Adaptec 1200A Raid array/Matrox2500

[Dr Mordrid]

OHNO!!

That is *definitely* the wrong way to install a brace of RAID drives. A 2 drive array should *always* be installed one drive/cable and with each drive set up as a MASTER.

And here's more: they should only be connected to the END connectinons on those cables. The cables should also be 80 conductor ATA66/100 cables ONLY, and not the el-cheapo grey cables you can by for a dime a dozen.

The older 40 conductor cables are only good up to ATA33. Newer drives will sense the absense of the new cables and slow down to match the cable they're on.

For >2 drives I strongly suggest a Promise TX4 because it gives each drive a MASTER channel...4 in total. This improves throughput significantly when using 3 or 4 drives in the array.

"Normal" RAID controllers can take 4 drives, but they are connected in MASTER/SLAVE pairs. This cuts throuput since only one can be doing a read or write operation on each channel at a time.

Dr. Mordrid

[Mike Newman]

Yes!!! Running at last. It seems my problems were causes - as so often - by a combination of stupidity and ignorance. Not much one can do about stupidity but at least I'm a little less ignorant now. I now have the two raid drives on different channels and although results on the speed bench are almost exactly the same as before the performance playing back video is radically improved - no stutters at all as far as I can see. Many thanks for all the help - where would the humble one man business be without support forums! So much one needs to know for life in the real world is not taught on university music courses!

[Dr Mordrid]

You mean then don't teach you everything you need to know at SCHOOL??? HORRORS!!

Yes, the educational system has gone to the dawgs....on a lot of levels.

What makes things worse is a lot of schools are at least a generation behind in both theory and application, if not more. Then there is the problem of fossilzed professors.

When I was in college I had a physics prof. (a fairly young, but very outdated, one) that hadn't yet caught on that hadrons (protons, neutrons etc.) and mesons had been discovered to have constituent particles (quarks) instead of being primary particles themselves.

Myself and others had learned this in high school and expected to be challenged in college. Instead we got shot down by the SOB when we brought this new material up in class. Apparently *he* didn't like being challenged.

We transferred the next week to a prof. who had something to teach us. He got repremanded by administration and told to update himself and his lesson plan

Terry