Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® RST, RAID
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Raid 5 performance declines dramatically after adding drives to array

JHyla2
Beginner
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I have a question regarding IRST performance.

At first I created a RAID 5 with 3 3TB drives. I waited a day for it to fully initialize. When complete the performance was very slow (about 15MB/s). I disabled write-cache buffer flushing and enabled the write-back cache to improve performance. It increased to about 120MB/s which I am happy with. However, I added 2 more 3TB disks to the array. I waited another day for it to fully initialize. I made sure the cache settings were still set to performance. However, I'm now getting about 10MB/sec. If I enable write-cache buffer flushing and turn off the write-back. The speeds go up to around 50MB/s which is about where they were before I expanded the array. It seems like with the expanded array the performance oriented cache settings are actually slowing the array down. This doesn't make any sense to me. The new array is raid5 with 5 3TB drives for 11,178GB of space. Note that the array is very empty at this point with about 270GB used.

The only change I made was adding the 2 disks and letting them initialize and complete. And then everything went slow.

Anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?

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idata
Employee
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Hello jhyland9,

Thank you for contacting Intel Communities.

I am sorry to hear you are having performance issues with the Intel® RST.

Can you please provide the following information to better assist you?

  1. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/technologies/000006351.html System Reports for Intel® Rapid Storage Technology
  2. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-Windows- Intel® System Support Utility for Windows*
    1. Download the utility.
    2. Run the exe and select 'Scan'.
    3. Save and include as an attachment in the Intel Community Forum.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Best Regards,

 

Juan V.
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JHyla2
Beginner
607 Views

Since the original post, I removed the raid array and rebuilt it from scratch. I thought that may "fix" any issue that may have occurred by adding the 2 drives. I let the new array fully initialize and then I ran the same tests and received the same results. So I'm having the same problem as before: poor performance. I've attached the info you have requested. Thanks.

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idata
Employee
607 Views

Hello jhyland9,

 

 

Thank you for the information.

 

 

After reviewing the system reports that you provided I found that you are running an unsupported operating system (Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Datacenter) on your motherboard (Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK), in addition, the Intel® RST version you are using is not compatible with Windows Server 20116.

 

 

The Intel® RST version supported on Windows Server 2016 is not compatible with the chipset installed on your board (Intel® Z97 Express Chipset).

 

 

This leads me to think that there is a compatibility issue between the OS, the motherboard, and the Intel® RST you have, even if the configuration used to work, you may face issues due to compatibility.

 

 

I hope this information helps.

 

 

Best Regards,

 

Juan V.
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idata
Employee
607 Views

Hello jhyland9,

 

 

I was reviewing this thread and I wanted to know if you need further assistance?

 

 

Best Regards,

 

Juan V.
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