PCI-X SATA 2.0 Raid controller?

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,078
It's kind of odd that programs that take a lot of time, NOD 32 for example, even at Realtime,
use about 10% of the processors, and, the read on C drive was NOT fast.

Overall it's faster, but, I just don't see that much speed increase, except in a few, very specific areas.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
It's kind of odd that programs that take a lot of time, NOD 32 for example, even at Realtime,
use about 10% of the processors, and, the read on C drive was NOT fast.

Overall it's faster, but, I just don't see that much speed increase, except in a few, very specific areas.

Can you post some clock times for actual events?
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,078
Photoshop loads in 5 seconds.
Microsoft Word 2000 in under one second.
IE 8 in about 4 seconds.
ESET took a LONG time to scan the C disk. I'll post that next time I run the thing.
Slow opening would be Firefox, Vuze.
About 8 seconds to open Power DVD 9 Ultra.
Load add/remove control panel: 8.22 seconds.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
NOD32 is an interesting case. On every computer I run it on, it consumes the equivalent of 1/x CPU usage, where x is the number of cores. In task manager, the load appears to be distributed, but I don't think it is. I think it is just picking a different core over and over. Actually, loading PS CS4 appears to show the same issue (2.5 seconds in my case).

I wonder if there is a tool to better identify what is and isn't multithreaded? I wonder if more of our regular tasks aren't CPU bound?
 

MaxBurn

Storage Is My Life
Joined
Jan 20, 2004
Messages
3,245
Location
SC
My times are about equal to those times with these exceptions, firefox is about four seconds plus a second or two for the five tabs to load that I had saved. Is firefox much slower than that for you? Check out the plugins you have loaded? Power dvd 9 ultra was about 4 seconds, not counting playing anything. Add/remove programs was under a second but we are talking win 7 here. Word 2007 is deceptive, you can open and start typing or work with menus in under a second but the pointer says there is work going on in the background, I think it is loading all the spelling libraries etc. I don't use NOD.

One thing that made a huge difference when I switched to SSD is the DAOC file checker, which now runs on every game load. It only takes 5 seconds or so now and all my friends complain it takes bloody ages before it is done and they can launch the game.

Lots of stuff benefit but just aren't disk limited to disk in what slows them down after that.
 

Fushigi

Storage Is My Life
Joined
Jan 23, 2002
Messages
2,890
Location
Illinois, USA
Photoshop loads in 5 seconds.
Microsoft Word 2000 in under one second.
IE 8 in about 4 seconds.
ESET took a LONG time to scan the C disk. I'll post that next time I run the thing.
Slow opening would be Firefox, Vuze.
About 8 seconds to open Power DVD 9 Ultra.
Load add/remove control panel: 8.22 seconds.
On my rig*, IE8 loads & has the bloated Yahoo home page displayed in a hair over 2 seconds.
Add/Remove takes about 2 seconds to load & fully populate.
Word 2007 loads in around a second, as does Excel.
Outlook (full, not Express) takes longer; maybe 3 seconds.
Firefox is around 2 seconds.
AVG scans while I'm asleep so I neither know nor care how long it takes.
Acrobat Reader in maybe a half second.
No Photoshop; Picasa 3.6 loads in under a second.

* C2Q Q6600, 8GB DDR2, Gigabyte GA965-PDS3, Vertex 120GB on motherboard SATA, Radeon 3870, Vista Ultimate.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,078
Boot is 1:52, thanks to every slot having either SATA or SCSI, and, no way to disable the onboard SCSI boot, that has no drives connected.

Firefox is between 2-4 seconds. My prior figure was perhaps due to operator not being as fast as computer. Opening another page on another screen is under a second.

Is it faster? Yes. Is it THAT much faster, and, is it worth the money compared to
my existing SCSI setup? Probably not. For people who can buy a single drive, for around 150 bucks, and boot from it, it's huge. Maybe even worth it for two drives, raid 0, like would be very easy to do on the HTPC.

If I had a choice between SCSI and SSD for a boot drive, that's a no brainer. I have a 10k in the other room for a boot drive, and, it's WAY slower.

The dual 15K setup is expensive, in the ball park speed wise, and depending on drive size and shopping, maybe a better deal.

For an average commodity setup, I'm going with Sam, that this is a no brainer, SSD, if you have one, fast drive, and an onboard setup that will go fast enough to use it.

David:
You mentioned prior not much improvement from 2 drives to 3 or 4. Would you post some of your program times opening wise, just to get a feel for what another 300 dollars would add?

Thanks

Greg

I haven't tweaked this install of XP Pro yet.

I just setup Quake 3, and, it's VERY fast, faster then I am. I may have to play at easier settings. Just can't seem to react like I used to, but, it's a MUCH bigger screen, and, the game seems to move MUCH faster.

Quake 4 wouldn't load, something about compression not avaliable, that seems to be a driver problem. If I want to run it, I'll do it in the other room, so no big deal.

Quake 3 gets to the ID screen, and, is useable in about 8 seconds.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,078
Power DVD 9 Ultra,Loading a 700MB CD off a hard drive, about 5 seconds to actually playing the movie.

It's loaded off a 10K 147 gig cheetah I use for storage.
 
Top