Re: Raid5 initialization time

raviK77 · ‎02-16-2023

Platform:

i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz

16GB DDR3

6x HDD 2TB (Sata2+Sata3) connected into Raid5 with IntelRST.

I have created a matrix via RST software.
I partitioned the entire available 9TB.
How long should it take to initialize such a matrix?
It's been a day for me and it's 80% done.
Copying to partition is done at less than 10MB/s.
Is this normal behavior?
When the disks worked separately, they had "normal" transfers.
Matrix is for data only, system is at separate SSD connected to second controller on that same motherboard.

update:
matrix initialization was successful after about 30 hours!
Unfortunately, despite turning on all caching modes, etc., transfer on write rarely exceeds 20MB/s.
What may be the problem?

raviK77 · ‎02-16-2023

(deleted post)

n_scott_pearson · ‎02-16-2023

Yes, sadly, this is normal. It took 12+ hours to initialize my 3x2TB array, all SATA3 and in an i7-4770K-equipped system. In your case, you have twice as many drives and the operation is going to be slowed by the presence of those SATA 2 drives (and any copy operations you are doing simultaneously).

Reiterating, you do understand that the speed of the array is going to be slowed by the presence of those SATA2 drives. In fact, every operation is going to be done at SATA2 speeds.

I just tested my array. R/W is only 210/22 MB/s.

...S

OptimusDark · ‎02-16-2023

Hello,

@raviK77 , I have the same pb as you've noticed. What OS are you using ? I've been using RST in old processor for a long time and always had great performance with raid 5 volumes. If you can test the same platform in Win 7 and previous intel Raid drivers, just to confirm that the pb is real and as I think linked to Windows and/or Intel Drivers.

@n_scott_pearson , SATA 2 standard offers 3Gbit/s (375Mb/s). A mechanical hard drive will never reach that limit. Can you detail your confirguration and OS please ?

Thx.

Best regards.

raviK77 · ‎02-17-2023

I know that the array will adjust to the slowest disk.
Initialization time too, let's say it was normal.
Unfortunately, the write speeds are terrible.
I tried re-creating raid5 using the bios utility and setting different stripe parameters, but the result was the same. 20MB/s.
I finally created a parity mode storage under windows 10 pro 22h2.
Now I copy data from the usb3 docking station to this matrix and the transfer rarely drops below 100MB / s reaching over 160MB / s.
It is quite acceptable. In addition, in the bios, I turned off the raid mode for this controller and switched the drives to AHCI.
It seemed that IntelRST should be more efficient than Microsoft's solution, but it wasn't

I was very disappointed, especially since I bought three additional drives specifically to create raid5 and use all 6 ports of this controller.

OptimusDark · ‎02-18-2023

Windows RAID features is not optimized (100% Software based)

I can confirm you that "firmware-RAID" (or half hardware RAID) solutions are way more efficient (AMD RAID XPERT and few-years?months?-ago-Intel-RST as well)

As stated before old intel drivers (on old Operating systems) gave good performance : 2x performance on a 3 disk RAID5 configuration. AMD software RAID does offer that kind of performance in current products (Ryzen processors range).

Please intel PATCH your driver or HELP motherboard manufacturers to improve RST integration !

raviK77 · ‎02-18-2023

Hardware:

Intel i3-4130 3,4GHz (Haswell, Z87)

Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 rev.1 (https://www.gigabyte.pl/products/page/mb/g1sniper_5rev_10#sp)

16GB DDR3 (4x Samsung PC3-12800)

Disk 6x 2TB (3x Hitachi HDS722020, 2x Western WD20EARX, 1x Seagate ST2000DM001).

All 6 disks I connected to that same controller.

Software:

Windows 10 professional 22H2

Intel Rapid ver.14.5.0.1081

Installed all latest available drivers (dedicated to my hardware).

No errors or warnings at hardware manager.

This computer serves as a home media server, so it doesn't need to be very powerful in general.
Basically, I only care about the efficiency of transferring movies and files.

Do you have any specific drivers or software in mind ("intel PATCH your driver")?

AlHill · ‎02-18-2023

@raviK77 Just an FYI... Your processor is no longer supported by Intel, and your processor is not supported by Windows 10.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-10-21h2-supported-intel-processors

Doc (not an Intel employee or contractor)
[Maybe Windows 12 will be better]

OptimusDark · ‎02-18-2023

@raviK77 , you're right but regarding this RST intel RAID issue, it's not related to a supportability matter. Mine is the last generation and same behaviour.

raviK77 · ‎02-18-2023

"no longer supported" ok, but...

But so what, since the board has IRST technology built-in and the processor supports it. At most, I couldn't upload the latest drivers, but it should work anyway. After all, when the board and cpu was "new" it was supposed to work properly (i.e. raid was supposed to work).

OptimusDark · ‎02-18-2023

@raviK77 , "Do you have any specific drivers or software in mind ("intel PATCH your driver")?"

Yes, the intel RST / VMD driver and/or chipset drivers.

As far as I know there are 4 possible causes (may be more that 1 at the same time...) :

- Implementation of the intel reference MB by third party OEM (Gigabyte, ASUS etc.) that is not right : Intel didn't succeeed to reproduce the issue in their MB (cf. my other post).

But ASUS and GIGABYTE are impacted. Moreover, old intel processor that I owned few years ago are also impacted with new OS/Drivers and I can confirm they worked perfectly back then on Win7 with old drivers (mine was a haswell Core i7-4770K).

- BIOS microprogram : can be causing issue only if you're creating and managing your RAID volume via the BIOS... Nowadays Modern OS do not rely on BIOS low level services. There may be some bugs linked to the MB manufacturer implementation of the Intel standard...

- Intel Driver : abstract to the OS the half hardware RAID features (chipset/CPU share of the parity check task, virtual disk controller implementation, low level IO operations, caching system etc.)

- OS Windows : the kernel and a lot of different stacks (caching system, security etc.) that can interfere.

My guess is that the truth is between intel drivers and Windows...

@Intel or anyone else, don't hesitate to complete or correct.

raviK77 · ‎02-18-2023

Is there any way to unlock/enable raid-5 in windows 10 disk manager?
It's greyed out at the moment, only mirror and stripe are available (disks are dynamic of course).

n_scott_pearson · ‎02-18-2023

'No longer supported' as in no support for hardware this old is provided in the current versions of the RST driver packages (and, frankly, the current drivers are incompatible with the RST firmware in systems this old regardless). You need to get a really old version of the Intel RST package. I am using 14.8.16.1063 (I can provide package if you need).

...S

P.S. My configuration is Intel DZ87KLT-75K mobo, Core i7-4770 CPU, 8GB DRAM, mSATA SSD system drive, 3x ST2000DM001 for RAID 6 data array.

Jocelyn_Intel · ‎02-20-2023

Hello, @OptimusDark

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

I am sorry to hear what is happening, you mentioned that you have a newer system, could you please provide more details about your system configuration (processor, motherboard, RST driver version, drives, OS, etc.)?

Also, it is worth mentioning that we don't provide the Intel® RST drivers, as there are provided only by your OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer).

Best regards,

Jocelyn M.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Jocelyn_Intel · ‎02-23-2023

Hello, @OptimusDark.

We are checking this thread and we would like to know if you were able to review our previous post. If you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us back.

Best regards,

Jocelyn M.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

OptimusDark · ‎02-23-2023

Hello @Jocelyn_Intel ,

I already gave you all informations you've required on my other post :

https://community.intel.com/t5/Rapid-Storage-Technology/RAID-5-VMD-RST-Poor-Writting-performance-Z790/m-p/1448951#M11563

Should I repost the info again ? You did not respond to my last questions on this other post...

Best regards.

Jocelyn_Intel · ‎02-24-2023

Hello, @OptimusDark

We checked your other thread and is still under investigation.

As soon as our teammates have updates, they will post them in the proper thread.

Best regards,

Jocelyn M.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Jocelyn_Intel · ‎02-24-2023

Hello, @ravik .

We are checking this thread and we would like to know if you were able to review our previous post. If you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us back.

Best regards,

Jocelyn M.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Jocelyn_Intel · ‎02-28-2023

Hello, @ravik .

We have not heard back from you so we will proceed to close this thread now. If you need any additional information, please submit a new question as this thread will no longer be monitored.

Best regards,

Jocelyn M.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

raviK77 · ‎03-01-2023

Unfortunately, volume initialization takes a long time, so it took me a while.

I tried different combinations of matrix stripe size and cluster size of partitions and versions of irst drivers (19.x, 18.x, the lowest I was able to install was 15.4).
Unfortunately, nothing helps.

Each time the save transfer is tragic. Does not exceed 20MB/s.

Can I get some older IRST and "Intel Raid5 volume" drivers for Win 10 (for I3 4gen)?