Consumer - HD/CD/DVD/Flash

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

bchiu — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:01:07 GMT

I guess it does help a little with RAID0 eh..

However you can see my graph is not a jig-saw, even tho we are using exact same on-board Nvidia RAID and two Intel X25-M 80G. Not sure why..??

http://forums.ncix.com/forums/index.php?mode=showthread&msg_id=2037124&threadid=2037124&forum=103&product_id=33277&msgcount=0&overclockid=0#msg2037124

Re: RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Der Meister — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:17:19 GMT

I wonder what the life on the SSD's will be? I red a review on how they think to test it but they dont know for sure yet. Anyways I am going to get one for my OS on my next PC

Re: RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Super Dave — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:47:15 GMT

So in my situation with a RAID-0 array with platter hard drives (no SSD), would it be the Silicon Image controller that induces the saw-tooth patern?

Re: RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

bob_on_the_cob — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:01:08 GMT

So I was doing some reading and read that the saw tooth performance is because of the controller on most SSDs and that someone had a controller that fixed that issue. can't remember now were I read that? Something to look into at least. IDK.

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Dave_HH — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:46:30 GMT

Boss, that's being done by some SSD manufacturers right now actually. :)

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

bossman068410 — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:29:49 GMT

This might be a moronic question...

I count 10 chips on the Drive.

Why can't they raid those chips internally?

Increase the speed maybe 8 times the current speed?

I always wondered why it took them so long to put multiple processors on one cpu.......

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Dave_HH — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:26:25 GMT

Shadow,

Interesting commentary here on future architectures for SSDs. So remove the SATA interface all together, integrate the Flash memory controller on the motherboard or CPU and just let 'er rip from there? There's a whole lot of protocol, error checking etc that would get left behind without SATA. What about RAID arrays? Something needs to understand RAID commands too. You see where I'm going.

This is an interesting concept regardless, if only feasible for simple, single drive desktop or workstation applications.

And welcome to HH!

Re: RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

bob_on_the_cob — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:27:48 GMT

Yeah it will be intresting to see if the keep the same hard drive format. Its kind a waste of space.

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

shadowmaster625 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:50:54 GMT

Looks fast! And it also unfortunately looks like a great way for intel to sell SSD controllers. What we really need is for Intel and/or AMD to start thinking intelligently about SSDs.

AMD and Intel need to agree on a standard for an integrated SSD controller. And then create a new open standard for a Flash SSD DIMM socket.

Then I could buy a 32 or 64 GB SSD DIMM and plug it into a socket next to my RAM, and have a SUPER-FAST hard drive. Imagine a SSD DIMM that costs $50 and puts out even better numbers than the Fusion-IO! With economy of scale, it would only cost a few dollers per CPU and a few dollars more for the motherboard. But the performance would shatter the current paradigm.

The cost of the DIMMs would be low because there would be no expensive controller on the module, like there is now with flash SSDs. And that is how it should be! There is NO need for a controller on a memory module! How we ended up taking this convoluted route baffles me. It is a fatally flawed design that is always going to be bottlenecked by the SATA interface, no matter how fast it is. The SSD MUST have a direct link to the CPU in order to unleash its true performance potential.

This would increase performance so much that if VIA did this with their Nano CPU, they would have an end product that outperforms even Nehalem in real-world everyday PC usage. If you dont believe me, you need to check out the Fusion-IO. With SSD controller integration, you can have Fusion-IO level performance for dirt cheap.

If you understand what I am talking about here, and can see that this is truly the way to go with SSDs, then you need to help get the word to AMD and Intel. Whoever does it first is going to make a killing. I'd prefer it to be AMD at this point but it just needs to get done.

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

zewtastic — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:59:18 GMT

Here are the results from Velociraptor Raid 0.

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

ice_73 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:50:39 GMT

just thought id mention to you guys you made engadget.

Re: RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Super Dave — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:26:38 GMT

kris2lee:

Anyway, this saw-toothed performance seams to be something unique to SSD's. Tooth in my graph are different still - there is more of them, about 30.

That saw-tooth pattern presented itself when I built an experimental RAID array using a couple of old WD 80Gig IDE hard drives with a Silicon Image RAID card, so I don't believe it is unique to SSD's (perhaps to RAID)! Take a look:

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Dave_HH — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:23:27 GMT

I think the big peaks and valleys are a result of high erase/re-write latency of MLC flash. You don't see that with SLC actually. And welcome to HH kris2lee.

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

kris2lee — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:24:07 GMT

Very nice! I just got two Super Talent OX 32 GB drives. Haven't been able to test them in RAID 0 configuration because I can not boot into Vista (64) when I configure RAID from BIOS, even when my system is on separate hard drive.

Anyway, this saw-toothed performance seams to be something unique to SSD's. Tooth in my graph are different still - there is more of them, about 30.

Minimum transfer rate of single drive by HD Tune was 108.1 MB/sec, maximum is 146 MB/sec, average was 132.1 MB/sec.

Access time was 0.2 ms and burst rate was 148.6 MB/sec.

I also did write speed test by coping large file from one SSD to another one and average was around 75-80 MB/sec in Vista. This is my estimate, it started on quiet high level like 100 MB/sec and went down from there to 70 MB/sec for 10 GB file. Not really accurate but will give some idea.

In Europe you can get one for about 100 euro that will make about 3,125 euro for gigabyte. Intel X18-M 80 GB will cost about twice per gigabyte.

RE: Intel SSDs RAID 0, A Case Study In Speed, Take 2

Dave_HH — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:28:09 GMT

Yep, simple on-board NVIDIA SATA off the Southbridge in RAID 0. Not sure exactly what's up with the saw-tooth pattern actually. Have to play with things a bit more...