Revodrives? What would work with my setup?

[Santilli]

Hi
I have a few bucks loose I shouldn't spend, or, if I don't spend, the government wants.
I was thinking of a Revodrive to go with my setup. Wondering which one, looking for fast, smallest to second smallest, compatible with my setup(see signature).

Also wondering if I have enough room with that 295 video card...

Thanks

GS

 

[ddrueding]

I'm trying to remember which 295 card that is, and what the heatsink/fan looks like. Any of them will fit in the slot closer to the CPU than the GPU, and the lower PCIe slots would work as well. As we had talked about before, I wouldn't worry about getting one for speed; they are all fast. Get the biggest one you can afford, capacity will be the bottleneck before bandwidth.

 

[Santilli]

Currently I'm at half or more, of the 320 GB I have with the X-25M's.
Specs make me wonder, since I'm getting 500 MB/sec reads with the two X-25M's.
I think you put the 295 in the first slot, leaving one slot open. Any reason for that configuration?

I guess what I'm wondering is if the PCI-E makes a big difference? Judging from your sig, I'd say it does, access wise.

I'm also wondering if you played with the cheaper one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227745

 

[ddrueding]

The 295 is in the first 16x slot, IIRC there is an 8x or 4x slot above it (Revos are 4x cards and will work in anything 4x or bigger)

 

[Handruin]

Based on your feedback in the other thread, you said you couldn't notice the difference when using your SSDs in RAID 0 compared to individually. If your usage and workload are not indicative of the characteristics that the RevoDrive is meant to address, you're just wasting money and you won't see a difference. Spend it on a nicer monitor and/or better speakers?

 

[LunarMist]

So why exactly is a PCIe SSD a tax deduction? Good grief.

 

[Clocker]

Based on your feedback in the other thread, you said you couldn't notice the difference when using your SSDs in RAID 0 compared to individually. If your usage and workload are not indicative of the characteristics that the RevoDrive is meant to address, you're just wasting money and you won't see a difference. Spend it on a nicer monitor and/or better speakers?

Based on his feedback elsewhere, I guess he either likes to waste $ or just doesn't want the cabling associated with a separate drive. I would consider one just for the novelty of having something in one of the small PCI-e slots for a change as well as the reduced cable clutter.

 

[Handruin]

Based on his feedback elsewhere, I guess he either likes to waste $ or just doesn't want the cabling associated with a separate drive. I would consider one just for the novelty of having something in one of the small PCI-e slots for a change as well as the reduced cable clutter.

I don't think anyone would ever understand what's going on with his money. lol In one post there he is being frugal about not wanting to get a decent mobile plan and fights with awful VOIP via WiFi and picks a basic phone that breaks down. There's nothing wrong with being frugal. However, here we see an inquiry into the gluttony of all storage devices (no offense ddrueding) being applied to a person who likely won't even make use of it based on previous comments I've read. I feel conflicted in this matter...I also feel like derailing his post like he's done to many of our other ones. :-D Yeah, I'm being childish...carry on.

 

[Handruin]

I would consider one just for the novelty of having something in one of the small PCI-e slots for a change as well as the reduced cable clutter.

Also, I would also like one just for the awesome IO abilities. Some of the photo editing and conversions would be fantastic with such a device. Also, the VMs I run would get a slight boost in performance. I'm not that desperate to get one even if I could afford it, though which begs the question if I'm not getting one, it must mean I don't make enough to just buy one and not think twice about it.

 

[CougTek]

Do you think your experiment with over 300 simultaneous VM would run smoothly on a volume of 4 or 5 Revo drive in RAID 5 (if such a thing is possible)? Or was your bottleneck on the CPU side in that case?

 

[Handruin]

Do you think your experiment with over 300 simultaneous VM would run smoothly on a volume of 4 or 5 Revo drive in RAID 5 (if such a thing is possible)? Or was your bottleneck on the CPU side in that case?

It would run a ton better with 4-5 Revo drives, even as JBOD. For now we ended up with 256 VMs @ 300MB RAM and a single vCPU and 3.4GB of disk consumption with Thin Disk provisioning enabled. In the begining with the first run of deployments, we had such severe IO problems that the average IO latency for reads was 1500ms and writes were closer to 2000ms (which is horrible considering we would normally see 6-15ms on average). We ended up scrapping that config and I worked to add another EMC VNX array to the infrastructure and carved out 25 new LUNs in JBOD (due to a lack of disks available to create raid-protected LUNS). I wanted to spread out the IO among many spindles rather than in a RAID 5 or RAID 0 config. Redundancy wasn't really needed because these VMs were expendable and could be rebuilt easily through a powershell script if a LUN/disk were to die. I worked it out to be close to 11 VMs per LUN in the end. Some VMs where located on 15K RPM FC disks the others were 7.2KRPM SATAII. The VMs stored on the FC disks were much better at responding to my discovery tool I wrote which goes out to ping and then poll WMI data to make sure it was alive. The tool returned the amount of time the polling would take so we knew the FC drives fared much better. If we had 4 or 5 Revo drives, it would be super fast. The CPUs are barely breaking a sweat, so I don't see them as a current bottleneck.

 

[CougTek]

How many PCIe 4X or more does your motherboard have and what kind of budget is at your disposal to make it work smoothly? What's the average size of VM you target? If the VM aren't too big, then it might be worth looking at replacing the 15Krpm drives with Revo drives. The Revo 3 Max IO particularly. It is not that expensive if your total storage space is relatively modest. If you need 100GB per VM, then it's an entirely different story.

 

[Handruin]

How many PCIe 4X or more does your motherboard have and what kind of budget is at your disposal to make it work smoothly? What's the average size of VM you target? If the VM aren't too big, then it might be worth looking at replacing the 15Krpm drives with Revo drives. The Revo 3 Max IO particularly. It is not that expensive if your total storage space is relatively modest. If you need 100GB per VM, then it's an entirely different story.

It's complicated to even consider a RevoDrive regardless of budget. For the majority of the machines, they're HP BL460c G1 and G6 blades which do not have your conventional 4x/8x/16x slots available due to the blade form factor and high dependency on the backplane. In our entire environment, those machines make up 15 out of 20 of our ESXi servers. The remaining 5 machines are Dell R710s which have 2x 8x and 2x 4x PCIe slots. Even if I could put in a few RevoDrives into the Dell R710s, the VMs would then be isolated to each of those machines with regards to having the vmotion ability. I setup the environment to allow for DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) which will move VMs from machine to machine to balance CPU and memory load demands automatically. Otherwise it becomes a management PITA because lab work is only a secondary item I volunteer to do and not my normal day job stuff. In order to use this feature, storage has to be shared among each server. This is typically easier to do with a SAN or iSCSI based storage and not DAS. I did recently learn of a solution through ddrueding's post regarding VMware implementations of a software approach to using local storage in a shared setup, but that's a complicated mess to add to our current SAN-based solution. In short, we would be better served by shelling out cash for SSD drives to be put into our array and then create LUNs from those.

For this special configuration our average VM size is about 3.4GB per VM with no expectation of growth. These are simply used for discovery. For the other VMs, we average more along the lines of 75-100GB for our test setups (and we have lots of them).

 

[LunarMist]

I don't think anyone would ever understand what's going on with his money. lol In one post there he is being frugal about not wanting to get a decent mobile plan and fights with awful VOIP via WiFi and picks a basic phone that breaks down. There's nothing wrong with being frugal. However, here we see an inquiry into the gluttony of all storage devices (no offense ddrueding) being applied to a person who likely won't even make use of it based on previous comments I've read. I feel conflicted in this matter...I also feel like derailing his post like he's done to many of our other ones. :-D Yeah, I'm being childish...carry on.

You are spot on. Even I don't have one because I have enough empirical data to demonstrate that the benefits are not much or anything compared upgrading or optimizing other parts of a system. The placebo effect may be worth it to him though.

 

[Clocker]

Also, I would also like one just for the awesome IO abilities. Some of the photo editing and conversions would be fantastic with such a device. Also, the VMs I run would get a slight boost in performance. I'm not that desperate to get one even if I could afford it, though which begs the question if I'm not getting one, it must mean I don't make enough to just buy one and not think twice about it.

Same boat. I would have to find a incredibly sweet deal to blow that kind of cash on that small amount of storage! At today's prices...no way. It's just not worth it unless you have a specific workload that would greatly benefit from the I/O capability.

 

[Santilli]

I'm wondering, given all their models, which ones actually MIGHT be worth considering. Some of the prices haven't really seemed to absurd lately, either.

I was also wondering how each of the different models worked, and real experiences. The reviews at newegg.com aren't exactly sterling on these drives.

For those of you that do, and have used them, what are your general observations, recommendations for which different models? etc.

 

[Santilli]

I guess the new ones support trim. Just watched a video with over a Gig a second using ATTO and about 630 MB/sec with Crystal Discmark.
Writes are faster then my setup, but, from the video's I've been watching, there doesn't seem to be much difference in speed from my current setup.

Other questions, come to mind. DD do you find the PCI e chipsets to limit these drives in anyway? Or, are the drives still the limitations?

 

[ddrueding]

I don't know how I would identify a PCIe bottleneck. I buy these drives because they are the last (even remotely sane) word in speed. Because of that I simply put them in and don't worry about it. On systems like those in my sig and my other recent creations there seem to be delays that can't be overcome with more hardware. Some things just take a moment regardless of CPU/RAM/HDD. BIOS POST, RAID card initialization, etc.

The rig I just built for my dad included the latest top-end socket 2011 i7, 64GB of RAM, and a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD. He reboots his system a lot, and the RAID initialization of the RevoDrive was adding considerably to the overall boot time, so we just went with the fastest SATA SSD we could find. Even so, some things just take longer than they should.

 

[Mercutio]

At this point the single thing that makes my SSD and i7 equipped everyday machines choke and die is still fucking Flash. I can run Handbrake encodes for days and leave City of Heroes open the whole time but if I leave a browser (any browser, mind you; I don't think browsers are the problem) open with a poorly made flash applet it will eventually fuck the machine over.

In day-to-day use I really don't notice any difference in responsiveness between an X25-E, an X25M, a pair of X25Ms in RAID0 and an OCZ Vertex3. The Intel 310-series in my notebook is subjectively slower, but I knew that when I bought it.

What is the application that's making you chase fractional seconds worth of improved performance?

 

[Santilli]

Trim.

It also fits into since I don't see fixing the server, I can sell off a bunch of stuff, and use the money to buy something to make the Beast faster, or more stable.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't think ladies like it when you call it that, Greg.

 

[ddrueding]

I don't think ladies like it when you call it that, Greg.

It could be a laptop..."say hello to my little friend..."

 

[LunarMist]

Trim.

It also fits into since I don't see fixing the server, I can sell off a bunch of stuff, and use the money to buy something to make the Beast faster, or more stable.

Get a modern CPU instead of the relatively anemic one you have and a modern board with native SATA 6GBps support. Buy a couple of Cherrydale SSDs and distribute the load properly to best effect. Add more RAM if your OS or apps can use it as a cache to improve performance. There are probably other things you could also do before buying a cheap RevoDrive, but somehow I doubt you are interested in reason.

 

[Santilli]

"Get a modern CPU instead of the relatively anemic one you have and a modern board with native SATA 6GBps support. Buy a couple of Cherrydale SSDs and distribute the load properly to best effect. Add more RAM if your OS or apps can use it as a cache to improve performance. There are probably other things you could also do before buying a cheap RevoDrive, but somehow I doubt you are interested in reason. "

Ahh, computer. a i7 940 is now an 'anemic' processor. New board? Might be worth a thought. I don't even know what a Cherrydale SSD is. Google is my friend. For some reason I thought 12 gig's of ram was alot. I guess if David is now putting 64 gigs in consumer machines....

"Cheap RevoDrive?" Isn't that the deja vu for oxymoron?

"Say hello to my little friend..." SO funny on so many different levels...

 

[Santilli]

Wow. I am so yesterday.

According to this, the X-25M really sucks...

 

[Chewy509]

Wow. I am so yesterday.

According to this, the X-25M really sucks...

The sad thing is, except for a few here, most of us have systems that "are so yesterday".

Case in point, my current primary box is C2Q-Q9400, 4GB RAM RegECC DDR2-800, 250GB 7200rpm, X38 chipset, nVidia Quadro FX580, which itself is "so yesterday" even compared to your box. However is plenty fast for my requirements.

And I know a few here are running even older hardware as their primary platform...

 

[Handruin]

"Get a modern CPU instead of the relatively anemic one you have and a modern board with native SATA 6GBps support. Buy a couple of Cherrydale SSDs and distribute the load properly to best effect. Add more RAM if your OS or apps can use it as a cache to improve performance. There are probably other things you could also do before buying a cheap RevoDrive, but somehow I doubt you are interested in reason. "

Ahh, computer. a i7 940 is now an 'anemic' processor. New board? Might be worth a thought. I don't even know what a Cherrydale SSD is. Google is my friend. For some reason I thought 12 gig's of ram was alot. I guess if David is now putting 64 gigs in consumer machines....

"Cheap RevoDrive?" Isn't that the deja vu for oxymoron?

"Say hello to my little friend..." SO funny on so many different levels...

Relatively speaking, the i7 940 is dated compared to what is available, but I wouldn't call it anemic. Reading between the lines, I think your consistent use of calling your machine a beast is only specific to you and when compared to what Lunar might run, your machine is possibly anemic.

Just because ddrueding is putting 64GB into his father's machine does not mean that this indicative of normal machines today. The common user won't even touch but a small fraction of that memory. Unless you can say how you're using your machine to use that kind of memory, it would be a waste. Adding more memory that goes unused won't make your machine faster. Feel free to spend your money to keep up with David or to have bragging rights, but unless you have a need, even your 12GB is fine. When was the last time you ran out of physical memory while using your PC?

 

[Handruin]

I guess the new ones support trim. Just watched a video with over a Gig a second using ATTO and about 630 MB/sec with Crystal Discmark.
Writes are faster then my setup, but, from the video's I've been watching, there doesn't seem to be much difference in speed from my current setup.

Other questions, come to mind. DD do you find the PCI e chipsets to limit these drives in anyway? Or, are the drives still the limitations?

I know you asked ddrueding, but...based on my logic that if you wanted to make the Revo look pokey, you could put a fusion IO Octal in your beast. Price aside, my point it that this PCIe-based SSD drive is capable of utilizing a 16x slot with 1,300,000 read IOps and 6.7 GB/s in read transfer and 3.9 GB/s in writes. You said you watched a video of a Revo that was over a GB/sec...this thing is more than six times that. That makes me believe that a PCIe bus is not the limiting factor in the RevoDrive's ability...it's OCZ that is the limiting factor.

This thing is truly The Beast!

 

[Mercutio]

Point of order: My gaming/main video encoding machine has 4GB RAM. Most of the time I'm only using about 2GB. I have twelve 4GB DDR3 DIMMs within arm's reach of this computer and I can't even be bothered to put them in. RAM only matters when you need more of it and anything more is just generating more heat that you have to get rid of.

 

[ddrueding]

I suppose I should clarify on that 64GB system. My dad is a developer, and regularly has an entire ecosystem of VMs running in the background on the same machine he is coding on. That is why he likes (not needs) 25% of his entire disk capacity as RAM.

 

[Handruin]

I suppose I should clarify on that 64GB system. My dad is a developer, and regularly has an entire ecosystem of VMs running in the background on the same machine he is coding on. That is why he likes (not needs) 25% of his entire disk capacity as RAM.

Hopefully Greg will listen to you. There is nothing wrong with him having 64GB when he wants to make his development work easier. This makes more sense to me than having 5-6 physical machines running, taking up space, and consuming a lot more power. I would do the same if I had a need for it also. This is not too different from Lunar buying very fast CPUs and disks to help him process his photos.

 

[CougTek]

I think the part Greg will understand is having 25% of his total disk space in RAM. I'm sure he has at least a terabyte drive so... Hey, 16 sticks aren't that expensive.

 

[Santilli]

Wow. Now Cherrydales use Sandforce controllers? WTF?

I am well aware of memory useage. I've got a CPU/Memory usage gauge on the desktop. Memory is around 20%, all the time. CPU useage only starts playing a movie, and still not much. Only thing that really gets it going is the Folding@home using all the processors. 100%, and I can still watch a movie, and do anything else. In fact, it seems faster when the FAH is going, in all other aspects.

What's really odd is using a fairly decent drive on both laptops, I get excellent performance, thanks to Panasonic tuning windows and drivers for the CF-51 series, and tuning the OS. I notice a slight drop, maybe half from 40-50 MB/sec when transfering files from the Xeons to a laptop, the laptop runs around 20 MB/sec, or slightly slower. Still for downloading stuff, it's fast enough, and Utorrent will do 6 MB/sec when pushed. CPU is pushed a bit, but, no reason to build another box, or buy another laptop to replace it.

Last time I got near using all my physical memory was playing around with Virtual Machines, and I think I got up around 9 Gigs used. Don't do that much, no need.

Handruin: Most of my comments were VERY sarcastic, as is the one about DDruedings' Dad's machine being a 'consumer machine'. ;-)

From what I can tell, following David isn't a bad idea. With a little bit of tailoring, the stuff he picks seems to work, and be well researched.

Handy: that card looks like it has 8 cylinders, a CPU, and about 4 SSD's on it. Reminds me of that 1200 horsepower, 260 plus street car someone is making for 1.2 million dollars. Of course if you have the money for 12 of those cards, you can buy this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKCvVbqPhp0

 

[Handruin]

Handy: that card looks like it has 8 cylinders, a CPU, and about 4 SSD's on it. Reminds me of that 1200 horsepower, 260 plus street car someone is making for 1.2 million dollars. Of course if you have the money for 12 of those cards, you can buy this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKCvVbqPhp0

Literally, if you had the money for 12 of those smaller cards (the 5TB, not the 10TB), they are estimated at a whopping $99,995.00 each!!!

 

[Santilli]

I know. I was thinking that those are cylinders, for that price;-)
Who knows, it might even take 2 seconds off 7's boot time...

 

[BingBangBop]

Who knows, it might even take 2 seconds off 7's boot time...

Just install Windows 8 ;-), It certainly will shave 2 seconds off the boot time and save a boat-load of money.

You are is the first person, I can justify recommending Win8 to...

 

[LunarMist]

Just install Windows 8 ;-), It certainly will shave 2 seconds off the boot time and save a boat-load of money.

You are is the first person, I can justify recommending Win8 to...

:rotfl: :rofl:

 

[Santilli]

Just went with a no gui boot. That's shaving two seconds off the boot time. A bit cheaper then Handurin's card.

 

[Handruin]

Just went with a no gui boot. That's shaving two seconds off the boot time. A bit cheaper then Handurin's card.

Install Server 2008 Core...that'll get you a few more seconds.

 

[Mercutio]

If he actually does it all his support questions are on you, Handy.