Fasttrak 100 - mixed experience

[hapz]

I just went through a hair raising experience in setting up a RAID 0 with a Fasttrak 100 and two Maxtor 80 GB drives.

Although everything looked ok hardware wise, for a while I was not able to format a partition larger than 20GB. Win98SE crashed when I tried something larger (it took me a while to find out that partition size is what's causing it), and Partition Magic just stopped working, most likely because the Fasttrak array just went off line!!!

I finally tried PM from the floppies in their own DOS environment. That worked For the time being I have a 78GB Fat32 and a 78GB NTFS partition.

The Matrox video tools HD benchmark gives me >34 MB/s

But these non-formatting issues bothers me. Any ideas?

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Harald

[Dr Mordrid]

I'm assuming you tried formatting in Windows? Don't. FDISK and format in DOS.

FDISK will misreport the array's size, but this is a bug in FDISK and not a problem with the array.

My array is 240 gigs and Promise has tested arrays up to 300+ gigs.

Dr. Mordrid

[hapz]

Actually, it did not surprise me too much that Win98SE crashed, just a little bit.

What REALLY surprised me that Partition Magic 6.0 was not able to handle it under Windows, and that the "magical" boundary for the formatting problem turned out to be about 20GB.
The floppy based version of PM was the savior. It runs under a special DOS version, and that was able to handle all the formatting tasks.

I don't like FDISK and FORMAT. Partition Magic is so much more flexible.

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Harald

[This_Idiot]

I built a new machine a couple of weeks back on an Asus A7V (disabled the onboard Promise 100 controller since my boot drive was only UDMA33 compatible) and stuffed in a FT100 and a pair of 30Gb GX75's. FT booted up a treat, I immediately Fdisked and formatted and was amazed that the whole operation only took a few minutes (while I cooked my dinner). Bit different when I tried to error check the whole array !

No probs with a 20Gb limit tho

[cjyo~]

My Fasttrack100 installed with 2 IBM 45gig 75GXPs no problem on a triple boot 98SE/98SE/2000 system. I don't remember what I did, but I just followed the instruction booklet.

No problems since...

(It's worked a lot better than the Medea Raids and San Cube we have at my office.)

[JamesSchmeling]

Glad to here that the FastTrack and the 45 GB IBM drives work. I just ordered the same thing, and it will be here January 16. So will the RT 2000. Should be a fun install!
James

[cjyo~]

Be sure to follow the recommended slot order for your motherboard (on the matrox site):

http://www.matrox.com/videoweb/suppo...c/m_compat.htm

(And follow the instruction booklet. A clean system install is highly recommended.)

[Dr Mordrid]

YES....and the FT100 requires a busmaster PCI slot as well. Some boards still have PCI slots that aren't.

As for a 20g limit, I've never seen this. I have FT arrays ranging from 40 to 240 gigs in my lab.

Dr. Mordrid

[JamesSchmeling]

Unfortunately the motherboard is not listed. The system may be - it is a Gateway Select system, but a 700 Mhz Athlon.

It is not on the incompatible list either though, so I hope to not have problems. If we do, the system goes back to the rental pool, and we get a P4 1.5 Ghz Dell 8100 to replace it. Also not on either list.

I'll post and let you know how it works in either case.

[This message has been edited by JamesSchmeling (edited 13 January 2001).]

[Dr Mordrid]

Why not bite the bullet and get someone to build you a system with known approved components? It'll be more likely to work and might even be cheaper.

I build all of my systems. Too many "name brand" fiascoes....

Dr. Mordrid

[JamesSchmeling]

Primarily due to the nature of grants and contracts with federal government agencies. We can't buy computers. We can lease them. We can buy components and such, but only if we need them for the specific project at hand and they aren't general use type items.

Thus, we have to lease what the rental pool at the University has, and they have Dells and Gateways. So we'll make do with whichever works. The Dell P4 is only $20/month more than the Gateway Athlon 700.

I could have gone a different route with the hardware for the video, but I'm convinced that the RT2000 is the best way to go, so I'll work at it to get what we have to work right.

Thanks,
James

[This message has been edited by JamesSchmeling (edited 13 January 2001).]