User Guide

Back to Contents Page

Performance Tips: FastTrak100™ Ultra ATA/100 RAID Card User's Guide

Introduction • Use FastTrak100 as D: or other non-bootable drive • Optimize Array for "Performance" • Change Setting of PCI Bus Utilization

Introduction

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 to review your card's documentation for additional information.

Use FastTrak100 as D: or other non-bootable drive

For maximum sustained data transfers (such as A/V editing), keep the original system boot drive on the standard IDE controller as C: drive. Partitioning software such as FDISK will see a RAID 0 striped array as one physical drive, D: drive (or later). This will prevent file fragmentation and provide better accessibility to the array. However, Dell does not support this configuration.

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.

Change Setting of PCI Bus Utilization

Certain brands of video capture cards can produce a "glitch" on play back of .AVI files. A setting of "Low" for PCI Bus utilization in the FastCheck Options Windows reduces the time which FastTrak100 occupies on the PCI bus and frees that time for use by other PCI devices. This will remove the "glitch" dropout effect on playback. Once a bus setting has been selected, click the Apply button to implement changes immediately. No reboot is required.

Back to Contents Page