jitpublisher]

As my 6 HDDs are now, they are currently faster than an SSD

No, no they are not. Any decent SSD would simply pound your current array. You are simply looking at read and write speeds, which is not the most important factor in speed for most people. It's latencies that make the difference. And an SSD has 100 times less latency than that big ugly array you are running. For doing anything, ANTHING other than moving files around a gigabyte at a time, an SSD would feel and act so much faster than the array of 6 drives that you have, you would be amazed.