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525 Posts
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28124
November 2nd, 2004 13:00
Ultra 320 SCSI SPEED ON PRECISION WORKSTATIONS W/ U160 CONTROLLER & 64/66 PCI SLOT
I verified a theory relating to using U320 drives, at Ultra 320 sync, on a Dell Precision 530. Maybe I am the last one to know, but I have found no discussion on this topic:
I've been purchasing several U320 drives, and have installed them on a Perc Raid 3/DC Card. Based on all I’ve read the Multi-disk Raid configuration should produce the fastest sustained read/write transfer rates; wrong. No matter what Raid configuration I used, I would get the 40/55/mb/s using the raid card.
On pure intuition, I decided to test a disk, attached on the raid , directly into the built in U160 Adaptec SCSI controller. After testing the same drive, originally as Raid, and now individually, the sustained transfer rate jumped to 59/MB/s.
I found the hard way that Raid configurations are detrimental on workstations with Windows operating systems, specially geared were for pure Read/Write disk speeds is paramount to your applications; I think that's why we purchase SCSI drives!
I still did not achieved sustained the transfer rates endemic to the U320 interface; due to the limitation built in U160 SCSI controller, and the Perc Raid U160 3/DC.
On another hunch; since the Raid card uses the 64/66 PCI slot, I decided to purchase and LSI 22320 PCI-X Dual Ultra 320 Card ($ 129.00 EBay). I setup the card as normal SCSI card, not Raid configuration: I have different drives in the workstation, Seagate/Fujitsu/Maxtor: 146GB 10K, 73GB 10-15K drives, and never had a problem with loss of data. I backup my critical files once a week as a precaution.
After installing card and drives I did a system boot-up the card recognized each drive individually, and displayed that the drives were working at U320 Sync speed!! I could not believe U320 interface on a U160 Precision 530.
After several test, using reliable HD software, the performance was consistent with U320.
On the 146-73GB 10K U320 drives: Burst Speed: 133 mbps / Avg. Transfer rate: 72.6 mbps.
On the Seagate/Maxtor 73GB 15K U320: Avg. Access 5.7 / Burst Speed 143 mbps / 78.7 mbps.
I compare the results with my sister’s Precision 650; she and the results were almost identical.
Conclusion: You can have SCSI U320 interface speed by purchasing a U320 64/66 PCI SCSI card, install it in the Precision 530 or workstations with 64/66 PCI slot & U160 interface, attach the drives, and you're good to go.
If you still require Raid configurations I believe an U320 Raid Card will perform at U320 speeds using the 64/66 PCI slot, but those cards are still quite expensive, and they will not perform at the speeds mentioned using a regular U320 SCSI card.
I've been purchasing several U320 drives, and have installed them on a Perc Raid 3/DC Card. Based on all I’ve read the Multi-disk Raid configuration should produce the fastest sustained read/write transfer rates; wrong. No matter what Raid configuration I used, I would get the 40/55/mb/s using the raid card.
On pure intuition, I decided to test a disk, attached on the raid , directly into the built in U160 Adaptec SCSI controller. After testing the same drive, originally as Raid, and now individually, the sustained transfer rate jumped to 59/MB/s.
I found the hard way that Raid configurations are detrimental on workstations with Windows operating systems, specially geared were for pure Read/Write disk speeds is paramount to your applications; I think that's why we purchase SCSI drives!
I still did not achieved sustained the transfer rates endemic to the U320 interface; due to the limitation built in U160 SCSI controller, and the Perc Raid U160 3/DC.
On another hunch; since the Raid card uses the 64/66 PCI slot, I decided to purchase and LSI 22320 PCI-X Dual Ultra 320 Card ($ 129.00 EBay). I setup the card as normal SCSI card, not Raid configuration: I have different drives in the workstation, Seagate/Fujitsu/Maxtor: 146GB 10K, 73GB 10-15K drives, and never had a problem with loss of data. I backup my critical files once a week as a precaution.
After installing card and drives I did a system boot-up the card recognized each drive individually, and displayed that the drives were working at U320 Sync speed!! I could not believe U320 interface on a U160 Precision 530.
After several test, using reliable HD software, the performance was consistent with U320.
On the 146-73GB 10K U320 drives: Burst Speed: 133 mbps / Avg. Transfer rate: 72.6 mbps.
On the Seagate/Maxtor 73GB 15K U320: Avg. Access 5.7 / Burst Speed 143 mbps / 78.7 mbps.
I compare the results with my sister’s Precision 650; she and the results were almost identical.
Conclusion: You can have SCSI U320 interface speed by purchasing a U320 64/66 PCI SCSI card, install it in the Precision 530 or workstations with 64/66 PCI slot & U160 interface, attach the drives, and you're good to go.
If you still require Raid configurations I believe an U320 Raid Card will perform at U320 speeds using the 64/66 PCI slot, but those cards are still quite expensive, and they will not perform at the speeds mentioned using a regular U320 SCSI card.
No Events found!
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
November 2nd, 2004 14:00
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
November 6th, 2004 23:00
I benchmarked performance using 4 different RAID configuration scenarios with 10K & 15K U320 Seagate drives: Raid 0 (no fault tolerance) produced the best speed/performance scenario, but was still 30% slower that just attaching one drive directly to the built-in SCSI U160 controller, and striping RAID configuration is the worst of all in performance.
After reading extensive amounts of articles relating to Raid cards and Windows SCSI performance I discovered that all RAID configurations are detrimental to extracting the best performance from SCSI drives using a Windows operating system. Maybe Linux, or other non-windows operating system fair better from Raid configurations, but not Windows.
Maybe in the past, due to the small storage footprint of previous generations of SCSI drives (18GB, 36GB, Etc) and the slow interface controllers (U80,U160) a RAID card did indeed produced better results by adding all the drives capacity into a single entity.
Unfortunately, from what I’ve read from Raid Gurus on the Internet, a single RAID read/write transaction over 4 drives (Raid 0) is quite time consuming: I am not going into the mechanics from what I read, but suffice to say that’s what causing the degradation in performance.
You can have Raid configurations only were data protection (Mirroring) is paramount; at the expense of fully utilizing the SCSI drive’s potential. It's basically for Servers configurations.
I believe you have the option to configure your drives, via the built LSI Bios, as part of as Raid configuration or simply as individual drives using the LSI as a SCSI U320 controller card, and you have the card in the correct slot; the 64/66 PCI, there are two of them in the 530.
Since you are by-passing the built-in motherboard SCSI U160 controller via the LSI U320 in the 64/66 PCI, and using U320 drives with a U320 rated round cable, you will achieve U320 performance from the 530, without the need to purchase the 650/670 workstaion.
Test the theory yourself, benchmark with Raid configurations, and then just using the LSI card to read the drives individually. You will see a 30-40% increase in Read/Write performance.
Let me know the outcome.
Regards,
ChipStone
_IzZy_
3 Posts
0
November 6th, 2004 23:00
Funny, I have bought the same LSI card - except it is a RAID version (22320-R) - so that I could get better speeds to and from my seagate cheetah scsi drives. Unfortunately I hit a bottleneck somewhere, as my thoroughput went down through the card. I upgraded the firmware for the card to Integrated Striping instead of Mirroring & striped two of my drives, but the card still didn't perform as well as the scsi controller on the motherboard. What am I doing wrong? I have a 530 with the newer 3N384 motherboard. I plugged the card into the larger pci slot (so that all the pins on the card were utilized).
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
February 7th, 2005 20:00
You need to move to 73 or 146 GB U320 drives, they are selling at bargain basement prices on EBay, and you can alway use them if you upgrade your workstation to the 650/670 model.
I purchased what I now believe are the best SCSI drives; Fujitsu MAP series for 10K & MAS for 15K. I get 20% better response from Fujitsu’s 15K than Seagate 15K, and their 146GB have fluid bearing construction. I purchased a 146GB for $ 152.00. It works incredible;, they retail for over $ 500.
Make sure the seller guarantees the drives and have the $1,000 Buyer’s Protection”.
I actually found a better SCSI controller that is 50% faster than the LSI logic.
I purchased an Adaptec 39320A-R (With HostRAID). The A-R model has 2 68 internal & 2 68 pin external, there is also a D-R version with 1 68 Pin internal & 2 68 external. They are selling on eBay for around $ 120.00.
The speed with U320 drive is phenomenal: I purchased the one with two internal channel connectors for the following reason: I have a total of 4 73GB drives in the computer; two attached to each channel:
One channel is set up as a regular SCSI card: I have two Fujitsu 73GB 10K drive attached. The operating system boots from the primary drive, and the second drive I use to backup data too.
The other channel is configured as HostRAID: Two Fujitsu MAS3735NP (73GB 15K) are configured as a Raid 0 - you have the option of Raid 0, 1 & 10 - I wanted the fastest performance so Raid 0. I have my database/graphics production files on this Raid 0 configuration, and the sustained transfer rate is over 142 MB/sec. I load a CAD file in the blink of an eye.
So if you are going to upgrade I would highly recommend the Adaptec 39320 with HostRAID (D-R or A-R Version) you have the ability to configure each channel independent of the other: One SCSI for reliability and the other as HostRAID for sheer speed and performance.
My critical production files are then copies from the Raid disk to the spare 73GB set up on the other SCSI channel.
Since each channel can support up to 14 drives, I would be very difficult to saturate any of the channels with 15K drives.
Let me know how it goes.
ecoholic
4 Posts
0
February 7th, 2005 20:00
Chip thanks for clearing up what is to me a very confusing issue...Unfortunately am still a little confused...I purchased my 530 workstation to edit video via premire and I wish to gain the max speed I can from my system... I am running winxp dual xeon2.2's 1 gb of ram and a 33 gb 10000 rpm drive off the integrated scsi controller....
After working with about 30 mins of hd video my system seems to want (i'm guesing) another scsi hd?
I come to a point in premire where for about ten/20 seconds the system seems to be thinking then I hear alot of drive noise and then I am back to editing...Would I benifit fron the u320 card and dual drives in the single non raid config that you describe in your post? Or should I buy more ram...
Thanks
G(ecoholic)
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
February 7th, 2005 20:00
I would also recommend 2GB of ram at a minimum for the type of work you do.
ecoholic
4 Posts
0
February 7th, 2005 21:00
Much appreciated,
G(ecoholic)
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
February 7th, 2005 21:00
Then I would suggest the IDE drives: Unless you are multitasking (Server type of I/O) on the disk as opposed to linear: one task at a time, then SCSI are really overkill for you.
You will most likely experience better performance from IDE than purchasing another U160 SCSI drive; Windows XP is more responsive; on desktop environment to IDE than SCSI.
ecoholic
4 Posts
0
February 8th, 2005 02:00
Thanks
Ecoholic
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
February 8th, 2005 10:00
Your latency is due more to your lack adequate RAM memory than actual disk access speed. You need at a minimum 2GB when working with A/V or graphics/ AutoCAD files. Databases are different since you don’t actually load the entire file into memory as opposed to graphic/CAD and some A/V files.
One of the best features of SCSI is multitasking. I have not worked with IDE arrays, so I am unable to determine its potential transfer rate, but if you don’t have a source that you can backup your data to, you are taking a risk; if the Raid 0 fails for whatever reason you will loose all your data, and any other Raid setup will probably be detrimental to the performance of the IDE since they are not good at multitasking if a Raid 1 is created.
Setup your operating system and programs on the SCSI drive, then test different combinations of the Raids(s) available for the IDE, and determine the one best suited to your needs. You also need to make sure that you have all non-essential Windows services disabled to extract the best performance with the available memory.
That’s what I had to do, test different combinations until I found one suitable for my need with minimal risk to data loss.
JR
ecoholic
4 Posts
0
February 8th, 2005 18:00
G
Chipstone
525 Posts
0
February 8th, 2005 19:00
All things being equal, due to your budget constraints, then having the operating system and programs on your scsi and the actual database/graphics/a/v files on the IDE would be your best configuration. If you are able to purchase additional RAM you will see a significant increase in speed when loading files:
The operating system and applications determines what % of the file to load into ram and what % resides in the page file; based on available RAM, the more you have the greater the % the file is loaded in RAM as opposes to the page file, and in the process reduce latency considerably.