Thermaltake Muse R-Duo: External RAID

PCMark05

We use the HDD test suite within PCMark05 for further comparative hard disk scores as it provides a mixture of actual application results and specific read/write percentages used by these programs. The program utilizes the RankDisk application within the Intel iPEAK SPT suite of tools to record a trace of disk activity during usage of real world applications. PCMark05 then replays these traces to generate performance measurements based upon the actual disk operations within each application. The HDD test suite contains 53% read and 47% write operations with each trace section utilizing varied amounts of read or write operations. Our test results use the following trace runs:

Windows XP Startup: This test consists of 90% reading and 10% writes which tracks XP activities at start-up.

Application Loading: This test consists of 83% reading and 17% writes and tracks the opening and closing of the following programs.

• Microsoft Word
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Windows Media Player
• 3Dmark 2001SE
• Leadtek WinFast DVD
• Mozilla Internet Browser

General Hard Disk Drive Usage: This test consists of 60% reading and 40% writes which monitors application usage utilizing the following settings.

• Opening a Microsoft Word document, performing grammar check, saving and closing.
• Compression and decompression using WinZip
• Encrypting and decrypting a file using PowerCrypt
• Scanning files for viruses using F-Secure Antivirus
• Playing an MP3 file with Winamp
• Playing a WAV file with Winamp
• Playing a DivX video using DivX codec and Windows Media Player
• Playing a WMV video file using Windows Media Player
• Viewing pictures using Windows Picture Viewer
• Browsing the Internet using Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Loading, playing and exiting a game with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

In almost all tests, the controller (ICH9R) on our Gigabyte P35-DQ6 motherboard outperforms the Muse. Even for the tests which are primarily based on pure throughput rather than seek performance (the file write and the virus scan tests), the Muse fails to take advantage of the second disk in its RAID 0 array, coming in basically at par with a single disk on the motherboard controller.

Linear mode, which is the disabling of all core functionality found in the Muse R-Duo, proves to be the best performing of the functions available. RAID 1 provides solid (though uninspiring) performance through all benchmarks, though we see the same 15-30% performance drop compared to a single drive consistently in our tests. Most disappointing is Big mode, which trails in almost all tests.