Setting Up SSD Hardrives in Raid o configuration for BD Rebuilder??

[blusky]

I am building a new computer to mostly use with BD Rebuilder and some games. Mods I started this as new post , if there is a better location for it please feel free to move it.

This is the Hardware that I have :
1) Intel i7 3930K processor


2) Video card PNY VCGGTX6804XPB GeForce GTX 680 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support


3) Motherboard Asus Rampage 1V Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 Sata 6GB/S USB 3.0 extended ATX motherboard

4) Memory G.SKILL RipjawsZ F3-19200CL10Q2-64GBZHD 64GB 8X8GB DDR3-2400 CL10 240PIN Memory Kit $350.00

5)Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD for OS and Apps

6)Hard drives 2 SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) in raid 0 configuration

7) Storage Hard drive Western Digital Black WD4001FAEX 4TB 7200RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB Desktop Hard Drive (3.5 inch)


8) Power supply Corsair CMPSU-1200AX 1200-Watt Power Supply - ATX, 140mm Fan, SLI Ready, CrossFireX Model#: CMPSU-1200AX


9) Blu-Ray burner LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner, Bare Drive, 3D Play Back (WH14NS40)


10) Corsair Hydro Series H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler Liquid cooling system


11) Cooler Master HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel & Plastic ATX Full Tower Gaming Case (Black)


I have had some great sugestions on how to set this up:
RobertM had suggested this setup which I am trying to do:

Use one 128GB SSD for your OS/Apps. Pair your existing SSDs together for a lightning fast 500Gb drive. Partition your 4TB HDD into 2 x 2TB drives claiming one of these partitions for yourself (as 'source' or 'target') and give the other partition to your son for his games and apps .

I have been doing a lot of reading the past few days on this setup, probably why I have some questions.

I have a total of 4 drives + a Blu-Ray burner.
1 SSD 128GB for OS and APPS
2 SSD Raid 0 for working
1 4TB Hard Drive for storage output drive

My Motherboard, Asus Rampage 1V Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 Sata 6GB/S USB 3.0 extended ATX motherboard has 4 SATA 6.0 Gb/S internal ports. Two of them are Intel X79 serial ATA 6.0 Gb/S and two are ASMEDIA Serial ATA 6.0 Gb/S.

My question is how should I setup the 2 Raid 0 drives connect them both to the Intel X79 Sata ports??? or Do I connect the storage drive and the System drive to the intel and both raid 0SSD's to the AS media??
Will the Blu-Ray drive work well with the Sata 3.0 Gb/s port??

What size stripe is best for BD Rebuilder?? Intel recommends 16KB for SSD??

I want to use the Motherboard raid controller instead of Windows 8??

Is it beneficial with my configuration to use the Intel Smart Responce technology??

Should I set the drives up in UEFI mode??
Here is some info I found on UEFI:


1.A UEFI enabled platform (the Rampage IV motherboards in this case.)
2.A x64 Operating System that supports it (Windows 8 or 7 in this case.)
3.Installing to GPT partitioned disk or RAID array that includes an “EFI System Partition” or ESP for short.
4.Booting the installation media in UEFI mode:

Sorry for all the questions but just want to make sure I have a good plan and understand what I am doing before I begin tomorrrow. Just waiting on THe GPU that should be dilivered tomorrow.

Any help would be greatly Appreciated.

[RobertM]

My question is how should I setup the 2 Raid 0 drives connect them both to the Intel X79 Sata ports??? or Do I connect the storage drive and the System drive to the intel and both raid 0SSD's to the AS media??
Will the Blu-Ray drive work well with the Sata 3.0 Gb/s port??
I would put the OS drive and optical drive on the Intel ports, and the 2 SSDs on the ASMedia. If you get another device needing high speed (another SSD) then you could put that on the Intel port and move the optical drive to SATA2 port (optical doesn't really need the SATA3 speed anyway). And your HDD doesn't run at SATA3 speed either, so put it on SATA2.

What size stripe is best for BD Rebuilder?? Intel recommends 16KB for SSD??
I would probably stick with 16k. Others have had good luck with 128k, but we are typically talking about minor differences in performance.

I want to use the Motherboard raid controller instead of Windows 8??
I would.

Is it beneficial with my configuration to use the Intel Smart Responce technology??
My understanding is that this technology is useful in speeding up systems that boot off HDD, by using the SDD for caching. You're booting from SSD so you're already on the fastest path.

Should I set the drives up in UEFI mode??
I wouldn't. I'm comfortable with BIOS. It likely won't make any difference to performance, and it's just another thing to setup.

Sorry for all the questions but just want to make sure I have a good plan and understand what I am doing before I begin tomorrrow. Just waiting on THe GPU that should be dilivered tomorrow.
Have fun!

[blusky]

I would put the OS drive and optical drive on the Intel ports, and the 2 SSDs on the ASMedia. If you get another device needing high speed (another SSD) then you could put that on the Intel port and move the optical drive to SATA2 port (optical doesn't really need the SATA3 speed anyway). And your HDD doesn't run at SATA3 speed either, so put it on SATA2.


I would probably stick with 16k. Others have had good luck with 128k, but we are typically talking about minor differences in performance.


I would.


My understanding is that this technology is useful in speeding up systems that boot off HDD, by using the SDD for caching. You're booting from SSD so you're already on the fastest path.


I wouldn't. I'm comfortable with BIOS. It likely won't make any difference to performance, and it's just another thing to setup.


Have fun!

THanks a lot RobertM for your responce. Looks like I have a plan now. Waiting for the GPU and Memory to come in today. I will have everything ready.

I have read thaat I should also set the raid up in windows 8 incase I ever have a problem with the raid windows can rebuild it??? Not to sure about that one.

This should keep me busy for a while. LOL....:thanks:

[RobertM]

I have read thaat I should also set the raid up in windows 8 incase I ever have a problem with the raid windows can rebuild it???

Hmm... not sure about that. I, personally, count on losing everything if there is a problem with either drive in a RAID 0 array. So I don't keep files that I cannot afford to lose on RAID 0. Allowing Win7/8 to manage the array is very flexible and easy to setup, I understand, but you've got 2 identical drives so they should be pretty simple to configure using the M/B RAID setup utility.

Again, you don't need to make this decision until after you have your system up and running. Once you have the machine booting from the SSD then you can play around with your RAID setup. Try it using Windows, and try it using the M/B, and see if you notice any difference. This is a perfect time to try different scenarios because your drives will be empty, so no worries about any data loss.




BTW, the Doom9 site seems to be loading normally again. That was quite a while of supreme slowness for me!

[blusky]

Hmm... not sure about that. I, personally, count on losing everything if there is a problem with either drive in a RAID 0 array. So I don't keep files that I cannot afford to lose on RAID 0. Allowing Win7/8 to manage the array is very flexible and easy to setup, I understand, but you've got 2 identical drives so they should be pretty simple to configure using the M/B RAID setup utility.

Again, you don't need to make this decision until after you have your system up and running. Once you have the machine booting from the SSD then you can play around with your RAID setup. Try it using Windows, and try it using the M/B, and see if you notice any difference. This is a perfect time to try different scenarios because your drives will be empty, so no worries about any data loss.




BTW, the Doom9 site seems to be loading normally again. That was quite a while of supreme slowness for me!

ok, great idea. I will set it up Raid 0 with the motherboard first and see how that works.
Well, I did get some things accomplished in spite that I do not receive the GPU yet. Not till tomorrow but I did manage to install the power supply and install all the Hard drives .

As for the site, I did not notice it slowing down. Maybe I was on at a different time than you were. Seems to be working fine now.
Thanks RobertM

[RobertM]

You might not have to wait for the GPU. Does your MB/CPU combination give you on-board video?

[blusky]

You might not have to wait for the GPU. Does your MB/CPU combination give you on-board video?

Yes It does have onboard video. I still have not installed the Liquid CPU cooler so I did not want to turn it on yet. I will give it a shot tomorrow and let you know how it goes. Hopefully I won't cause a major blackout in my area. LOL....

[RobertM]

I still have not installed the Liquid CPU cooler so I did not want to turn it on yet.

Definitely. Do NOT turn it on without a heat-sink on the CPU,... unless you want to buy a new CPU.

AND heat transfer paste! Don't want you trashing that lovely processor right at the start.

[blusky]

Definitely. Do NOT turn it on without a heat-sink on the CPU,... unless you want to buy a new CPU.

AND heat transfer paste! Don't want you trashing that lovely processor right at the start.

Thanks RobertM, won't turn it on tonight. I will get the Liquid Cpu cooler installed tomorrow. I have a few questions on some of the wiring which I will call the Manufacturer of the case to resolve that issue. Most of the cabling is done. Let you know what happens tomorrow.:thanks:

[blusky]

well did take some time to build but looks like I am almost finished.
I installed all the hardware and installed Windows 8 Pro on a 128GB SSD drive. It boots into Windows 8 Pro in about 26 seconds.
One thing I did find interesting is that from what I have read the windows 8 install should take about 20GB at most to install. when I look at C drive and select properties it shows the following:
Program files 868MB
Program Files x86 87.1 MB
user 2.49MB
Capacity 118.GB
used 72.8GB
Free 45.9GB

Does anyone now why it is showing so much space used when it should be around 20 GB???

Well it did take a while for me to build this computer but I enjoyed it. Made several calls to tech support and some were very helpful like Asus. I was able to update the Motherboard, Rampage i4 extreme to the latest bios. Interesting enough this motherboard has 2 bios chips so I saved the old bios on chip 1 and flashed the chip 2 with the newest bios.

On the Windows experience index I received a score of 8.1
The three things that were the lowest subscore were NVIDEA Geforce GTX 680 Graphics card, maybe because I have not updated the drivers yet, Gaming graphics 36578 MB of total graphic memory, Primary Hard drive 38GB free(119GB total)

Tomorrow I have to install the Raid 0 array with the 2 250GB DSS and partition the 4 GB hard drive. I am hoping that by saturday I will be up and running and give BD Rebuilder a try.

[QBhd]

Go here to learn how to trim all the crap that Windows puts on your HDD/SSD:

Sean's Windows 8 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs (http://www.overclock.net/t/1240779/seans-windows-8-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds/0_100)

It is roughly about 20GB when cleaned up

QB

[blusky]

Go here to learn how to trim all the crap that Windows puts on your HDD/SSD:

Sean's Windows 8 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs (http://www.overclock.net/t/1240779/seans-windows-8-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds/0_100)

It is roughly about 20GB when cleaned up

QB

Thanks QBhd, will do it later today and post back.

[RobertM]

Glad to see that you got your new rig up an running :)

On the Windows experience index I received a score of 8.1

That's pretty good. Mine gives me around 7.5, IIRC.

Does anyone now why it is showing so much space used when it should be around 20 GB???

I don't know anything about Win8. When you open Windows Explorer and look at the files on the SSD, what do the properties of the "C:/Windows" folder say? Take a look at the properties for each parent folder on the root drive and see if anything stands out.

[blusky]

Glad to see that you got your new rig up an running :)



That's pretty good. Mine gives me around 7.5, IIRC.



I don't know anything about Win8. When you open Windows Explorer and look at the files on the SSD, what do the properties of the "C:/Windows" folder say? Take a look at the properties for each parent folder on the root drive and see if anything stands out.

I ran in to somewhat of a problem with the motherboard. After setting it to Raid in the Sata settings I could not get it to boot in the Raid configuration setup. Spent about a total of maybe 3 to 4 hours with Asus tech support when they finally put a supervisor on with me and he said there was a problem with the motherboard that it will not boot into Raid configuration.
I purchased this motherboard from Amazon so from what I have read they are good about returns. This well definitly slow me down at least a week but on the bright side , I rather the Motherboard go out now than 3 months down the Road. This Motherboard has two Bios chips on it I flashed both of them with the latest two bios versions and still could not get into the Raid setup config. This will slow me down for about a week but I will persevere.

[Mark_Venture]

....On the Windows experience index I received a score of 8.1
The three things that were the lowest subscore were NVIDEA Geforce GTX 680 Graphics card, maybe because I have not updated the drivers yet, Gaming graphics 36578 MB of total graphic memory, Primary Hard drive 38GB free(119GB total)...
Just curious how that would releate to Win 7 Experience Index... On W7 64bit, I get a WI of 7.4...

Processor: 7.5
Memory(ram): 7.6
Graphics: 7.4
Gaming graphics: 7.4
Primary Hard Disk: 7.7

That is with my trusty old (sept '09) i7-860 2.8ghz (Lynnfield), Asus P7P55D Dlx mother board, EVGA GTX275, and recently added Samsung 840 ssd (not pro) that has the OS on it.

I can't wait to see how long it takes you to convert a movie with your rig! I think it will help me determine if its time to upgrade or wait a little longer yet.

[RobertM]

After setting it to Raid in the Sata settings I could not get it to boot in the Raid configuration setup.

Bummer. Do you mean that it would no longer boot the OS after you tried setting up the RAID, or that it just couldn't see the RAID array drives? Before you set up the RAID would it boot fine and show you the individual drives?

Imagine how much you'll know about PCs once you're done ;)

[blusky]

Just curious how that would releate to Win 7 Experience Index... On W7 64bit, I get a WI of 7.4...

Processor: 7.5
Memory(ram): 7.6
Graphics: 7.4
Gaming graphics: 7.4
Primary Hard Disk: 7.7

That is with my trusty old (sept '09) i7-860 2.8ghz (Lynnfield), Asus P7P55D Dlx mother board, EVGA GTX275, and recently added Samsung 840 ssd (not pro) that has the OS on it.

I can't wait to see how long it takes you to convert a movie with your rig! I think it will help me determine if its time to upgrade or wait a little longer yet.

Mark_Venture, I do not know how to compare the Windows 7 experience index to the windows 8 experience index. Not sure if the grading scale is the same . A 7.4 looks like a great number.I will do a little searching and see what I find and post back on that one.

Had a little set back yesterday but I hope it will not be longer than a week. As soon as I do my first Rebuild I will post the time and settings. To be honest I am kind of curious to see how it will do??

[blusky]

Bummer. Do you mean that it would no longer boot the OS after you tried setting up the RAID, or that it just couldn't see the RAID array drives? Before you set up the RAID would it boot fine and show you the individual drives?

Imagine how much you'll know about PCs once you're done ;)

RobertM, I can still boot into the operating system with no problem. After quite a few tech support calls I finally came up with the best way to set up the SSD with the OS on it and the Raid 0 configurations. My motherboard has 2 Intel Sata 3 ports(6GB/s) and 2 Asmedia Sata ports(6GB/s). I had to put the 2 256GB SSD's on the 2 Intel Sata 3 ports(6GB/s) because
1)The 2 raid 0 drives cannot be split up. ex 1 on the Asmedia sata3 port and one on the Intel sata port
2)If I were to put the Raid zero drives on the Asmedia sata 3 ports , Trim would not work which what I have read would slow down the SSD quite quickly, defeating the purpose for raiding them in the first place.
So that left me with putting the OS SSD , Boot drive on the Asmedia Sata 3 port and the 2 raid 0 disks on the Intel Sata 3 ports .

All that being said, the issue was this.
On two different Bios chips I could not get into the raid configuration mode . Something wrong with the Intel Raid controller. Cannot be fixed as per the supervisor at Asus.
I will say there tech support overall is pretty good but when I started working with the supervisor he was excellent .

I sent the RMA to Amazon and waiting on the response from the merchant. This merchant was not to swift on the shipping so I will see if they can expedite the shipping.

Anyway RobertM, as you said , I always try to look on the bright side , I did learn a few things.

[QBhd]

For you guys curious about Windows 7 WEI scores... my 2xMushkin Chronos 60GB RAID0 on an AMD SB950 chipset scores 7.9.... If I recall correctly it was like 8.4 in Windows 8 (but I did not take a screen shot of that and can't be 100% sure until I make another go with Windows 8)... Also for those curious AS SSD benchmark is one of the best for SSD performance (since it shows the crucial 4k reads and writes) and I score 740 with that.

QB

[blusky]

For you guys curious about Windows 7 WEI scores... my 2xMushkin Chronos 60GB RAID0 on an AMD SB950 chipset scores 7.9.... If I recall correctly it was like 8.4 in Windows 8 (but I did not take a screen shot of that and can't be 100% sure until I make another go with Windows 8)... Also for those curious AS SSD benchmark is one of the best for SSD performance (since it shows the crucial 4k reads and writes) and I score 740 with that.

QB

Interesting, thanks for the info. I found out that The Windows Experience Index is a tool found on the system properties window that determines the performance of your computer’s hardware by running tests on them. The values are set on a scale with a maximum of 7.9 on Windows 7. The base score is determined by the system’s bottleneck score.

Since Windows 8, the scale ranges up to 9.9, changing your old score on the same system. This is why your computer may score worse with a Windows 8 system than with your old Windows 7 system.
If you upgrade your computer from Windows 7 to Windows 8 then you will notice that your WEI has dropped; that’s because Microsoft realizes that newer hardware is available, and the hardware that was top of the line three years ago is now a bit longer in the tooth.

Hope this helps.

[QBhd]

I know all about the WEI and what it represents... it's really not that good of a benchmark. I was just posting what my score was since some people here were referring to it.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/9662/76d3032e5e184c4782c50d2w.png

I also pointed to a much better SSD benchmark tool

AS SSD Benchmark 1.7.4739.38088 (http://alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?download_id=9)

Download is located at the bottom of the page. No English support, but it works very well and I have never had the need to get support yet.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz123/QB_the_Slayer/Computer/as-ssd-benchAMD20StripeR41420132-27-07AM.png

the Read Acc. Time is a by product of restoring an image with Acronis (still trying to work why this occurs, but it does not affect the resulting score)

And for those curious as to what my system is, this is the Monster HTPC (Plus one more 2 TB Caviar Green 64 MB Cache for Backup purposes):

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/338/214ef918b72e4a66908ba36.png

(RAM Timings are 7-10-8-27-1T... seems the script on that site won't allow enough digits to put the proper timing in)

QB

[blusky]

Thanks QBhd,
For the info and the link to SSD Benchmark. I had seen that Benchmasrk a lot on different websites and was wondering why it was always in German. Now I know. Lol....

Initailly I thought you were asking about compareing WIE scores from Windows 7 to Windows 8.