Just got a XFX REVO64 5 drives card and installed it using 2 WD 200GB drives and 1 200gb maxtor. Set it up as a RAID 3 that seems to have no problems after reboot excpt for one minor detail: Speed
On the system is an old 200GB IDE drive for backups and it loads the same data 2x as fast.
Speed problem 1:
I have 180GB of data on the 200GB drive and copied this to the RAID.
When I open the 200GB disk it shows me all the folders and files instantly.
Try this with the Raid disk, a 350GB partition, and it can take up to a minute of very noisy disk crunching before anything happens. Sometimes it hangs all the windows involved or recently clicked. (the zonealarm window got stuck among others)
Speed problem 2:
Its just slow, big files, small files its not getting above 8mb/sec. average. With a setup like this I expect to multitask disk operations, but nope: copying files and loading software at the same time is just like working with my old Pentium III 500mhz.
And the noise sounds wrong too, I had stripe sets before and they never sounded this noisy, it sounds like disks on the brink of desintegration after 5 years of no defrag. when in fact all data on them was copied from another disk and not updated or deleted.
The two western digital drives where part of a stripe set I used in another computer and they performed beautifully.
Setup:
Asus A8n SLI premium
XFX 6600GT
3gb ram
2x Western Digital 200GB disks
2x Maxtor 200GB disks (1 SATA 1 IDE)
Windows XP SP 2 clean install on the newly created bootable RAID 3
So anyone any ideas? I have a few but they are all about bringing the card back :P
For the same money I could have bought 2X 250GB disks and build a RAID 5 with the build in raid controller and probably have 3x the speed I have now.
I hope someone has some suggestions or a solution, if not I guess I will swap the card for 2 disks. The store has a 8 day no question asked return policy