RAID5 Initializing Parity

Hi

I recently built myself a new PC and decided to go RAID5.
Everythings great but today my PC did not want to come out of standby so I
hit the reset
button and reboot.

It then takes about 8 hours while it goes through an "Initializing Parity"
proceedure,
whilst obviously degrading my performance. Is this going to happen everytime
I get a lock up or for some other reason i need to do a reset ?

I have a

Dual Core P4 3.0GHz
Gigabyte 8i955x Royal Motherboard (Intel 955 Chipset)
3 x Seagate 400GB Serial ATA Hard Drives in a RAID 5 configuration using the
onboard Intel Matrix ICHR7 chipset with the Intel Matrix Storage Console
utility
where i can monitor the drives from within windows. Inside this utility
i enabled VOLUME WRITE BACK cache

"This is used with RAID 5 only the Write-Back Cache feature is supported by
the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver to enhance read/write performance of
a RAID 5 array."

Nvidia GE Force 7800GT
Creative X-Fi Fatality Soundcard
Windows XP SP2


This is my first experience with RAID 5, Is this "rebuilding" going to
happen everytime ?

Thanks in advance for any help !

read up.
http://support.intel.com/support/chi.../cs-021506.htm

Seth Gecko wrote:
> Hi
>
> I recently built myself a new PC and decided to go RAID5.
> Everythings great but today my PC did not want to come out of standby so I
> hit the reset
> button and reboot.
>
> It then takes about 8 hours while it goes through an "Initializing Parity"
> proceedure,
> whilst obviously degrading my performance. Is this going to happen everytime
> I get a lock up or for some other reason i need to do a reset ?
>
> I have a
>
> Dual Core P4 3.0GHz
> Gigabyte 8i955x Royal Motherboard (Intel 955 Chipset)
> 3 x Seagate 400GB Serial ATA Hard Drives in a RAID 5 configuration using the
> onboard Intel Matrix ICHR7 chipset with the Intel Matrix Storage Console
> utility
> where i can monitor the drives from within windows. Inside this utility
> i enabled VOLUME WRITE BACK cache
>
> "This is used with RAID 5 only the Write-Back Cache feature is supported by
> the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver to enhance read/write performance of
> a RAID 5 array."
>
> Nvidia GE Force 7800GT
> Creative X-Fi Fatality Soundcard
> Windows XP SP2
>
>
> This is my first experience with RAID 5, Is this "rebuilding" going to
> happen everytime ?
>
> Thanks in advance for any help !
>
>

darn !!


"Bob I" <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eHL7aYmAGHA.3840@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> read up.
> http://support.intel.com/support/chi.../cs-021506.htm
>
> Seth Gecko wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I recently built myself a new PC and decided to go RAID5.
>> Everythings great but today my PC did not want to come out of standby so
>> I hit the reset
>> button and reboot.
>>
>> It then takes about 8 hours while it goes through an "Initializing
>> Parity" proceedure,
>> whilst obviously degrading my performance. Is this going to happen
>> everytime
>> I get a lock up or for some other reason i need to do a reset ?
>>
>> I have a
>>
>> Dual Core P4 3.0GHz
>> Gigabyte 8i955x Royal Motherboard (Intel 955 Chipset)
>> 3 x Seagate 400GB Serial ATA Hard Drives in a RAID 5 configuration using
>> the
>> onboard Intel Matrix ICHR7 chipset with the Intel Matrix Storage Console
>> utility
>> where i can monitor the drives from within windows. Inside this utility
>> i enabled VOLUME WRITE BACK cache
>>
>> "This is used with RAID 5 only the Write-Back Cache feature is supported
>> by the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver to enhance read/write
>> performance of a RAID 5 array."
>>
>> Nvidia GE Force 7800GT
>> Creative X-Fi Fatality Soundcard
>> Windows XP SP2
>>
>>
>> This is my first experience with RAID 5, Is this "rebuilding" going to
>> happen everytime ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any help !
>

"Seth Gecko" <sethgecko@webmail.co.za> wrote in message
news:dnuu56$iqc$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
>
> darn !!
>
>


That's why having a raid controller with battery backed cache may be
worth the extra cost, particularly if you don't have a reliable UPS.

--
James T. White

Seth Gecko wrote:
> darn !!
>

If this is your boot disk, then you might be better off using using
mirroring (RAID 1) rather than a RAID 5.

Yousuf Khan

I wanted the best performance i could get


"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@ezrs.com> wrote in message
news:Hs6dnaoaa-oGNz7eRVn-gw@rogers.com...
> Seth Gecko wrote:
>> darn !!
>>
>
> If this is your boot disk, then you might be better off using using
> mirroring (RAID 1) rather than a RAID 5.
>
> Yousuf Khan

In article <do1dtp$6jh$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>, sethgecko@webmail.co.za
says...
> I wanted the best performance i could get

A mirror would have been faster for the OS volume, and safer.

--

spam999free@rrohio.com
remove 999 in order to email me

Seth Gecko wrote:
> I wanted the best performance i could get

Then you went with the exact opposite of what you really needed. RAID5
is a a slight bit faster than single disk when reading (and assuming
that you don't have one drive gone bad). However, RAID5 is much slower
at writes that a single disk. The highest performance and most secure
setup is by far the RAID 0+1 style.

Yousuf Khan