Help Needed Improving my PP4 Benchmark Results
 

Hi all,

I ran Bill's PP4 Benchmark that Harm pointed out and got somewhat pleasing results as shown here: I am John's Computer.

MB: Supermicro X7DWA-N
Total: 71.3
AVI Export: 2.9
MPEG Encode: 36.4
Render Timeline: 32
CPU: Intel X5450 3GHz x2 (8 cores in total)
Memory: 8GB RAM
PPro Version: 4.2
OS: Win 7 64
System Drive: 74GB Raptor
Project Drive: 4x500GB RAID 0
Video: 9800GX2 + 7800GTX

Bill wrote back to me saying that they were good but indicated that my PC wasn't tweaked as well as it ought to be. In fact, I had tweaked it according to Black Viper's 'Tweaked' service configuration shown here, as well as changed a heap of settings as per Harm's advice on the Adobe forum (page file, display properties, defraging, etc...)

Now, I've done a fresh install, disabled every Windows component except for Internet Explorer and Media Player, and disabled so many services that there are usually only 26 processes running (using Black Viper's 'bare-bones' configuration on the same page above).

EDIT: In fact one/more of the services I've disabled has made nVidia control panel not see my 2nd graphics card. It's still active in Device Manager but I can't get anything to see that it's actually there.

I ran the test again but got terrible results this time.

My first few tests were consistently (or +/- .1 of a second):

Total 71.3
AVI 2.9
MPEG 36.4
Render 32

But now my AVI and MPEG results are strange and the rendering and total are screwy:

Total 508966.7
AVI 5.2
MPEG 38.5
Render 508923

I've attached a screenshot of Process Manager showing what's running as well as Device Manager showing all the services running. And also a still from the System Info window. I'm not sure if there's any useful information in them...

I'd love some advice on the matter. I love my rocketship computer but hate to think of it as wasting away and not living up to its potential (and price tag)...

John,

The BlackViper list is not tuned to Video Editing. First thing I would do is not 'disable' services, unless it is utterly clear you don't need them at all, but stop the services and turn them to manual. That precludes problems like with your video card, because manual services can be started if needed by your installed hardware/software.

Is your raid0 a software raid within Win7 or configured on the ICHR9 chip or other controller?

There are 3 notable results to compare with, both of Bill's systems, one the overclocked version, comparable to your 5450's, his standard score and Roger Averdahl's score which is comparable to your system. The problem in your results is mainly the rendering. If you can shave off around 10 seconds, your score is about equal to Bill's OC-ed system. Where is your media cache located, did you clean it beforehand, did you optimize your project disk before rendering, etc.

Thanks Harm,

I'll go back and change the disabled services to manual and see if I get any sense out of my video card again. I suppose it's possible that other hardware could be less productive because of all the disabled services, which might explain the degraded performance across the board?? Have you published somewhere the Win7 services that you have running/disabled/manual?

My RAID 0 is configured onboard (through the motherboard?) - I have to load Intel ESB2 drivers. I'd been considering a good 4 port RAID controller, but when I got such good AVI results (the first tests anyway) I decided it wasn't really necessary. Though I'm sure it would be different if the test was for 35Mb 1920x1080 EX1 footage which constitutes most of my workload.

NOTE: I also use a Si3112 PCI-E --> 2xSATA adapter which connects to an E-SATA port and a front mounted hot swappable drive bay which I use to back up the important stuff from the RAID 0, essentially putting the R in RAID.

I keep all project files on the 2TB RAID drive. I have it all organised in a fairly predictable manner. I'll have to check the specific file structure and names but it's basically:

Mammoth (D:)
-- Richard III
----Captured Footage
------Captured Video
------Captured Audio
----Preview Files
------Video Previews
------Audio Previews
----Final Product
--Bill & Julie's Wedding
----Captured Footage
------Captured Video
------Captured Audio
----Preview Files
------Video Previews
------Audio Previews
----Final Product

etc...

This is all that's on the drive. But so far i have 1.5TB full.

Is this optimized? Bill's recent post on the Adobe forum says:

I don't get read rates like that (I can add my HDTach scores when I get home from work) but never the less, even buying a RAID controller, it might still be best to have one big RAID for everything, rather than having captured media on a separate array to the previews and outputs?

What confuses me the most is that the drives were in exactly the same state for all tests, but they were consistently good, now they're sonsistently poor. I just don't get it.

John,

The list of the default services on my system is attached. For benchmarks of course I kill process trees for PerfectDisk, SnagIt, Skype, Symantec EndProtection and similar, so some services are stopped by killing the process tree, like PDAgent.

Both Bill and I are in favor of using Raid arrays, but we are not in favor of Aid0 (the missing R is because of the lack of redundancy), especially when you have important data on it and in your case it looks like very important data, your projects. Realize that if one disk in your raid0 fails, everything is lost, all 1.5 TB. If you use a raid0 for media and you lose all data, it can easily be recaptured, no big deal, but projects would be a disaster. So please make sure you make regular copies of your project files to another disk.

Bill uses a 5 disk SAS 15,000 RPM raid0 array for benchmarking, hence his 500 MB/s tranfer rates. I use a 12 disk SATA raid30 array all the time with 850+ MB/s transfer rates. In addition to that large array I also use a 2 disk raid0 array for pagefile, media cache, documentation of CS4 MC and the like, temp files, copies of DVD's, etc.

Like Bill I have noticed that when using both arrays in the benchmark my rendering score goes up from 13s to 21s, so 8s slower than using just my large array.

As to your raid0 question whether it is optimized, look at your HDTach results at around the 1,500 GB mark and I would expect you read rate is somewhere around 150-160 MB/s, but with less than 800 GB it would likely be around 200 MB/s. That is a significant difference.

For more info on my system, look here: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/high-def...ter-build.html

I've attached my HD Tach results after cleaning out the RAID 0 - it now has 1.5GB of 1.8 free.

The system drive has 46GB of 69 free.

Do the results indicate what you expected? I'm so technically obtuse that I struggle to understand them.

I've just re-run the benchmark test again and am still disappointed. I've cleared a TB of space from the RAID and slimmed down the system to only 26 processes running + applications... but I'm not getting as good results as before I did all that. Isn't that strange?

John,

The results from your Raptor are as expected. However your Raid0 is not what I would have expected. Have a look at my HDTach results for a simple 2 disk Raid0 array on a Marvell chip from the mobo. These are way different. How is your Raid0 set up? BIOS or Windows, what stripe size did you use?

Hi Harm, thanks so much for your help - and your eternal patience!

Good questions...

It's set up in the BIOS, but that said, I can't remember doing it at all.

When I purchased the parts for this computer, I paid the company to build the machine. They set up the RAID in Windows, then even partitioned the RAID drive, they installed the RAM in the wrong slots and did a whole bunch of other stuff that I objected to.

So I pulled it to bits and re-built it.

But I don't remember the specifics of my RAID configuration...

I can however guarantee that I would have used default settings when given a choice.

There's nothing of value on the drive at the moment, I can easily format and reconfigure the RAID at recommended settings, if I can just recall how I did it. For some reason, I don't recall it being part of the regular BIOS, but a whole other pre-boot window, like Press X to configure SATA RAID or something...

I just read your guide on RAIDs, but I'm afraid my technical knowledge is so behind the 8 ball that I got lost somewhere in the clusters, blocks and chunks.

What stripe/cluster/block/chunk size do you recommend for 4 x 500GB HHDs for video editing (holding all my files, media, previews, renders, etc...)?

Cluster: 4KB?
Block (is this the same as stripe): 64KB?
Chunk: 128KB?

You mention 16 and 32 and 64KB chunk sizes but do they constitute large and small sizes? Or should I go even larger?

Cluster size on a NTFS volume is 4KB by default. For block (stripe) size I would choose 128 KB if possible, chunk size may not be an option, depending on your controller, but if you have it, choose 64 KB or even larger.

I'm looking at the Supermicro motherboard manual now and it says that when creating the RAID (in the SATA RAID Utility by pressing Ctrl+I after the power on self test) that the default Stripe size is 128KB. So it is a certainty that that is my Stripe size. The manual doesn't give any indication of an option to change the chunk size though.

Does that mean that my current RAID is as good as it's going to get?

John,

That is what it looks like to me.

Well that makes me sad.

Is it possible that the onboard RAID is just not very good? And that a controller is a good idea? But if my AVI scores on the benchmark were as good as they were previously, I'd be content as it is!

I could always add a fifth drive I suppose.

When I right click on the RAID in Windows and select Format, I can choose the Allocation unit size. Anything from 512 bytes right up to 64KB.

I'm not sure what default is but the one that is already selected (presumably by default) is 4096 bytes. Should I change this?

EDIT:

Here's an interesting thing...

First of all, all of my subsequent results to my first few tries displayed what I thought was garbled results to TOTAL and RENDER times. But I've realised that they are not really garbled. They still contain the data, and it's much better data than I thought.

Strangely though, the finely tuned Windows 7 with 25 processes and correctly managed page file and display configured for performance is beaten by a completely untuned Vista with 50 processes and everything geared for appearance...

John,

Any chance that Intel has a more recent ESB2 driver, specially for Win7? For my Areca card it improved my results, as it did for Bill. Your driver is causing rather weird results with HDTach. You Raid0 has an average random access of 27 ms, which is pretty slow, considering you have 4 disks in the raid. On the 2 disk raid0 I have 15.9 ms. My average read is nearly 177 MB/s with 2 disks, I would have expected something like 330-350 MB/s on your raid. In addition your burst rate is way lower than mine, just comparable to SCSI Ultra 320.

Maybe you can find some information here: http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-022830.htm

On the left select download and there is a driver for Win7.

One more question, do you have AHCI enabled in the BIOS? If so, you may try with AHCI disabled.

Thanks Harm,

I'll check the AHCI status when I get home tonight - though I think it's on and that off causes problems. I can't remember though, since I haven't fiddled with the settings since setting the RAID up over a year ago.

What are the advantages/implications of AHCI being on/off?

Also, thank you for pointing me to the new driver. I remember it taking me a week to track down the original ones I used when I first set it up - in fact I've no doubt you probably pointed me to it then too!!

It actually makes sense when I think about it, since that driver was for Vista, that the RAID should work better in Vista than in Win7. Though my HD Tach graph looks pretty similar when run in Vista too...

How about installing the drivers? Is it something I can do simply from within Windows by executing the file? Or am I better to update through device manager and find the files? Or is re-installing Windows and loading the new driver the best bet?

I'm happy to try anything!

EDIT: Installed the drivers and the storage manager software. But... the results didn't change. I'll try going into the BIOS to disable AHCI.

EDIT AGAIN: I think AHCI is already off! In the MAIN BIOS window, under Serial ATA, SATA Congtroller Mode Option is on "Enhanced (Non-AHCI) mode - Sata and Pata drives are auto-detected and placed in Native IDE mode" as opposed to the other option: "Compatible mode - Sata and Pata drives are auto detected and placed in Legacy mode"

Should I try changing it to Compatible mode???

FINAL EDIT FOR TONIGHT: When I press Ctrl+I in boot to enter RAID configuration, I note the top of the screen says "Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROM v5.6.2 1002 ESB2 Copyright 2003-06."

But in Device Manager, the ESB2 driver says "8.9.0.1023 Copyright 1994-2009.

So... does that mean that my installation in Windows of the ESB2 drivers isn't enough? That I do in fact have to load the new drivers before installing Windows??

ONE LAST THING: The Intel Matrix Storage Manager software tells me that my Strip size is definitely 128KB, and that my Physical Sector Size and Logical Sector Size are both 512 Bytes. Is that appropriate? I'm not sure how to change the values even if they ought to be...

AHCI is used amongst other things to enable NCQ, but because you are using 500 GB disks, I make the assumption (maybe incorrectly) that these disks are somewhat older models, still with 16 MB cache and often it leads to better performance if NCQ is off. I have it off on my system as well. I also have Enhanced IDE for my SATA disks, like you.

I guess you can install these drivers under Win7, but to take effect you need to reboot the system. This may be explained on the Intel site, I forgot to look.

As in reinstall Windows?

Or just reboot? I did reboot but no change seems to have occurred. Re-ran the HD Tach and PPBM tests and got same results.

The site has a ten thousand page read me that I tried to understand but it has so many ifs, buts and what have yous that I couldn't figure out which situation applied to me.

John,

Look here and specifically at section 5, 6 and 7.

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/17882/eng/readme.txt

Ok - section 7 blows my mind - I just can't tell whether that document is an instruction manual or a kind of "You can do it this way or you can do it that way" thing. I know I struggle to figure out what to do.

Section 5 says:

5.1 General Installation Notes

1. If you are installing the operating system on a system
configured for RAID or AHCI mode, you must pre-install
the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager driver using the
F6 installation method described in section 5.3.

Well I am not installing the OS because I already have. So I don't know whether that applies to me... either way, that is exactly what I did, just using the previous driver...

5.2 Windows Automated Installer* Installation from Hard
Drive or CD-ROM

Note: This method is applicable to systems configured for
RAID or AHCI mode.

which mine is, so this is what I did.

1. Download the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager setup file
and double-click to self-extract and to begin the setup
process.

2. The 'Welcome' window appears. Click Next to continue.

3. The 'Uninstallation Warning' window appears. Click Next
to continue.

4. The 'Software License Agreement' window appears. If you
agree to these terms, click Yes to continue.

5. The 'Readme File Information' window appears. Click Next
to continue.

6. The 'Choose Destination Location' window appears.
Click Next to continue.

7. The 'Select Program Folder' window appears. Click Next
to continue installing the driver.

8. If the Windows Automated Installer* Wizard Complete window
is shown without a prompt to restart the system, click
Finish and proceed to step 8. If it is shown with a
prompt to restart the system, click Yes, I want to
restart my computer now. (the default selection) and
click Finish. Once the system has restarted,
proceed to step 8.

9. To verify that the driver was loaded correctly, refer
to section 6.

which I did and the driver was installed. However there is no performance change, which makes me think that this was not the correct method...

5.3 Pre-Installation Using the F6 Method.

I am happy to try this out just to see if it's more effective. I don't know whether it will be or not and I'd be frustrated if I went through it all and it accomplished nothing...

Interestingly, despite being the Win7 driver, there is no reference to Win7 in the whole document.

EDIT: Just went home and formatted the drive, re-intalled Windows 7, loading the updated driver before installation, ran HD Tach and got... you guessed it... exactly the same result...

Do I need to reconstruct the RAID in the BIOS?

John, what drives are you using in your Raid 0? If there is even one different model, it could cause these sort of issues.

Also, you don't need to install a Raid driver when installing 7 since the OS is going onto a single non-raid drive(Raptor). You can install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager after install.

One more thought: when I installed 7 a couple weeks ago, I didn't need any drivers for Win 7 to 'see' the 2 drive Raid in addition to the SSD and another single drive during the process of selecting which drive to install 7 on.

Sorry to say this but I think you should reinstall again and DONT install any drivers during the install stage.

One more observation: you shouldn't need to remove any data from the drives in order to test their read speed.

4 x 500GB Seagate drives:

Samsung HD501LJ SpinPoint 500GB, 16MB CACHE, SATAII/300, 7200RPM, NCQ, NoiseGuard, ImpacGuard, SilentSeek

They're all exactly the same. The serial numbers are even sequential!



EDIT: Just re-installed Windows without loading any drivers and sure enough,.... the exact same results running HD Tach...

Should I install the drver and Storage Manager now?

I'm not even sure what Storage Manager does...

Should I just bite the bullet and buy a RAID controller?

This one? I believe it will go in my X7DWA-N's PCI-X port. Unless I'm missing something.

Or this one which is PCI-E, which I suppose makes it newer.
(Also, what's the advantage of the battery unit?)

Should I just tear out the drives and buy new ones? Is there no way it could be a hardware problem?

Just replaced the 4x500GB drives with 3x1TB drives with the 32M cache.

Attached is my HD Tach result now. Is that better? Will she go faster?

My PPBM score hasn't improved though - no matter what I do, I cannot improve it!

John,

Although the results are better than in the previous configuration, it still disappoints me. With 3 x 1 TB Samsungs in raid0 I would have expected something like a 250-280 MB/s average read rate. This probably implies that the ICHR controller is using older drivers, although the design is sub-optimal when compared to dedicated controllers. Have a look at the Intel site to see if a more recent .INF file is available. Intel® Desktop Board DG965WH*RAID: Intel® Matrix Storage Manager Driver for Intel Desktop Boards

BTW: I passed the magic 40s barrier!

That link appears to take me to downloads for a different board. I can't navigate the Intel site to my board (X7DWA-N) - though it appears to be the same driver for all the family of Intel boards.

But even so, I'm fairly certain that the driver of the ESB2 RAID controller in Device Manager is the one from that download. And if I wanted to update it using the link from that site I'd have to re-install Windows...

John,

I have no further suggestions, I just don't know how to further improve your benchmark results. Mind you, it is quite a lot easier when I'm physically sitting behind a computer than to give advise in words over the forum. But your system is still in second place after Bill's overclocked system and ahead of his highly tuned system at normal clock speed, if we only look at E54xx systems. You are way ahead of Roger Averdahl's system, which is also an E54xx system on the same mobo. Your results are nothing to be ashamed of, in fact they are pretty good given that it is a somewhat older system.

Sorry I could not give any more suggestions to help you improve the score, but I am at my wit's end on this.

Take a look here to see if this is the problem:
Server Products - Slow Integrated RAID Performance Due to Incorrect Physical Drive Settings

For shits and giggles, can you try the 4 new drives in Raid 10 and Raid 5? This can be done in Windows through the Matrix Storage Manager software. And also a 2 drive Raid 0?

I tried to find similar problems with your board and ESB2 via google but couldn't find anything.

For the Raid card: if all you need is Raid 0, then Highpoint 2640X4 4 port in PCI E x4 will work just fine. Mac people use em all the time and they are inexpensive.

If you need more now or possibly later, then the new LSI 9260 or 9240 SAS 8 port PCI-E or Adaptec 5805. However, since you only have 1 PCI-E slot open, that PCI-X Adaptec will work just fine.

Yes, my results are not good for that system. I will do a new test when i install Windows 7 on a Intel® X25-M Gen2 160GB SSD and have another Intel® X25-M Gen2 160GB SSD disk as a scratch disk. :)
I am just waitning for my new Blu-ray burner, when it arrives the install process begins! :)

Today i have an old install of Vista, to much unnecessary Services running and to little time to re-install Vista and to little time to fix the unnecessary Services.

First of all, thank you Harm for all your help on this problem - I'd have given up on me a long time ago. I owe you a beer for all you've taught me about computers.

Steve, in Harm's To RAID or not to RAID article he says:
So it sounds like the Highpoint cards might not be so hot - but then perhaps for RAID 0 they're ok?

The one I've been looking at is the Adaptec 3405. Good/No good/Eqwual to the cheaper Highpoint?

I tried to figure out how to adjust the Write Cache and Read Ahead settings, but it seems thwat Storage Manager is less about managing and more about viewing. I cannot figure out how to manipulate anythinglet alone change the RAID type from 0 to 5.

I have saved a report from Storage Manager and have included some parts that may be relevant here:

System Information

Kit Installed: 8.9.0.1023
Kit Install History: 8.9.0.1023, Uninstall
Shell Version: 8.9.0.1023

OS Name: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
OS Version: 6.1.7600 Build 7600
System Name: WIN7-EDITOR
System Manufacturer: Supermicro
System Model: X7DWA
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5450 @ 3.00GHz
BIOS Version/Date: Phoenix Technologies LTD 6.00, 11/15/2007

Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager

Intel RAID Controller: Intel(R) ESB2 SATA RAID Controller
Number of Serial ATA ports: 6

...

Array_0000
Status: No active migrations
Hard Drive Data Cache Enabled: Yes
Size: 2794.5 GB
Free Space: 747.5 GB
Number of Hard Drives: 3
Hard Drive Member 1: SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Hard Drive Member 2: SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Hard Drive Member 3: SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Number of Volumes: 1
Volume Member 1: FOOTAGE

...

Hard Drive 1
Usage: Array member
Status: Normal
Device Port: 2
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 2
Model: SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Serial Number: S13PJ90S730634
Firmware: 1AA01118
Native Command Queuing Support: Yes
Hard Drive Data Cache Enabled: Yes
Size: 931.5 GB
Physical Sector Size: 512 Bytes
Logical Sector Size: 512 Bytes
Number of Volumes: 1
Volume Member 1: FOOTAGE
Parent Array: Array_0000

then it has the same for HDD 2 & 3 - (remember my new RAID only has three Samsung drives - not four)

...

Unused Port 0
Device Port: 1
Device Port Location: Internal

CD/DVD Drive 0
Device Port: 5
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1
Model: HL-DT-ST BD-RE GGW-H20L
Serial Number: K1A7CHI0321
Firmware: YL01

I've attached the entire document - does it indicate anything important?

EDIT:

I've only just realised that the 3x1TB Samsung drives in RAID 0 creates a Volume of just over 2TB, with 700GB unallocated. Why's that? Is there a maximum of 2TB for onboard RAID0??

John,

As I said in my article on Raids, for a raid0 a software raid is enough, and that includes the Highpoint. However, with parity check raids, like raid3/5/6 it is quite a burden to calculate parity and write or read it and possibly correct data. In those cases a hardware raid controller has a distinct advantage, like the Adaptec you mentioned.

I have never used Storage Manager, so I can't answer that.

You are correct that the default maximum raid size is 2 TB. In order to use larger raids, you need to enable LBA 64 or if that is not an option, you need to format the disks with a sector size of 4K, instead of the default 512 B sectors. Using LBA 64 gives a maximum size of 512 TB, using a sector size of 4 K gives a maximum size of 16 TB. I guess that Storage Manager does not allow LBA 64, but try it anyway because it works much better than the increased sector size. For the Windows method you need to convert the disk to GPT.

The other alternative is to use different raid0 arrays, each smaller than 2 TB.

Yes, the Intel onboard Raid has a limit of 2TB no matter what you do. However, maybe your ESB2 has 'Matrix Raid' similar to the desktop ICH#R where you can create 2 separate raid arrays using the same drives. (the arrays can be different or identical)

Harm, I need to correct your article again. Not all Highpoints are software based. Everything from their 3xxx to 4xxx series are hardware based using Intel IOP chips.

For a little more than the Adaptec, there is the LSI 9260-8i
Newegg.com - LSI LSI00202 PCI Express Low Profile Ready SATA / SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i Kit - Controllers / RAID Cards

It has 8 SAS/SATA 6Gb ports and PCI-E x8 2.0. Since you are using your last PCI-E slot, maybe you shouldn't limit yourself with just 4 ports. This card will future proof you since it supports 6Gb drives and PCI-E 2.0. Plus, it is very fast and a solid card.

Is this Raid 0 array to store your video for editing? If it is, then I HIGHLY suggest not using Intel's onboard Raid. I have lost data twice from using Raid 0 with the onboard Intel Raid due to a system hang and a BSOD and it was with 4 Raptors. Both times, the array was degraded and it wouldn't allow me to set all drives as normal.

Steve,

I have never said ALL Highpoints were software based, I said the COMMON Highpoints were software based.

You are nitpicking, aren't you?

I can create two RAID 0s from the same disks, but I don't like the idea. I always thought partitioning your drives was a bad idea.

Yes, the RAID 0 is for storing all my video files.

The LSI controller is more than double the cost of the Adaptec (~$490 vs ~$1050)one over here.

The 4 port LSI controller is also quite a lot more expensive ($700) than the Adaptec. I really don't feel the need for 8 ports. I usually keep the drive pretty clean and back up the final products as soon as I'm through with a project and clear it off the RAID drive. So I think 4 ports is fine. Is the Adaptec one a dead loss? Or maybe I'll just get that Highpoint one since I'll only be using RAID 0. I just hope that I do see performance improvement...

Harm, yes I am :p

Most people will do what I did and glance over "Common" and then assume you meant "All". However, many people do assume all Highpoint cards are software based so I like to help clarify for those that have reading skills like me.

John:

I found THE article for you at tomshardware where they test the Adaptec 5805 vs Highpoint 2640x4. The 5805 is better then the 3405(and 3805), and the Highpoint matched the Adaptec 5805 in MB/s in every Raid level besides Raid 10 (note to Harm: this is what I meant by good controllers being able to read from all 4 drives in Raid 10). Therefore, the 2640x4 will perform as good or better as the 3405 in Raid 0.

RAID 0, 10, 5 Throughput - Review Tom's Hardware : Highpoint Takes On Adaptec's SAS Controller

Highpoint 2640 is on its way! Along with a fourth Samsung drive. So next week I'll set up the 4x1TB RAID 0 on it and hopefully everything will be fine.

Great news John,

I really hope this improves your score and your editing experience. I only hope you won't beat me... I have already lost my first place on the PassMark test, and to lose again would not be good for my confidence.

38.0 s is your target.

I don't think you'll have to worry about me catching up.

I still have a long way to go with my processor score.

I get such strange results - the best of which so far have been in Vista with no tweaking whatsoever! 23 second render time compared to 30 seconds in a finely tuned Win7. Comparable numbers for MPEG encoding too. Strange.

EDIT:

Good news - the controller arrived today!

Bad news: It took about three hours for me to get it working. First of all, the power supply is too big to allow the thing to fit properly in the only slot it will fit in. And in that slot, it doesn't even reach the gap in the rear wall - not that it needs to. Then I plugged it in and had to play around in the BIOS for ages to get the right combination of SATA RAID, Enhanced/Compatible/AHCI options that would let it load without blue screening as it got to Windows... I still don't know if I've done it correctly...

Worst news: I just don't know if there's any real significant improvement.

At this stage, there are three 1TB drives in RAID 0.

PPBM:
68, secs Total Benchmark Time
2.6, secs AVI Encoding Time
35.4, secs MPEG Elapsed Time
30, secs Rendering Time

I've attached the HD Tach score and the screen grab from Disk Management where it asked me how I wanted to format the disk. I chose the second one as advised given that the volume size is over 2TB. Is that right? And how about Sector Size? It defaults to 512B. Is that what I want? It says if I change that it may have adverse effects... Should I try a few BIOS combinations?

John, did you get the PCI Express "x4" or "x1" - I think the model #s are 2640x4 and 2640x1.

What stripe size did you use? 128, 64, 32?

Harm and anyone else: I remember reading that either HD Tach or HD Tune has a max size it can test, either 1TB or 2TB. I am trying to find more info in the mean time.

EDIT: Its HD Tune and random access. "It is becoming clear that HDTune is getting long in the tooth. HDTune's random access test appears to use 32 bit signed integers, meaning it only accesses the first 2^31 sectors when performing its test. This means it treats a 2 TB drive as a 1024 GB drive" from pcper.com

I got the x4 card.

At no point was I asked to configure stripe size - I am asked for Block Size, but it forces me to use 64. Are they the same thing? I can also select Sector Size, which defaults to 512B. I tried that as well as 4K. Don't know which is better...

Another problem...

Installing this card has disabled my SATA Blu Ray drive.

It isn't even seen in Device Manager.

Some research dug this up from the Microsoft site:

So what the heck do I do to resolve this?? I've diabled AHCI in the BIOS, but there's still no access to my optical drive.

The site mentions a "hot fix" which I've downloaded, unzipped, tried to install, but it says "This does not suit your computer" or something...

John, try this Your CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs

Its from here http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-line...cal-drive.html
He said its very easy by clicking the "Fix It" and then "Run Now"

I'll give it a shot. I assume I can just use the Vista one in Windows 7?

I'll have to wait 'til tomorrow. I tried to do it but I've already exceeded my download limit for the month (which changes over tomorrow) and the connection keeps timing out.

Tried the fix from Microsoft but it flat out doesn't work in Win7. It just says to use my Troubleshooting within Win7 which is a joke.

I tried the "Fix it yourself" path by deleting two files from the registry but nothing changed...

I don't know what's going on.

I have four computers at home. My editing rig (which has multiple system drives), a secondary editing machine and two HTPCs.

And this weekend, the HD DVD/Blu Ray drives in my editing rig and one of the HTPCs stopped being detected. For the editing rig, it's gone regardless of the system drive (and operating system I run). The other two still see the HD DVD drive just fine.

What gives? They are all new installs with Win7 on the editing rig and week old Vista installs on the others.

Interestingly, the Vista machines that lost all HD DVD playback are Vista Ultimate, the ones that still recognise the HD DVD drive are Home Premium. The problems on them all seemed to occur after downloading the update to service pack 1. I'm not sure though. And it wouldn't explain why I've lost the HD DVD/Blu Ray drive on my Win7 editing machine.

Whatever the cause, be it RAID driver/AHCI conflicts or plain old weirdness... I can't get rid of it.

I even system restored and the problem is still there...

EDIT:

OK: The good news: It's resolved. I unplugged all my SATA connections and reconnected them, monitoring where they went and what weas plugged in to them. There's six ports on the motherboard. 4 main ones to the left and two separated to the right.

The bad news is that the disc drive does not work when plugged in to the two on the right. In fact, nothing does! They don't respond to any devices, whether hot-swapped or plugged in at boot... Is that strange?