Need a good Raid System

[RowanP]

Hi there,

I am currently running a GigaByte 8IHXP V2.1, with 2.4B CPU. I am utilizing the Promise raid controller.

I am very disappointed with the performance of the raid controller and PCI bridge.

When I attempt to capture video from JVC digital camcorder, it drops 10% to 40% of the frames! I know it's not my FireWire card, as I have tested this is a another computer and everything is fine.

So, I have two questions...

1) What is the best RDRAM PC800 based motherboard out there that has RAID

2) Will I need to rebuild the raid array which requires a format of the two drives when I upgrade?

Thanks in advance,

Rowan.

 

[Crashman]

You have the best RDRAM board, the only thing you could do to speed it up is use the proper PC1066 memory instead of the slow PC800. And your capture problem could be caused by software.

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[RowanP]

I know its not the software. I am using Pinnacle Studio 8 and the problem goes away when I use it on the other machine.... which BTW is only a PIII 800Mhz with 512Mb PC133 RAM !

My gut feeling about this problem is the PCI bridge on the 2.1 version of the Gigabyte not up to snuff. Did GigaByte make any changes\improvements when they introduced 3.0 ?

 

[Crashman]

I think all 3.0 did was substitute the Creative sound chip with some cheaper codec. I'm also fairly certain that the PCI bridge in question is internal to the Intel chipset.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[RowanP]

The chipset on this motherboard is the Intel 850... which I am sure you are aware.

I am willing to give up on the RDRAM and move to DDR and the new 875p chipset, but how good is the PCI bridge in this chipset? Can it handle FireWire and RAID 0.....

 

[wratchet40]

I have the same 8IHXP motherboard as you with the same CPU.
The only difference is that i use two sticks of 256MB RDRAM PC1066 . I have two 80GB Maxtor 7200RPM 2mb drives running in raid 0, i have been doing video editing for work (with that system)for almost a year now. I have never had any problems, the two programs i use are VideoWave 4 and Adobe Premiere 6. I also did a comparitive test with that ssytem using PCmark 2002 the HD score doubled as soon as i set up the RAID. My co-worker uses the same drives but with an MSI KT3 Ultra2 and he ges lower scores in the HD test.

So i wouldn't worry, the only way to get extreme performance from IDE is by buying a 3Ware or Promise card with an onboard processor and memory, and even then you are held back the limitations of the 32 bit PCI interface.

 

[RowanP]

I have 4 sticks of Samsung 256Mb PC800 for a total of 1Gb RAM....

The RAID is setup using two WD 160GB 8Mb Cache hard drives. Both are configured as MASTER drivers.

Everytime I attempt to capture video to theese drives, it drops 30% to 50% of the frames.... From talking to people on the Pinnacle site, they are all pointing fingers at the PCI bus....

I have tried different software, but the same problems persists....

 

[Crashman]

Good question! PCI is 133MB/s, firewire is 400mbit=50MB/s, RAID 0 with two drives that have continuous transfers of 45MB/s would be 90MB/s, 50+90>133. But I'm not so sure modern chipsets have to share all those PCI slots on one 133MB/s channel.

Are you sure your Firewire card isn't sharing an IRQ with something else on the system right now, like the RAID controller or a network controller? That would have a SEVERE impact on performance, and would be best solved by moving it to another PCI slot. There are so many devices on that board already that you might have to try EVERY slot just to find the best one!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[RowanP]

The Firewire card is using IRQ 22 and it's not shared with with any other device. The RAID controller is on IRQ 18 and not shared either.

 

[pIII_Man]

remove the jumper from both raided drives...this may help..

also try setting them to csl....


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

 

[RowanP]

I already tried CSL, with the same results. I have just tried NO JUMPERS and the problem is still there...

After some more playing around, I have found that I can capture MPEG quality video without a single frame drop. i this would be okay for 90% of my video editing, as I am posting them to the web....