RAID 0 External Drive Slow/Failing - How To Split? - Tech Support Forums

bbddpp · December 2nd, 2008, 03:30 PM

I have an external eSata drive from Simpletech that is a 1TB drive made up of 2 500 GB drives inside running at RAID 0. The drive works, but has gotten so painfully slow via the eSata connection (USB never really worked from the start) that I think I need to just get these drives outta there and maybe go with an internal solution.

Anyway, the drive is almost full to capacity, maybe 20 GB of the 1 TB free, so I need to know how many files I need to copy off this thing before I rip out the drives. I imagine the data is spread across both 500 GB drives under RAID 0 so if I just took the drives out now and ran them as singles internally, I wouldn't be able to see any data.

Do I need to offload the entire 1 TB of data elsewhere before I split up the drives?

**GroundZero3** · December 2nd, 2008, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Do I need to offload the entire 1 TB of data elsewhere before I split up the drives?

Yes

bbddpp · December 2nd, 2008, 03:45 PM

Thanks a bunch for the quick, simple reply. I figured as much.

Any idea what might be wrong with the drive that is causing it to run THAT slow? I haven't run any speed tests but I'm talking about 10 minutes to copy a 300 MB file from the external drive to an internal drive in the PC it's hooked up to (no network). It copies and the data seems sound, but it is THAT slow. This is under XP SP3, by the way.

I tried connecting the drive via esata to an add-on sata controller card as well as the motherboard's direct sata connection, got the same result both times.

Steve R Jones · December 2nd, 2008, 04:34 PM

I'd like to know how you did a Raid 0 with One Drive and Two Partitions?!?!?!? Anyway,

Look in Device Manager->Storage Controllers properties->Advanced setting and make sure you're running in Ultra mode and NOT PIO mode.

**GroundZero3** · December 2nd, 2008, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

I'd like to know how you did a Raid 0 with One Drive and Two Partitions?!?!?!? Anyway,

Quote:

1TB drive made up of 2 500 GB drives

bbddpp · December 2nd, 2008, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

I'd like to know how you did a Raid 0 with One Drive and Two Partitions?!?!?!? Anyway,

Look in Device Manager->Storage Controllers properties->Advanced setting and make sure you're running in Ultra mode and NOT PIO mode.

I totally forgot about that setting. I'll check it out when I get home from the office today. Thanks. Boy that would be an easy fix if that's all it was.

Steve R Jones · December 2nd, 2008, 04:58 PM

Quote:

1TB drive made up of 2 500 GB drives

Now I see said the blind man.

pullmyfoot · December 2nd, 2008, 06:06 PM

Well in any case I wouldn't trust a whole terabyte of stuff on a raid 0. One drive goes and everything goes, so your risk level doubles..

bbddpp · December 2nd, 2008, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pullmyfoot

Well in any case I wouldn't trust a whole terabyte of stuff on a raid 0. One drive goes and everything goes, so your risk level doubles..

Wow fellas, I am really stumped now.

Everything looks good in the device manager. All is set to DMA and nothing at PIO on either of the 2 primaries or the one secondary.

I have the drive connected to a Via SATA card now, same result. So using that card's controller OR the motherboard's controller, same result.

Finally, and maybe this is a clue, when the drive is connected and especially when I am copying files from it, XP slows to a CRAWL. Like, 30 seconds to open control panel crawl. This normally takes 1-2 seconds when the drive is not in use.

So what the heck is this drive doing to my system that is causing the OS slowdown, any ideas?

cksboy15 · December 2nd, 2008, 08:26 PM

Some antiviruses and anti spyware use unused processing power to scan the files. I figured this out by plugging in a 4GB flash drive and opening the task manager to watch my system go from an idle 2% to 10% (after a ten minute wait of course) back when I ran the shield (which I'm considering going back to when my kaspersky license expires). Then if you have service pack 3 (from what I here) it also scans the files.