Scsi hdd

[Frog]

Hello, I have a Seagate Cheatah ultra160, model # ST318406LW and the host is Adaptec 29160. The problem I am having is, the spindle goes idle after about 10 min. I am using it for page file. Is their a way to prevent idle from occuring? I was thinking if something accessed it every 5 min. by reading from it, that would work. The scsi drive has the power saving internally built in, so I don't think I could physically change it.
Thank you

 

[Frog]

The computer is a gaming rig. I can partition the scsi drive so page file is the first partition, and maybe task scheduler can perform something every several minutes on the second partition, so the drive spindle doesn't spin down. I am not worried about how long the drive lives for or the heat it will create, so a constant spin doesn't bother me. Any suggestions?
Thanks again.

 

[Fumz]

Control Panel/System and Maintenance/Power Options. In the left pane select "Change when the computer sleeps". Click "Change advanced power settings". Expand Hard disk. Expand turn off hard disk after. Select never.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

Disable all power management with SCSI drives installed.

 

[Frog]

Thank you Fumz. So that's where you change start power button from sleep. Would you recomend changing the processor power settings. I don't know much yet. The computer was bought overclocked from 2.2 (quad processor) to 3.6. I have some issues with startup too. Resets before logon, black screen at logon, and the blue screen error message at startup, occasionally. But most of the time Vistax64 runs great.
SCSIraidGURU, I'm not sure how to only disable power management to a drive, so I disabled it to all drives.
Thanks again. I'll list my system specs.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

I would not recommend putting the computer to sleep. SCSI can be a problem waking on some controllers. You can check the power options for the drive in the device manager. I would recommend no power down. It is better to shut it off. SCSI is very robust and reboots very fast. On top of that, overclocking SCSI can cause data corruption and loss. I would reconsider overclocking with SCSI. I have used SCSI and SAS for 21 years.

 

[Frog]

I disabled sleep and that changed processor max and min to 100% so ignore the question about that.
About overclocking and running a scsi drive as a page file drive, do you think that is a bad idea since the OS drive has page file also?, and thank you scsiraidguru for the input.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

I run a separate drive for paging, temp, temporary internet, and a few other app target partitions. My paging file is 16GB for my 16GB of RAM on this drive. I run 128 MB paging file on drive C: My SAS RAID replaced SCSI RAID. My old SCSI RAID had 18 x 36GB 10K drives. My SAS RAID is only 3 drives with room for 13 more drives. I had three RAID arrays on SCSI.

 

[Frog]

I run a separate drive for paging, temp, temporary internet, and a few other app target partitions. My paging file is 16GB for my 16GB of RAM on this drive. I run 128 MB paging file on drive C: My SAS RAID replaced SCSI RAID. My old SCSI RAID had 18 x 36GB 10K drives. My SAS RAID is only 3 drives with room for 13 more drives. I had three RAID arrays on SCSI.

Very nice. I never thought of temps on non-OS drive. Good call.
Should I be fine with overclocking with my current HDD's setup? My only raid array 0 is for the game drive, not OS.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

RAID 0 is not a good idea. I use RAID 1 for OS and RAID 10 for apps. My only RAID 0 partition would be three drives for paging, temp, etc. Paging should be max = min = ram size. Temp files can be tricky to move in Vista and UAC. You can move your My Documents folder off your C: drive by right clicking on it and choosing move. This way you can reinstall your OS without losing your My Documents.

 

[Frog]

I'll have to learn the trick about the temp.

I currently have 1.5 times the phsical ram page file on the scsi, and system managed on Windows drive. I will set the C: drive page file to 128MB.

I use Raid0 for the game drive, so games can load faster. I can only connect two drives to the raid card, or else I would use two other Sata's for OS also. I rather not use the integrated Raid controler for reason that it uses system resources. I'm not sure if my PNY Raid card uses any or more resources, but I think the card uses most of it's own resources. Is that correct?

Thank you scsiraidguru for all the helpfull information.

I have been a member here for 1 day now and I feal smarter allready. lol. Thank you guys for the warm welcome, and help for me, not to be, "a Newbie".

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

You don't load that much faster to risk it. Load them on your SCSI drive instead. You might be surprised how fast the SCSI drive loads them. I installed a pair of Seagate 7200.11 500GB 32MB cache SATA drives. They are decent performance. You might gain seconds in loading a game on RAID 0. How fast do you need it to come up.

My workstation was designed for CAD and A/V work. I built it around Photoshop and Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Can't wait for Photoshop CS4.

You learn by asking and doing. I spent tens of thousands on hardware over the years to see how it works.

 

[Frog]

I have used Raid0 in the past and currently, and I see multiplayer maps load up a lot faster with Raid0 than without. I am one of the first ones on the map because of it.

Their is not much to risk, as long as any hardware, won't get damaged. I don't save data on OS partition or SCSI drive.

I know a little about the other raid arrays, but I can't afford any more hard drives and don't currently need them. If I were to get another hard drive, I would get a Raptor 300 for the OS drive. My current OS is installed on the first partition of a Sata2 500 gig. I like the OS to be on a stable drive, and I like how you have it set up better. I don't currently do work with this machine, it's just for fun.

Windows wants at least 400 MB page file for dump, or else it might not log the dump correctly.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

check out the 7200.11 drives. Raptors are not always a good choice. They tend to fail more than 7200 drives.

The dump files are usually useless to recover from.

 

[Frog]

7200.11 don't look too bad. 32MB cache is nice.
I probably wouldn't know how to use the dump file any way. I thought windows uses it, or logs it to event viewer.

 

[Fumz]

Thank you Fumz. So that's where you change start power button from sleep. Would you recomend changing the processor power settings. I don't know much yet. The computer was bought overclocked from 2.2 (quad processor) to 3.6. I have some issues with startup too. Resets before logon, black screen at logon, and the blue screen error message at startup, occasionally. But most of the time Vistax64 runs great.
SCSIraidGURU, I'm not sure how to only disable power management to a drive, so I disabled it to all drives.
Thanks again. I'll list my system specs.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question? If you're asking is that where you tell the machine when to sleep, then yes. If you're asking is that where you "change the start power button", then I don't get what you're asking exactly? Do you mean remove the "sleep" option from the restart, shutdown, sleep, lock, logoff and switch user menu?

As for the processor state, I'd just leave it at 5% and 50%.

Are you able to write down the bsod error message?

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

You can have issues with overclocking and sleep / hibernation modes. You can have data corruption and loss, if it does not awake or the overclocking of the storage bus causes miswrites. You need to weigh the possible problems vs doing either.

 

[Frog]

Thank you Fumz. So that's where you change start power button from sleep. Would you recomend changing the processor power settings. I don't know much yet. The computer was bought overclocked from 2.2 (quad processor) to 3.6. I have some issues with startup too. Resets before logon, black screen at logon, and the blue screen error message at startup, occasionally. But most of the time Vistax64 runs great.
SCSIraidGURU, I'm not sure how to only disable power management to a drive, so I disabled it to all drives.
Thanks again. I'll list my system specs.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question? If you're asking is that where you tell the machine when to sleep, then yes. If you're asking is that where you "change the start power button", then I don't get what you're asking exactly? Do you mean remove the "sleep" option from the restart, shutdown, sleep, lock, logoff and switch user menu?

As for the processor state, I'd just leave it at 5% and 50%.

Are you able to write down the bsod error message?

Setting the power management of the hard disk from, turn off hard disk after 20 minutes, to never, fixed the error I was getting from the scsi disk, which I am using for page file.

I don't let the computer sleep or hibernate, so informing me on where to change the start/power button from sleep, to shutdown helped. I'm not getting the "Windows did not shut down properly" message at start up anymore. I don't have any other questions about advanced power management. Thank you.

As for the bsod error message, if that is the blue screen that flickers at startup up, it only shows that message for a split second, and not everytime, so it would be next to impossible to pause the screen to write the message down on paper. Is their another way to get that message?

Thank you for your reply.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

As for the bsod error message, if that is the blue screen that flickers at startup up, it only shows that message for a split second, and not everytime, so it would be next to impossible to pause the screen to write the message down on paper. Is their another way to get that message?

Hello Frog, welcome to Vista forums!

You have to go to "Safe Mode" and disable "Automatic Restart on System Failure", so that you will have time to record the error code. You can change it back after you get the code.

Keep us informed!



Later Ted

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

I would start by resetting to default timing. This could be causing the BSOD. Vista and especially Vista x64 does not overclock very well compared to XP. If you are getting BSOD or errors, don't overclock. You can also check your event viewer in administrator for the errors.