sata hds gone slow

I have 2 sata 80gb drives set up as raid 0. It has been partitioned into 2 drives C: and D: On running Pcpitstop it appears that the uncached speed is down to 12MB/s on C: 13MB/s on D: back in April when I last checked it on Pcpitstop it was 66MB/s on C: and 67MB/s on D: Both of these drives are less than half full and I have defragged them and removed the temp files etc without any improvement. Has anyone got any suggestions as what else I could try to speed them up again.

Motherboard Asus A7N8X2.0
Thanks Jim.

 

You did read about the risks involved with RAID 0? I would think that you have a bug in your array.

Using RAID 0 you will have the system completely backed up (of course! ). Use your backup to reinstall the system (if you want to rebuild the RAID 0 array, that's up to you). RAID 0 is not really a RAID system, it is a "byproduct ", but I suppose you know that.

If you want to use RAID 0 for a day to day system, you will need to expect that it will "blow up" at any time and once the array is broken, your data is lost.

You would probably find that if you put Windows and it's base programs on one drive and your programs on the other, it will be quite fast. I use one HDD, partitioned into 4 drives, that benchmarks slightly slower than a RAID 0 array.

If you do editing or file conversion, read from one drive and write to the other.

If you see continuous HDD LED activity, it may be due to an aggressive antivirus or "internet suite" that want's to check files continuously.

Matt

 

Further, just since I looked it up and maybe you have not been there, the A7N8X chipset drivers are listed under "utilities" (I could not find a 2.0 version):
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

I can't see SATA controller drivers. Is the SATA controller built into the motherboard?
Edit: BTW, your system is Socket A (462 pin)...my link only goes to the download area.

Matt

 

Yes I did know there was a risk involved using raid 0 but to be honest never gave it too much thought. Other than the benchmark reporting the drives slow the computer is working ok so maybe there is not too much to worry about. The sata controller is built into the motherboard and uses silicon image sil 3112 drivers would it be possible to reinstall these drivers via the device manager without upsetting the array.
Jim.

 

Mmmm...sort of outweighs the advantages of running RAID 0

If it was me (first, I would expect that the worst will happen tomorrow), I would use it as a learning experience and test out my backup system (which will be backed up with a different backup system). I would not like to lose the data I have spent a lot of time collecting.

You have a few negative factors. Windows will eventually need to be rejuvenated. The HDD(s) will fail at some stage (the other RAID systems were developed to overcome this possibility). RAID 0...as I have said.

I think you will find the system is set up through floppy disks. Windows just sees it and says it working.

Matt