SSDs - State of the Product?

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
Currently my Raid 0 throughput is 150 mb/sec or so.

I'd like something that is a noticeable increase. Two drives are a bit smaller then I would like, but, doable.

I'm going to try that first.

An X25-E would be a noticeable increase without a need for RAID 0. What are you using now, some JMicron wonder?
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
An X25-E would be a noticeable increase without a need for RAID 0. What are you using now, some JMicron wonder?

I've been getting 150 mb/sec for about 3 years now, thanks to two Seagate 15k cheetahs,,IIRC.

I found the two drives to be the fastest access wise, and through put wise, perception wise.

In other words, 4 drives had faster throughput, but, what felt like hesitation compared to two.

Two of the the Vertex Turbos is around 400 mb/sec, IIRC. With the access time increase, that should be a VERY noticeable increase in speed.

When you use a 3 Ware Sata Raid card, does it require a windows driver on installation, like the scsi cards, on floppy?

I've been looking at, and downloaded the 9500S driver software, but, they don't seem to have a dedicated driver like the other OS for Windows 32 bit...

HMMMM. 240 for 64 gigs of Turbo Vertex, vs. 383 dollars for ONE X25E 32 gig. THAT is a no brainer...
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,723
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Vista and 7 have a bunch of RAID card drivers already integrated. Can't speak to that exact one, but many work without disks. Even if they aren't supported automatically, you now have the option of putting the drivers on a USB thumbdrive or CD. Floppy not required.
 

Pradeep

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
3,845
Location
Runny glass
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18243

"Just over a month ago, Micron announced a new family of solid-state drives featuring 34-nm NAND flash memory and native 6Gbps Serial ATA interfaces. Today, Micron says it plans to start selling the drives under the Crucial brand via its subsidiary Lexar Media in February.

The Crucial-branded drives will also be called RealSSD C300, and Lexar will offer them with a 2.5" form factor and capacities of 128GB and 256GB. If the specs Micron quoted last month hold true, users can look forward to top speeds of 355MB/s when reading and 215MB/s when writing. The drives will work with both 6Gbps and 3Gbps SATA controllers, although the latter shouldn't let you get past 300MB/s."

Seems like the next fastest thing coming down the path.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
I've been getting 150 mb/sec for about 3 years now, thanks to two Seagate 15k cheetahs,,IIRC.

I found the two drives to be the fastest access wise, and through put wise, perception wise.

In other words, 4 drives had faster throughput, but, what felt like hesitation compared to two.

Two of the the Vertex Turbos is around 400 mb/sec, IIRC. With the access time increase, that should be a VERY noticeable increase in speed.

When you use a 3 Ware Sata Raid card, does it require a windows driver on installation, like the scsi cards, on floppy?

I've been looking at, and downloaded the 9500S driver software, but, they don't seem to have a dedicated driver like the other OS for Windows 32 bit...

HMMMM. 240 for 64 gigs of Turbo Vertex, vs. 383 dollars for ONE X25E 32 gig. THAT is a no brainer...


OMG, I thought you had some sort of SSD setup by now. STR is so 1990s. IOPs is all the rage. Do yourself a favor. Just buy one of the Vortex drives and see the difference. Two is better than one, but I question that more will help much in your antiquated system. I'd put the money into new MB/CPU/RAM.
 

MaxBurn

Storage Is My Life
Joined
Jan 20, 2004
Messages
3,245
Location
SC
It sure wouldn't take much to epoxy coat the board, that might be what they did on those drives.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
What kind of idiot plays baseball with a drive? That would certainly be classified as abuse and void the warranty. SSDs can easily fail due to crappy controllers or defective flash memory, etc. Impact failure mode is hardly a concern.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
We've been trying to tell him that for about the last 500 posts.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
So far, not all that impressed. Pretty snappy, but STR are slow: 100 mb/sec.

Probably the controller. Stuff opens quickly, but boot time is a little longer.

Writes are terrible.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
There is no onboard SATA controller. SCSI based system. The drives are too small to boot from off the other SATA card on the machine. Thought of putting one in the other HTPC, but, it's again, really too small to boot from. Guess I could use them on that machine, with the Raid setup, provided it has one.

Either another SCSI raid card, which is probably going to be about as expensive as a new CPU.

Want to upgrade, and sell me your current setup?
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
ATTO on the SCSI raid is Writes between 130 mb/sec and 100 mb/sec.
Reads 130 to 133 mb/sec.

SSD's are running 15 mb/sec to 20 mb/sec writes, and, 98 to 120 mb/sec Reads.

HDtach is running SSD's at 60-105 mb/sec, Random Access 0.1 ms.

SCSI 80-120 mb/sec, with 6.0 ms.

The write speed is REALLY noticeable when I'm installing software...
 

Striker

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Messages
269
Santilli, do you benchmark your stuff before you really start using it? I'm wondering if some of your impressions of performance are skewed by your preconceptions based on benchmarks and what you think is important.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
Santilli, do you benchmark your stuff before you really start using it? I'm wondering if some of your impressions of performance are skewed by your preconceptions based on benchmarks and what you think is important.

He is always that way. :) I think something is truly wrong with the SSD setup. Even a cheap PCIe 1x card with two SATA ports should be up to ~270 MB/sec. in bandwidth. Atto is sequential and should be limited by the drive.
 

Stereodude

Not really a
Joined
Jan 22, 2002
Messages
10,865
Location
Michigan
Here's a perfect example:



You gain a lot with even a single SSD (because of a the lower access time). You don't gain a lot by going RAID vs a single drive (because STR isn't nearly as important).
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
I wanted a decent size boot drive, that's why I raided the two, and, I figured they would
be faster, and, at a good price point.That hasn't changed. I probably made a mistake not enabling 'write through' or write enabling... I'm sure it would have increased write speeds.

One of the cards is probably slowing the bus down.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
Did you try one empty drive first, rather than in RAID 0 or with the OS on it?
 

Pradeep

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
3,845
Location
Runny glass
Greg, the poor performance would be due to the sata pci controller card. IIRC this is on 32 bit pci at 33 MHz, 100 MB/sec is the best one could expect from it.
 
Last edited:

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/E7505/X5DA8.cf
PCI Expansion
• 1x 64-bit 133/100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slot
• 2x 64-bit 100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slots
• 2x 32-bit 33MHz PCI-X (5V) slots

I've got the 9500S in the 64 bit slot, but, it still isn't very fast. The other slots are the 320 Megaraid card and the SATA SI3112 that connects the removable drives.

The SCSI card is faster, so, I think it's either a combination of the cards on the bus, or that card. I found some VERY good numbers for the 9500-8 before buying it, like 600 MB/sec with 8 drives.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,478
Location
USA
I don't think it is realistic to assume that mixtures of very old, old, and contemporary hardware will work well together. For troubleshooting purposes, you should simplify the system to one boot drive (preferably onboard port) and a single SSD on the questionable controller.
 
Top