Performance tips – Promise Technology FastTrak TX4000 User Manual

Page 64

FastTrak TX4000 User Manual

Performance Tips

Here are some tips that may optimize performance in a RAID 0 striped array. If
you are using an audio/video-editing card, we also recommend reviewing your
card’s documentation for additional information.

Use FastTrak TX4000 as D: or other non-bootable drive in a Striped Array

For Audio/Video editing, keep the original system boot drive on the standard IDE
controller as C: drive. Partitioning software such as FDISK will see the array as
one physical drive, D: or later. This will prevent file fragmentation and provide
better accessibility to the array.

Re-Configure PCI Latency Setting

The PCI Latency setting appears in some Motherboard BIOS. The setting
governs how much time is allocated to service each PCI slot. Promise
recommends a value of 64. An optimal value will vary from system to system.

Optimize Array for “Performance”

The Promise FastBuild BIOS Utility autosetup menu allows optimizing the array
for A/V Editing. The default Performance setting (Striping) selects a Stripe Block
size of 64. This larger block size is recommended for the data streaming
requirements of A/V editing. You may select an even larger block size in manual
mode (see Chapter 3).

FastTrak (tm) / FastTrak TX4000 (tm) BIOS Version 1.xx (Build xxxx)

[ Auto Setup Options Menu ]

Optimize Array for:

Performance

Typical Application usage:

A/V Editing

[ Auto Setup Configuration ]

Mode.................................................... Stripe

Stripe Block Size........................................64

Drive used in Array ......................................2

Array Disk Capacity .............................13044

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