Raid 0 with 870aUD3 v2.1

[macster2075]

Hi..
I have an 870aUD3 v2.1 motherboard with raid 0 setup. My question is this....
After enabling raid in the bios, I've noticed that the computer takes longer to boot due to a message I get saying something like.."searching for hard drives".............................. which takes like 10-12 seconds and then it continues with the post. The whole process takes about over a minute which I think it's too long for having Raid 0.

I was able to install the raid drivers with a flash drive and installed windows, but every time I reboot I get the same message above.

I called Gigabyte and I was told that it was normal... the motherboard is just searching for the raid hard drives. I was like, what's the point of setting up raid if its going to take longer to actually boot into my computer? He was like, that's just the way it is.

Any ideas anyone?

[absic]

Hi there,

no ideas whatsoever. If you check through this review: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3619.0.html you'll see that I encountered exactly the same issues on the GA-890FXA-UD5 motherboard. When I first setup a RAID array, I thought there was a serious problem as it took so long to register the drives.

The only conclusion I could draw was that it is to do with the way the AMD chipset handles RAID and your board utilises the same AMD SB850.

[Ripshod]

The only conclusion I could draw was that it is to do with the way the AMD chipset handles RAID and your board utilises the same AMD SB850.

That's right. When the controller initialises the first thing it does is check for all connected harddrives, the second thing is to check every drive for raid information. It's the initial check for harddrives that causes the real delay, there has to be some time allowed for some slower drives to respond and report their status (by slower I mean slower to spin up to full speed). You do lose some time to this process but your system is still faster once up and running, a small price to pay. It's something you'll have to get used to as there's no way round it. Using AMD Raid myself I find it a lot easier and quicker to just put my system to sleep rather than complete shutdown.

[macster2075]

Thanks guys.. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something I did wrong or I missed. I appreciate your fast responses.

And absic.. great tutorial by the way and nice system. I was debating whether to upgrade my phenom 965 to one of the x6, but not sure If Im going to noticed a lot of difference in speed. Mine is running now at 3.8 ghz with 4gb ripjaws at 1412 mhz @ 7-7-7-21. Ran Prime95 for about 12 hours.

[absic]

I was debating whether to upgrade my phenom 965 to one of the x6, but not sure If Im going to noticed a lot of difference in speed. Mine is running now at 3.8 ghz with 4gb ripjaws at 1412 mhz @ 7-7-7-21. Ran Prime95 for about 12 hours.

It all depends what you are using your system for as to whether you would see much improvement going from an X4 to an X6 processor.

In everyday usage you probably wouldn't see much of a change but when it comes to running things such as Photoshop or when bulk rendering large Video  or audio files then the extra couple of cores can really speed things along.

Being totally honest though you would probably see more of a benefit if you increased the amount of RAM in your system. That is of course, assuming you are running a 64 bit OS and it is so cheap at the moment it a more affordable option in most cases.

[macster2075]

Well.. I mainly use my PC for gaming.. I have an ati 5870 video card (which I like alot).. I haven't increased my ram due to I've noticed that while playing games at the same time watching videos, playing music, a bounch of web browsers open, ect, ect.. even with all these programs running at the same time, the total ram being used was just a bit over 2.5gb... so , I was like "since I'm barely using half of my Ram, I shouldn't have to increase it"... Am I right with that conclusion, based on my test... and yes.. I use Win 7 pro 64 bit.

[absic]

I always tend to err on the side of caution and feel that having extra RAM is always a good thing. But, from what you're saying you are probably not going to max out your memory usage like I do, as I'm regularly using Cubase and doing a lot of multi-track audio recording and using Virtual instruments and plugins that use lots of RAM.

And of course, you need to consider the old saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" 

[macster2075]

lol yeah..
and any ways I have a Thermaltake Frio heat sink and one of the fans blocks the first ram slot, so unless I remove one of the heatsink fans i wont be able to use dual channel on the first 2 slots

[macster2075]

Anyway.. back on subject.. I have one more question...

the 2 hard drives Im using have different cache on them.. one is 16 mb and 32 mb.. will this give me any problems?

[absic]

I wouldn't think so and I have had RAID arrays that use HDD's with different cache sizes that have run without problem.

[macster2075]

I was thinking that I will only be using the speed of the slower hard drive? Can you clarify this..or anyone?

[absic]

The difference in cache size should really not impact in a major way, the speed of the array.

If there is a slight difference then yes, you are correct in thinking it will be the slowest component that dictates the overall speed. This would only really be measurable when running some benchmarks but in the real world you will not see a difference.

[macster2075]

Have you noticed any improvements in games with raid 0.. if you game?... I've been reading and some people say there is almost no game performance at all... This is basically what I wanted to setup raid.. One thing thought is that I partitioned the harddrives and have the games installed on the other half of the array. Not sure if this would impact performance rather than having the games installed where the OS is.

[absic]

Sadly I'm not really into gaming but a RAID0 array will give you faster read/write times than a single drive. Of course if you are really after speed then the best option would be an SSD but they are still a little on the pricey side.

The general consensus is that it is better not to partition your RAID array and I have never done so.

[macster2075]

thank you for your time.