I use dskbench for bechmark test and came to interesting insights:
This is the result of my Promise stripe-0 raid consisting of two 120GB Hitachi 7.200rpm disks:
W:\\>dskbench
DskBench 2.12
(c) 1998, SESA, J.M.Catena (cat@sesa.es, www.sesa.es)
Timer Check = 1001 (should be near 1000)
CPU Check = 50.22 % (should be near 50.00 %)
CPU index (relative to Pro 200 MHz) = 5.851867
Open = 0 ms
Write = 3661 ms, 69.93 MB/s, CPU = 8.21 %
Flush = 0 ms
Rewin = 0 ms
Read = 2881 ms, 88.86 MB/s, CPU = 15.84 %
Close = 0 ms
BlockSize = 131072, MB/s = 14.29, Tracks = 169.84, CPU = 2.53 %
BlockSize = 65536, MB/s = 10.22, Tracks = 121.45, CPU = 1.94 %
BlockSize = 32768, MB/s = 6.91, Tracks = 82.15, CPU = 2.23 %
BlockSize = 16384, MB/s = 4.40, Tracks = 52.25, CPU = 2.09 %
BlockSize = 8192, MB/s = 3.16, Tracks = 37.62, CPU = 3.35 %
BlockSize = 4096, MB/s = 3.70, Tracks = 43.97, CPU = 6.36 %I donĀ“t fully understand the thing with the blocksizes in the end but wjat striked me was the really high CPU usage it needs for transferring these impressive amounts of data.
Compare this Maxtor 5.400 80GB:
E:\\>dskbench
DskBench 2.12
(c) 1998, SESA, J.M.Catena (cat@sesa.es, www.sesa.es)
Timer Check = 991 (should be near 1000)
CPU Check = 50.01 % (should be near 50.00 %)
CPU index (relative to Pro 200 MHz) = 5.921833
Open = 31 ms
Write = 13369 ms, 19.15 MB/s, CPU = 1.36 %
Flush = 36 ms
Rewin = 0 ms
Read = 9941 ms, 25.75 MB/s, CPU = 1.14 %
Close = 0 ms
BlockSize = 131072, MB/s = 11.00, Tracks = 130.78, CPU = 1.03 %
BlockSize = 65536, MB/s = 5.83, Tracks = 69.27, CPU = 1.18 %
BlockSize = 32768, MB/s = 3.01, Tracks = 35.75, CPU = 0.55 %
BlockSize = 16384, MB/s = 1.51, Tracks = 17.93, CPU = 0.13 %
BlockSize = 8192, MB/s = 1.50, Tracks = 17.80, CPU = 0.57 %
BlockSize = 4096, MB/s = 1.00, Tracks = 11.92, CPU = 1.65 %I think thatĀ“s why these cheap raids are not recommended I guess. And this could be the reason for the strange CPU peaks I notice while heavy disk activity on the raid. ThatĀ“s why I canĀ“t use it for streaming samples.
In my DAW Samplitude I can "only" play back about 60 tracks of stereo 16/44k1. That sums up to something like 60 * 176,4KB = 10584KB / 1024 = 10,3 MB/s. I think thatĀ“s too less for a raid like that.
I guess I gonna kick it out and use the disks in plain normal mode...
Sorry for maybe getting offtopic.
Bests,
- M