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My RAID 0 in a MacBook.

CrackedButter

CrackedButter

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 15, 2003
3,221
0
51st State of America
I had set up a RAID 0 in my MacBook in order to squeeze some extra life into Aperture. This was with 2 Seagate 500GB 7200rpm drives.

Seems that the idea was a good one but didn't take into account the processor overhead needed for the software RAID. The performance of my system actually decreased even though disk activity increased.

I ran GeekBench and XBench. The GeekBench tool gave me 1507 with the RAID, and 2768 without it.

Xbench was 113.97 without the RAID, and 83.84 with the RAID.

Uncached Write/Read scores were all higher because of the RAID but like I said overall system performance took a hit.

I did this because I didn't want to buy an SSD at the moment. Was wondering if I would get any gains from the RAID 0.

The upside to all this is that I have a backup drive in my laptop next to the main drive, and when I do get the SSD, the secondary drive is already in there waiting for when I transfer my image and music libraries.

Anyway just thought I would let everyone know. Enjoy the picture.
 

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CrackedButter said:
I had set up a RAID 0 in my MacBook in order to squeeze some extra life into Aperture. This was with 2 Seagate 500GB 7200rpm drives.

Seems that the idea was a good one but didn't take into account the processor overhead needed for the software RAID. The performance of my system actually decreased even though disk activity increased.

I ran GeekBench and XBench. The GeekBench tool gave me 1507 with the RAID, and 2768 without it.

Xbench was 113.97 without the RAID, and 83.84 with the RAID.

Uncached Write/Read scores were all higher because of the RAID but like I said overall system performance took a hit.

I did this because I didn't want to buy an SSD at the moment. Was wondering if I would get any gains from the RAID 0.

The upside to all this is that I have a backup drive in my laptop next to the main drive, and when I do get the SSD, the secondary drive is already in there waiting for when I transfer my image and music libraries.

Anyway just thought I would let everyone know. Enjoy the picture.
Click to expand...

what connector is your optical bay ? is it also sata? if not that would be why your speed is dropping.

otherwise your speed should only increase even with the overhead, i have run dual 80's , 160's ssd's and dual 500gb 5400's and they always consistantly operate 30-40% better in striped array's.

maybe we can figure this out, there must be an issue somewhere with the setup.

can you post your full xbench.....thanks
 
MacModMachine said:
what connector is your optical bay ? is it also sata? if not that would be why your speed is dropping.

otherwise your speed should only increase even with the overhead, i have run dual 80's , 160's ssd's and dual 500gb 5400's and they always consistantly operate 30-40% better in striped array's.

maybe we can figure this out, there must be an issue somewhere with the setup.

can you post your full xbench.....thanks
Click to expand...

Looks like his MacBook is a whitebook. I think that makes the optical bay a PATA connection.
 
Okay here are the full results that I have written down for XBench as a single drive:

Sequential

UW 80.27MB/s - 4K blocks
UW 78.93MB/s - 256K blocks
UR 16.84MB/s - 4K blocks
UR 80.19MB/s - 256K blocks

Random

UW 0.79MB/s - 4K
UW 38.61MB/s - 256K
UR 0.58MB/s - 4K
UR 25.62MB/s - 256K

In the RAID 0:

Sequential

UW 77.38MB/s - 4K blocks
UW 53.61MB/s - 256K blocks
UR 8.19MB/s - 4K blocks
UR 99.71MB/s - 256K blocks

Random

UW 2.70MB/s - 4K
UW 46.23MB/s - 256K
UR 0.69MB/s - 4K
UR 27.77MB/s - 256K

I will say that during the setup process for the RAID 0, I selected the 256K block option when accessing the drives instead of 4K. Like I said above, I wanted to speed up Aperture.

I also have 3 GB of RAM in this system, its a 2007 MB and the system profiler says the second drive is ATA. Would the shape of the connector indicate whether the second drive is PATA or SATA?

At least for the moment the system doesn't hang anymore because of the lack of optical drive. I've noticed the system is snappier because of the lack of it.

The Graphics card btw is an Intel GMA 950.
 
CrackedButter said:
Okay here are the full results that I have written down for XBench as a single drive:

Sequential

UW 80.27MB/s - 4K blocks
UW 78.93MB/s - 256K blocks
UR 16.84MB/s - 4K blocks
UR 80.19MB/s - 256K blocks

Random

UW 0.79MB/s - 4K
UW 38.61MB/s - 256K
UR 0.58MB/s - 4K
UR 25.62MB/s - 256K

In the RAID 0:

Sequential

UW 77.38MB/s - 4K blocks
UW 53.61MB/s - 256K blocks
UR 8.19MB/s - 4K blocks
UR 99.71MB/s - 256K blocks

Random

UW 2.70MB/s - 4K
UW 46.23MB/s - 256K
UR 0.69MB/s - 4K
UR 27.77MB/s - 256K

I will say that during the setup process for the RAID 0, I selected the 256K block option when accessing the drives instead of 4K. Like I said above, I wanted to speed up Aperture.

I also have 3 GB of RAM in this system, its a 2007 MB and the system profiler says the second drive is ATA. Would the shape of the connector indicate whether the second drive is PATA or SATA?

At least for the moment the system doesn't hang anymore because of the lack of optical drive. I've noticed the system is snappier because of the lack of it.

The Graphics card btw is an Intel GMA 950.
Click to expand...

128kb is ideal for speed, either way with 950GMA your optical drive is OBHD type connector, thus it is PATA and will slow your stripe down to that speed.

other tips are make sure you reinstall osx and do not restore from backups, this seems to run into issues with striped software array's in osx.
 
Hmm - So PRE-NVIDIA MACBOOKS are PATA Connection?

That's interesting, I always thought that it was a Sata Connection.

I have a Blackbook 2.4, and was thinking of running a SSD (for the OS system) and the stock HDD for storage, but if I have to run it via P-ATA then it does not seem to worth it as it won't transfer my files faster.

QUESTION - If I am using Adobe CS4 Suite - will I notice any performance gains if I store my adobe files (photoshop, illustrator, flash) onto the optical bay and the applications on the ssd (where the OS will be)? Can I also put the Adobe temp files onto the optibay hdd too and have performance gains or will it slow it down since the files are on a separate hdd?

I don't mean to hijack your thread OP.
 
AreYouAMac said:
Hmm - So PRE-NVIDIA MACBOOKS are PATA Connection?

That's interesting, I always thought that it was a Sata Connection.

I have a Blackbook 2.4, and was thinking of running a SSD (for the OS system) and the stock HDD for storage, but if I have to run it via P-ATA then it does not seem to worth it as it won't transfer my files faster.

QUESTION - If I am using Adobe CS4 Suite - will I notice any performance gains if I store my adobe files (photoshop, illustrator, flash) onto the optical bay and the applications on the ssd (where the OS will be)? Can I also put the Adobe temp files onto the optibay hdd too and have performance gains or will it slow it down since the files are on a separate hdd?

I don't mean to hijack your thread OP.
Click to expand...
Pre 9400M MacBooks have SATA for the hard drive, but PATA for the optical drive.
 
Thanks for the input, i did do a full install when setting up the RAID0.

The PATA connection shouldn't be an issue for the HD anyway because those drives still don't saturate the PATA bus right?
 
CrackedButter said:
Thanks for the input, i did do a full install when setting up the RAID0.

The PATA connection shouldn't be an issue for the HD anyway because those drives still don't saturate the PATA bus right?
Click to expand...

indeed, but i believe the cpu cost for pata is greater then sata

PATA interface on the macbook may be slowed to ata66 also, im not sure though.

try xbench on just the optical drive hdd
 
AreYouAMac said:
QUESTION - If I am using Adobe CS4 Suite - will I notice any performance gains if I store my adobe files (photoshop, illustrator, flash) onto the optical bay and the applications on the ssd (where the OS will be)? Can I also put the Adobe temp files onto the optibay hdd too and have performance gains or will it slow it down since the files are on a separate hdd?

I don't mean to hijack your thread OP.
Click to expand...

If it is in RAID 0, then it is dispersed (thus the risk of RAID 0 drive failures). If you want to store files for regular use, store them on the drive that is active. Transfer unused files to a storage drive (external).

If you are talking about just having 2 drives, then you can put whatever data you want on either drive...
 
Whoops - I should've clarified.

This set up would be for non Raid. Just one for active OS (SSD) and the other for just storage (HDD)

So - If it were just 2 separate hard drives, will I lose performance speeds or will it be the same/less if I put the adobe files & temp-stroage files onto one HDD and the Apps on the other?

Thanks again. Last post for sure. As this will answer my questions.
 
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