Areca 1880

[Computurd]

Finally! some stats inbound...
one ARC-1880IX-12 with a 4GB memory stick, which hopefully works...:up:
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2515-58-44032.jpg

[Computurd]

Well... the ram linked from newegg will not work..I will do some more looking into that, maybe there is a procedure to reset the card after the ram installation?
reinstalled the 1gb stick, i have a different 4gb stick that meets the manufacturers specs in tomorrow, so we shall test that.
initial impressions:
*Its HUGE!!!! Much larger than the lsi series, used to the 9260 and 9211 this thing is a monster by comparison, there are pics of it next to the 9260 below, the 9260 being the card next to it with the red cables going in.
*It runs much hotter....i mean alot hotter than the LSI...and i dont have any devices connected to it yet, but it is a furnace, fans will be a 24/7 requirement for sure. Just one of the HS is twice as hot as the 9260, and they are both cooking! and also, are the ROC lsi2108 on these cards clocked higher? the heatsinks are much larger, so they could handle more heat, they have no problem dissipating it, thats for sure. :)
*Card initialization is a shocker, only 9 seconds, of course this is without any devices, but i shall post a comparison timing soon. regardless, that is good.
*pics follow for some eye-candy/9260 comparison...gonna have to SE the 'ol barefoots and then get em on the card, then im just an image away from some numbers!
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2516-32-22712.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2516-32-06846.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2516-31-38820.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2516-31-56638.jpg

[Computurd]

reserved

[Nizzen]

Nice Computurd!

*High five!*

First I am testing 1 gb memory, then I am testing the orginal Arc 4gb memory that is a few days away.

I hope we can compare results here! I testing 8 c300. But I have 2 more to test if it is not enough. 10+ intel 160gb is going to be tested as well. Next week Hitachi 2tb drives arrives :up:

Right now the 1880 is on a torture IOMETER runs :D

My test setup :p:

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp219/Nizzen/345.jpg

[Anvil]

Thanks for the images and info Computurd,

I guess I'll need to get a fan for that thing, my 9260s aren't generating much heat at all, I've got a 8cm fan (low rpm) directed at both of them just in case.

@Nizzen,

Didn't notice your image :)
Your table-fan looks just like the one I'm using.

[Nizzen]

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp219/Nizzen/CDM8xc3002GBtest64kstripe.png

CDM 2gb testfile 64k stripe 8xc300.

I want it faster :(

[Wintel64]

Hi Computurd,

Will you remove the heatsink to confirm the ROC is LSI2108?

[Nizzen]

Hi Computurd,

Will you remove the heatsink to confirm the ROC is LSI2108?

It is pcp 440 on steroids :up:

[Wintel64]

It is pcp 440 on steroids :up:

Like this?

http://bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/storage/LSI_3Ware_9750-4i/12L.jpg

[Computurd]

nice pic, i have no tim! the only thing i have right nw is IC Diamond and i definitely do not want to use that. going to order some MX-2, but I am confident it is, as Areca representative has verified it to me personally, via email:)
@nizzen-Awesome! just fantastic! those c300's make my eyes water...unfortunately my old vertex gen 1 wont hold a candle to that insane setup! I have had so many rigs look like that :) gotta love it!
Putting array on now, had some housekeeping to do (image, etc) and some SE on the barefoots, so my numbers will be in soon.
I am eyeing the ports on this card right now, if in fact they are running a variant of the LSI firmware for the card, it might be possible to use the fastpath key with it. I know the LSI key works with intels, and vice versa, so....logic would dictate...but is areca gonna use fastpath-type device?
but i do have a feeling that this is a different architecture entirely, which will be interesting, an areca 'spin' on the already-learned lessons from the LSI corp firmwares/drivers. Knowing how areca likes to cater to the enthusiast crowd, and LSI likes to literally push them and their motherboards away, this could prove very interesting. I am sure to bore you with some LSI v. Areca numbers soon :)

EDIT: going to email areca again and double verify the ROC, their reply did leave it between two controllers, but sure its 2108 as the 2116 appears to be a external controller. maybe thats the port multiplier hiding behind heatsink number 2? (mystery guest?) here is their previous reply:


We use the PPC architecture ROC-From LSI 2108 and 2116.
Areca has well experienced the external RAID controller ARC-8060 from AMCC 440SP PPC SOC since 2007.

[Anvil]

How about a few screenshots of the management software?

[Computurd]

Bios or the Archttp?

[Computurd]

@Nizzen---I have studied the routing on the PCB of the card, and it appears the primary ROC is the chip to the rear of the card, and the bottom three connectors on the rear of the card go directly to that chip. the rest of the connectors are routed to the forward chip, which i assume is the expander. Since the only three on my card are routed to the rear chip, i am assuming it is the primary ROC> I just happened to notice that your drives were connected to the top connectors, so if they are going through the expander i would assume some latency, no matter how finite , would be added? just for grins you might try using the bottom three ports on the rear of your card to see if there is any difference?

EDIT: i couldn't be more wrong, turns out the roc is the rear chip near the bracket..so big question..why do they route everything through the expander when it is only three port card?

[Anvil]

Bios or the Archttp?

Just something showing VD settings/options would be fine :)

[Computurd]

I will post soon, se drives, and i have been tracking my drive usage for last year with SMART data and est drive life, so i am documenting each drive real quick before i move to testing.

in other news...

Hi,

ARC-1880ixl is using others using 2108.
You just uplug the 1GB register DIMM module and plug-in 4GB DIMM module.
No BIOS setting is required.


Regards
Billion Wu

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2522-26-03560.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2522-24-45492.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-2520-51-28372.jpg

[eva2000]

Thanks for the info and photo comparisons - that's one huge card compared to LSI 9260! Got a thermal probe/infra-red thermometer to read how hot it actually is on Areca ? I'm tempted by 1880ix-12 as well (~AUD$1155 or US$1033) but didn't realise how hot it is! Other choice is LSI 9260-16i

Curious are the LSI 9260-8i sata cables interchangeable on Areca ?

Already have the ssds ready (http://i4memory.com/f9/12x-60gb-gskill-phoenix-pro-ssd-house-25221/) :D

looking forward to your updates :)

[SteveRo]

@ mr eva, wow, 12x SF drives! Nice to see you're like me, all or nothing! :clap:

edit - regarding the cables - interchangability - if the LSI cables are fanout to sata then yes they should work.
I use highpoint fanouts for both LSI and areca controllers.
also FYI - in the past - areca has sent a complete set of cables with all of their cards also. :yepp:

wow, 12x SSDs! - you and Mr mbreslin! all or nothing. :clap:

[Hakker]

I saving to get me a 1880-24 myself for my new fileserver :D

[Nizzen]

Computurd:

No benchmarks yet?

Some ATTO "luvin"

Atto: 8x c300 r0


CDM 8x c300 r5 :D This array took about 10 minutes to create in foreground!

Looks like I got into a 17-1800MB cap. I testing further...

[Computurd]

nah not yet :( 14 hour day at work today so....now i get to my real work ;0

someone above asked if there is support for 2tb drives, there is, but there are caveat to the types of drives etc. i know you can use the new ones with 4k sectors, but there are conditions to that, there is info at their site on it in the areca manual.

@eva it certainly wouldnt be anythin to keep me from buying or using the card (the heat)

tbh my initial impressions of the card are a little...well...let down? it isnt giving the performance or the latencies that i was getting with the LSI, but that is with cursory examination, and i also have had a random reboot on rock-solid settings, which NEVER has happened with LSi, to early to call it based on that of course, could be a fluke or something. this early, with only playing on it basically, gives me bad vibes. maybe bad install is giving me these strange results, but right now it is flying like a brick compared to the 9260 with fastpath. however, i am sure the install is good because i did a fresh install, Acronis doesnt recognize the controller so it wont restore images to the array unless i use it from an OS, the boot disk isnt allowing it. I am sure there is a way to load the driver, but i have never had to do that with acronis, so i will have to do some learning on that.
latency measured with Everest is .10. need to experiment more though with different settings. i know that read aheads/etc affect these things. got some testing to do...9260 is .08
do not take this as some type of negative comment on performance, it is too early to quantify anything, and also it is apparent they are using their own firmware/drivers etc, so they may need time to mature/develop. the thing is though, honestly, the 9260 is already there...
the memory stick from memoryten didnt work either so that is a BIG GAH!!!!! gonna have some RMA'ing to do. need a solid link on some ram that works with this thing, emailed areca to see if they can give me a link to something specifically. I do not want to order the ram used for their older cards though, it doesnt run at the speed of the ram on the card right now, it is slower.

also gonna :banana::banana::banana::banana: around with the settings a bit, try the different drivers, and maybe reflash firmware, anything....

[Johnny87au]

sorry about the other post in your other thread hehe didnt realise u made a thread, Cant wait for benchmarks mate, i wonder whos gonna be the title holder after everyone gets their hands on the areca controller, unfortunately for me i cant dish this kinda cash out, even the 9260 is quite expensive here.. Might actually go with the 9260 after reading its no wear near as hot as the areca cards... Sub'd anyhow :)

[Anvil]

Computurd,

Nizzen seem to struggle a bit as well, it's early days yet though.

The results he got using the single drive were great, not sure why 8 drives are sort of underperforming.

How does Areca compare to LSI on the frequency of FW updates?.

[Computurd]

to my knowledge, in the past arecas firmwares/drivers etc are not very frequent. others might chime in here. on the other hand, LSI issues new firmware/drivers all the time, over the last year that the 9260 has came out there have been 7 firmwares for the card, that is not counting driver changes. I am curious, it seems they are using the same firmwares, etc for this as other (older) controllers which makes me wonder...
still the main attraction is cache. it doesnt put up fastpath numbers with random 4k, but they are close, and (it seems) you do not have to sacrifice your write performance to get them. I will post some more detailed results very soon.

[Sandon]

Ive seen LSI release firmwares quite a bit back before the 1680ix came out and a bit after but it has slowed recently. Might speed up again with the 1880 release.

[Anvil]

I expect there could be a few quick updates from Areca, this being a new controller.

Looking forward to some benchmarks Computurd,

Nizzen is about to test a load of Intels :D

[Nizzen]

I expect there could be a few quick updates from Areca, this being a new controller.

Looking forward to some benchmarks Computurd,

Nizzen is about to test a load of Intels :D

:bounces:

[eva2000]

woah 10x 160GB G2 = 1600GB nice :D

[Computurd]

Yes, I expect the areca line to mature, of course. And with its benefit of cache it might be the go-to card in the future.

having so many problems getting the ram it is ridiculous. The kingston ram they linked ( KVR800D2D8P6/4G ) is discontinued. NO ebay doesnt have it either:(

Had to call Unigen American office directly in order to find the other part that their tech support recommends (UG51T7200N8DR-8CC). it will cost 350 and have a 2-3 week lead time(have to ship from taiwan for christ sakes). I could also have a custom module made by memoryten manufacturer meeting the specifications for 250 usd with lead time of five days (but no guarantees on if it works there)...hmm.
any other ideas guys? seems they didnt have much planning in regards to this ram. the older ram runs at 667 and if i am going to buy ANY ram for this it will be 4gb and run at the max 800mhz. the 2gb sticks are everywhere, but :banana::banana::banana::banana: that.

need some memory gurus to weigh in here....seriously im struggling!

the spec is:
512M x 72-bit 4GB (4096MB) DDR2-800 CL6 SDRAM
(Synchronous DRAM) "dual rank" Registered w/Parity memory module. The
components on
this module include eighteen 256M x 8-bit DDR2-800 SDRAM in FBGA packages.
This 240-
pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.8V

it MUST be x8 or x16... (18 IC only is what is making it hard to find a
replacement.)

my impatience is not making this easy...

[Biker]

Impatience is a virtue.... because we all need to see results! :D

4G stick of goodness here (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139084) :up:

Edit: Datasheet (http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR800D2D4P6_4G.pdf)

[Computurd]

I have that stick on my desk, along with another stick of ram that is also supposedly compatible. neither are. they physically have to many IC even though it isnt listed that way.


12M x 72-bit 4GB (4096MB) DDR2-800 CL6 SDRAM
(Synchronous DRAM) "dual rank" Registered w/Parity memory module. The
components on
this module include eighteen 256M x 8-bitDDR2-800 SDRAM in FBGA packages.
This 240-
pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.8V

it MUST be x8 or x16... (18 IC only is what is making it hard to find a
replacement.)

[Biker]

I thought the extra chip (9 vs 8 or 18 vs 16) was the parity chip so the controller would only see 8 or 16 chips. The additional 1 or 2 parity chips should be invisible to it.

Have you tried this (http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR800D2E6_4G.pdf) one? (18 chip).

[Computurd]

no it is that the linked chips (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139084) actually physically have 36 chips...even though they arent listed as such.

i will run this by the areca tech support, and let you know as soon as i receive a response! thanks!

EDIT: i think that the difference is this one is not 'registered with parity'...so i am not sure if it will work...

[Biker]

I can assure you the above linked part is an 4GB 18 chip DDR2-800 ECC CL6 stick ;)

The extra 2 chips are the parity chips...

KVR800D2E6/4G (http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/PartsInfo.asp?root=uk&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com/ukroot&ktcpartno=KVR800D2E6/4G)

[Computurd]

Thank you biker, for your guidance with the ram, i have sent an email to areca about that stick, and will hopefully receive a reply back soon. it troubles me they would link an discontinued stick. hopefully this will help to remedy the situation...
with two failed attempts though i need to check better :)

Now, back to the show with some real results for once.
Kinda receiving some strange results here. Some of these 4k results seem a little to good to be true so i did some things to try to make them as accurate as possible..logged off and ran GC for a few hours...
*one worker
*4GB test file, four times larger than the cache
*turned off hdd read ahead
*turned off volume read ahead
*enabled write-thru cache to eliminate cache usage (even though it is for writes, just trying to take cache totally out of the equation.

Now, i ran this 4k profile with a 5second ramp, two minute run, mainly because that is how i ran my fastpath benches earlier.
a thing of note here: even though i shut off cache, and read ahead, on the QD1-3 the number would start low, then slowly climb over the course of the two minute run. for instance QD started at 30 then climbed steadily to its final result.
not sure why, with all the precautions taken to eliminate caching and read ahead. over those lower QD though, the mb/s would not stray more than 2 or 3 during the run for all other higher QD.

the LSI 9260-8i with FastPath is on the left, the Areca 1880IX-12 is on the right.
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/1880v9260.png



Some conclusions (wild speculations, etc, in italics :rolleyes: ) regarding this....

unless my array is degrading faster than any array I have ever seen, as i only wrote one 4gb testfile, then ran the reads concurrently without stopping....or there is something strange going on here.
seems at the higher QD the controller hits a 'hole' of sorts at the higher QD.
there is a point of diminishing returns very quickly. I will let my drives GC overnight, then run the higher QD in the morning again to try to rule that possibility out of the equation. If the preliminary analysis holds true, then this is something that might be addressed in future firmware revisions, etc.

Now, would it need to be? the low QD is so superb, that for OS usage it looks to be ridiculously powerful! any high QD situations should be rare indeed, as with the latencies involved there would be resolved very very quickly. of course server use would suffer...but man the low QD is good.

I think this high QD 'hole' is what is leading to some less-than-spectacular results with the as ssd, CDM, etc. have ran some cursory PCMV with this array, and i am easily getting within 1k points of my highest, and that is with only 4.2 setting and none of my real tricks :) I am leveraging cache a bit, but hey..:shrug: once i get some ram i will go to battle stations :cool:

the difference in the low QD latency is astounding. I would love to see gullars compare that to the latencies involved with the 9260 for his QOS numbers...
going to load some games up, let the gc do its thing, and do some load testing in the AM. havent set it up yet in soft-raid, but dont really care to. i wouldnt use it for soft raid, ever. However, seeing some of mr nizzen's fantastic results i might do it. he has hit .05 latency when measured with everest in pass thru mode.
Some of my initial qualms have been allayed a bit...array seems to be working well, and these results are encouraging. also gonna do some 4k sequential and see what we get.
An unfortunate downside of the 9260-8i with fastpath is that it hurts write speeds tremendously, because you have to run write-thru. Even when i have made my best PCMV runs, i have to do it in write back with the 9260. it just penalizes too much for slow writes on the benchmark. FastPath does deliver a tremendous boost with write back enabled, but you do not see the true potential of the awesome reads, you still leave about 30 percent on the table with write back enabled.
early indications is this is not a flaw that the areca suffers. so has areca struck a middle ground here? or hit a home run? if you enable read ahead etc...the game changes a bit, so i will try to explore that a bit as well...the sequentials benefit tremendously more (with read ahead) than they do with the LSI, arecas read ahead algorithms are just flat out better imo.

[Nizzen]

Can you send med the 4k iometer testfile? Then I can compare with youre results :)

Looks like it is UG51T7200N8DR-8CC 4gb memory we have to rely on for now :(

On my Areca 1680ix I have Supertalent memory :)

[Anvil]

Interesting results Computurd

Quite a boost on the Areca up to QD16.

From ~QD24 upwards it resembles what I saw in Nizzens iometer test.
Your drives are capable of ~15-16K 4K read iops each and so in theory one should be able to pull 120-130.000 iops using 8 Vertex.

Looks like mine will be delivered early next week. (monday-tuesday)
Kind of worried about the heat situ, my setup is hardly audible atm, not looking for more noise.


@Nizzen

Just run the test manually, there is no single config script for those exact QDs.

[Wintel64]

When the BBU for ARC-1880 will become available?

[Computurd]

thinking of doing a soft raid with the 9260 and the 1880..would be interesting..

[Sandon]

When the BBU for ARC-1880 will become available?

Pretty much all areca cards use the same BBU. They look like this:

http://box.houkouonchi.jp/bbu/DSC_2050-small.JPG (http://box.houkouonchi.jp/bbu/DSC_2050.JPG)

They are ARC-6120 and looking at the connector on the ARC-1880 in pictures I am sure it uses the same as well.

I cant find anything on their site that says this for sure but I would be amazed if it used something different.

[SteveRo]

newegg is showing the 24 and 16 port but not the 12 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151072&cm_re=areca-_-16-151-072-_-Product

[Computurd]

excellent find steve- wonder if they will have memory for it :ROTF:
i did find one retailer with the recommended 4gb module, for 420 bucks. ouch. went halfway and ordered a guaranteed compatible stick (kingston KVR800D2D8P6/2G) for 60 dollars. same brand, half the size, but seven times cheaper. unbelievable, i feel like im being price gouged, as they are impossible to find. so i wont do it. no :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing way. i have ordered from unigen directly, and while the lead time is long, i am doing it on principle :p:
so steve-o my man...you seem noticeably absent from the 1880 party, you gonna join?
my results are super late but RLS is hampering me...

@Biker, i have recieved a reply from areca on the stick you linked, they say it is no good as it isnt registered :( they are full of ideas on ram that WONT work, but none when it comes to ram that will work.

[Nitrobass24]

Not a memory expert but this looks like it would work.
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1686647&cm_mmc=ShoppingFeeds-_-GoogleBase-_-Memory/System%20Components-_-1686647_Crucial%20memory%20-%204%20GB%20-%20DIMM%20240-pin%20-%20DDR2_CTN-CT51272AB80E

[Computurd]

unfortunately it is a 512 x 72 , and compatible ram has to be 256x8. I am not a memory expert either, but i have contacted several people who are (tech support at memory suppliers) and they say it is pretty much limited to one part, which is discontinued. Unigen is going to supply areca with the neccesary chips, but there is a bit of a wait for them to get to market (eta:unknown). I will just live with the 2gb, even though there are tons of 667mhz chips which would work i just really insist upon 800mhz! I am semi-content to wait...

[Computurd]

Interesting tid-bit...Much like the 92xx series this card isn't allowing PCI-E overclocking, at least not to much of an extent. the max that it will boot at is 105. the max i have gotten the 92xx series up to is 107. anything other than that it isnt showing up to the bios. There is, of course, a slight possibility that this is a symptom of the motherboard, but i havent heard of classifieds having any serious pci-e overclocking issues. I assume it is some sort of self-protection? can anyone else with the card try to bump the pci-e up?

[eva2000]

excellent find steve- wonder if they will have memory for it :ROTF:
i did find one retailer with the recommended 4gb module, for 420 bucks. ouch. went halfway and ordered a guaranteed compatible stick (kingston KVR800D2D8P6/2G) for 60 dollars. same brand, half the size, but seven times cheaper. unbelievable, i feel like im being price gouged, as they are impossible to find. so i wont do it. no :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing way. i have ordered from unigen directly, and while the lead time is long, i am doing it on principle :p:
so steve-o my man...you seem noticeably absent from the 1880 party, you gonna join?
my results are super late but RLS is hampering me...

@Biker, i have recieved a reply from areca on the stick you linked, they say it is no good as it isnt registered :( they are full of ideas on ram that WONT work, but none when it comes to ram that will work.
bit silly to design the cache to not accept a wider variety of modules!

[Computurd]

yes, there is not a very large selection of ram meeting their specifications on the market at this point. They are basically contracting with Unigen to expand that availability, unfortunately that is in the beginning stages, but soon the modules will be available for us. bit of a wait, unfortunately. there are plenty of modules available for the 2GB size, but it is 4GB that is the problem.

I have built a bit of a rapport with one of their support techs, and i will say this, their tech support is stellar. they are friendly and helpful, and have helped me to explore some possibilities. I have been ignored by some manufacturers once they find out about the non-server motherboard, non-supported drives, etc. That can be frustrating as they then basically blow you off.
So, Areca's willingness to help is nice. Even though the ram issue is frustrating, it takes a bit of the sting out of it.
Asked a few other questions here and there and on the subject of TRIM support i was given this response:


The TRIM command specification is being standardized as part of the AT Attachment (ATA) interface standard, led by Technical Committee T13 of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards. A TRIM command allows an operating system to tell a solid-state drive (or "SSD") which data blocks are no longer in use, such as those left by deleted files. You should use the OS build-in ATA command device driver to communicate the ATA port for TRIM command. But, most of the RAID adapters emulate the SCSI command to support more volumes on one RAID adapter. That's why the TRIM command can not support on all vendors of RAID adapters. NetAPP just proposal the Trim command for SCSI spec to T10/10-084r0 and 079r0 on 2 March 2010. It may be included the Trim function on the OS in the future. This is the only method to add the function on the firmware level.



This is enlightening as it helps to explain our long wait for TRIM in regards to Raid. The problem with hardware raid passing the command is apparently the result of needing to be included in SCSI spec.

[Computurd]

4k low QD with pci-e at 105
main thing here is the latency...wow!
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/4krandom1880.png

[Anvil]

Nizzen surpassed 100.000 4K rr iops last night using the C300s, not sure of what settings he used.

(might have been the read ahead stuff, I'll ask him)

[eva2000]

yes, there is not a very large selection of ram meeting their specifications on the market at this point. They are basically contracting with Unigen to expand that availability, unfortunately that is in the beginning stages, but soon the modules will be available for us. bit of a wait, unfortunately. there are plenty of modules available for the 2GB size, but it is 4GB that is the problem. interesting got this from my local Australian disty for Areca - unfortunately 1880ix-12 stock is 1 month away only 1880ix-8 and 1880ix-16 is available right now


Confirmed that we can bundle Fanout (discrete) cables for free.
We have qualified 4GB DDR2-800 ECC memory for our RAID controllers.
D2-4GB800E AUD$195.00 ex GST - brands may vary depending on availability - such are Infineon, Samsung, Hynix, Nanya or Micron.

So they have a qualified 4GB DDR2-800 ECC module for Areca at AUD$195 so add 10% GST = AUD$214.50

btw guys did your 1880ix come with free cables ?

[Anvil]

About the same price in Norway for the 4GB module.

Will know for sure about the cabling in about 30minutes.
(According to Nizzen a few cables were included but not miniSAS->SATA fan-outs)

[SteveRo]

excellent find steve- wonder if they will have memory for it :ROTF:
i did find one retailer with the recommended 4gb module, for 420 bucks. ouch. went halfway and ordered a guaranteed compatible stick (kingston KVR800D2D8P6/2G) for 60 dollars. same brand, half the size, but seven times cheaper. unbelievable, i feel like im being price gouged, as they are impossible to find. so i wont do it. no :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing way. i have ordered from unigen directly, and while the lead time is long, i am doing it on principle :p:
so steve-o my man...you seem noticeably absent from the 1880 party, you gonna join?
my results are super late but RLS is hampering me...

@Biker, i have recieved a reply from areca on the stick you linked, they say it is no good as it isnt registered :( they are full of ideas on ram that WONT work, but none when it comes to ram that will work.

Good morning Mr CT,
In my limited spare time I'm playing with clarkdale 655k on the cascade.
Chasing points on the hw bot!
But enjoying very much watching all of you making progress with the 1880! :up::up::up:

As Dinos said last week - regarding pcmv -
I need to give others a chance for a while :)

[Anvil]

There were 4 miniSAS -> miniSAS cables in the box (IX-16) + 1 serial cable?

Won't be able to test for another 3-4 hours.

Like Computurd said, it's huge compared to the LSI, it has to be as the DDR stick needs some space :)

[Anvil]

My first ever benchmark on the Areca 1880IX-16

4KB RR QD64 4R0 Intel G1 80GB

107254

I haven't started exploring anything yet, just a quick 1st run.

edit:

Temperature while migrating from 16KB stripe size to 4KB.
(would have been quicker to recreate the raid, just had to test)

107255

[SteveRo]

looking good, strip size? 1GB cache?

[Nizzen]

Nizzen surpassed 100.000 4K rr iops last night using the C300s, not sure of what settings he used.

(might have been the read ahead stuff, I'll ask him)

It passed 100k @ qQD and the "default" controller settings where used. HDD Read Ahead Cache: enabled
Volume Data Read Ahead: Normal
Volume Stripe Size: 4k :shrug:
Tagged Command Queuing: enabled
Volume Cache Mode: Writeback

12 workers in Iometer
Align i/o : ON "4k"

[SteveRo]

For comparison - 4x x25v on 1231ML-4G (4GB) 4K random qdepth 64 is ~61K iops (238MB/s) so 1880 is looking good yes?!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=245120&page=6

[Anvil]

Steve,

I'm a bit excited :), I expect it could take a while to get to know this thing.
The test was using 16KB stripe size, 1GB cache, WBC
Read ahead -> Disabled

@Nizzen
I've explored the 4K and it seems to max out at 93.000 iops using 4 workers.

Write Through or Write Back doesn't seem to matter for random read, unlike the 9260 where it does matter.

edit:

I'll run a few standard tests just to have something to compare to

ATTO, CDM, AS SSD coming up shortly

Still running 4R0 Intel G1 80GB, SS 4KB

ATTO 256MB (cache testing, right 1GB)

107256 107257

AS SSD

(left WT, right WB)
107258 107259

(left WB, Volume read ahead, - right + HDD read ahead)
107260 107261

CDM
(WB, Volume read ahead + HDD read ahead)
107262 107263 107264

iometer 1GB testfile, read ahead disabled
4K RR 1W QD1-32 + 4K RR 4W QD4-32
+
same runs using Volume read ahead
max ~100.000 iops at low QD on both
+
last file is 32KB stripe size, 1 and 3GB testfile
comment on the 3GB test, ~53.000 iops is max, a bit disappointing.
Looks like as one steps out of the cache, things slow down.

[DeViTTo]

Help someone with areca 1880. I have just recieved the cables 3ware and on connecting the card up to 2 x Intel 80GB G1's in default raid 0 my results have me confused.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/1235/hdtachdi.jpg ("[URL=http://img690.imageshack.us/i/hdtachdi.jpg/)

atto result

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/551/attoi.jpg (http://img827.imageshack.us/i/attoi.jpg/)

Previous ICH10 Intel raid 0

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3158/intelu.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/i/intelu.jpg/)

Every time I run atto it seems low numbers appear on some of the reads. I have set and redone the array even tried changing cables still same results inconsitency. Can anyone point me where might the problem lie. just got back in from work so probably something I missed. BTW these results are taken from OS on normal HD with win7 and drivers installed for card etc. My HD teach for the intels on ICH 10 was around 525MB across the board.

Crystal mark is better
old intel

seq = 565.7 write 158.1
512k = 368.7 write 151.2
4k = 18.74 write 121.4
4kqd32 = 240.9 write 140.6

new areca
seq = 553 write 179.9
512 = 593 write 191.9
4k = 22.98 write 130.3
4kqd32 = 225.5 write 157.2

0 fill 512 cache enabled

So why the strange atto. Long bench HDtach is very good?

hmm downloaded newer version atto results speak for themselves.

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/9897/arecanew.jpg (http://img576.imageshack.us/i/arecanew.jpg/)

And long bench areca but short still shows 300 odd must be glitch or untrustworthy bench or cache. Looks good otherwise :)

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2415/hdtachareca.jpg (http://img829.imageshack.us/i/hdtachareca.jpg/)

[One_Hertz]

Both ATTO and HDtach are no good at measuring things. ATTO works fine only if there is no cache.

[DeViTTo]

I know the cache plays into the score, but I still think something is not quite right here is my intel score 1gb and areca 1gb so taking away the cache which on my card is only 512mb anyways. Please someone chirp in if you know why my reads on the areca at 1 gb should be so low.

Intel
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/7035/intel1gb.jpg (http://img843.imageshack.us/i/intel1gb.jpg/)

Areca
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6509/areca1gb.jpg (http://img821.imageshack.us/i/areca1gb.jpg/)

Anyone?

[Anvil]

DeVitto,

I don't know, still exploring the thing.

There's definately something wrong though, probably your settings.

Do an AS SSD and post a screenshot.

[DeViTTo]

Here you go I haven't changed much from when I recieved the card for the intial tests. This is configured with 128 stripe read ahead on write back etc. Whats the default config I might have to read that manual lol but I havent seen restore to defaults in the settings otherwise i was setting the 128k because thats what I had on ICH10, and I believe Intels are best on that stripe size. I did try a 4k stripe and my reads went nearer to where they should be with atto. I have always trusted attos output above all hd tests so I dunno whats correct here.

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2788/assdmarkareca.jpg (http://img718.imageshack.us/i/assdmarkareca.jpg/)

[Computurd]

@eva--wow that is crazy you Aussies have all the good stuff:p: cheap ram! I hope it is compatible :)

the rapport with the areca techs has seemed to help somewhat. they are sending me a 4gb stick of the Unigen ram, for zero dollars! That is great, i am very excited:D
I did link them to some of the 9260 threads i have done on several sites, and they agreed that a lack of american availability of the ram wasn't good so they helped me out. Awesome:up::up::up:
i still have the 2gb inbound, so that will hold me off. the tracking on the ram they sent has no ETA, but it is already moving quickly...was sent express so soon i will know how fast stuff gets to kansas from taiwan :)
couldnt be more stoked about that!

@Anvil, excited to see that you have your controller:clap:, you have much superior hardware than i do, these vertex are tired;)
@nizzen-superior results getting over the 100K iops mark! question: what exactly do you mean by " Align i/o : ON "4k"?

I havent made any runs at the smaller stripe sizes, and also with only one worker. The only stripes ive ran is 128 and 64..soon that will change..
the tests i did with the LSI were with only one worker, so in comparing i was going to only do one...but this is a different animal, so time to run some other stuff.

[SteveRo]

@ Anvil - looking good! :up:
Areca's like small strip size - try smaller! ;)

@ CT - congrats on getting your memory FOR FREE! - jealous - very jealous! :yepp:

[SteveRo]

@ Devito - go to 16k stripe or smaller and make sure write back is turned on in the controller - see if that helps.

[Computurd]

@steve-o
didnt realize you benched on the bot...6076.7 cpu-z??? now THAT is something to be jealous of :) impressive!:clap:
with your gear you should be able to blow it up! noticed you havent hit PCM05 yet, those should be some easy points for you with that array...actually with your gear there is tons of low hanging fruit out there...


guys with the 1880, has anyone tried pci-e overclock yet?
EDIT:
@anvil-i am experiencing similar temps with the areca, with a fan pointed at it the temp is easily manageable with cpu at 48 C and the controller @ 33 C / the lsi has not temp display in its MSM so i am not sure what it is running at.

still not able to get over 75k iops on 4k random, but the 4k sequential i am hitting 133k IOPS with 4 workers.

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-3119-00-38102.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-08-3119-00-11281.jpg

[Johnny87au]

Dam look at all of you guru's, im just sitting back and taking it all in, leaning learning learning :)

[Anvil]

@ Anvil - looking good! :up:
Areca's like small strip size - try smaller! ;)


Most of my tests are done using 4K, looks like they are great, can't stop looking at the others though.

PCMV HDD score 84072 - 3R0 Vertex 2 60GB on the Areca Link (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=357449)

4R0 V2 was lower :), looks like odd numbers sometimes do better.

@CT
Guess you'll have to start looking for new SSDs :)

[SteveRo]

Good morning guys,

@ Mr CT - off topic but playing with clarkdale last night, I have the 14th fastest 655k in superpi @ 5735.6MHz - http://hwbot.org/community/submission/1047148_stevero_superpi_core_i5_655k_7sec_375ms

So back on topic - your 75K 4kRR iops with how many drives? still vertex 1's?

@ Mr Anvil -
84k with only 3 drives? :shocked:
With only 1GB cache?
Can't wait to see 5, 7 and 9 drives! :up:

[Nizzen]

My controller gets hot with no airflow. Had to test :p 80celcius

Answer from Areca:




about the temperature issue.



They really get hot and our cards is specified up to 90 degree – so no problem with

60~70c+”

[DeViTTo]

@ Devito - go to 16k stripe or smaller and make sure write back is turned on in the controller - see if that helps.

Tried 16k similar results I don't understand why so low with cache below 512k fantastic results as soon as the cache size is past i.e transfering larger than cache Atto scores tumble. Anyone any ideas? I really haven't changed much config wise in the card settings.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/764/areca16k.jpg (http://img176.imageshack.us/i/areca16k.jpg/)

[Computurd]

@steve-o....amazing result with teh clarkdale, like i was saying, you can kick serious ass with that gear~! it actually didnt suprise me one bit you reached that high....knowing you in a few days it will be higher! :)

@ Vertex gen 1's.... i refuse to buy anything until i see the G3 specs here in two weeks. not gonna blow my wad then regret every minute of it. also, there should be some serious price decreases very soon.

@nizzen--yeah without air they do get hot, but i think the main concern would be if it was next to another card, etc, they are designed to handle the heat. hell even the ram gets hot as hell, put your hand on that stick after an hour....also wouldn't be great for ambient temps in your computers case of course....as you can see i have two 120mm over top of it, but that is overkill, used to have them up there for my tri sli aircooled so i just used what was handy...

speaking of ram sticks mine will be here in the AM, but im screwed regardless. I did a firmware flash for the sake of science, and now my card will not boot. isnt showing up in the bios either, or pre-boot. however, i can access the card from another OS (via archttp) and the array is fine. I am in contact with areca trying to see what is what. i just flashed it with the firmware included with the card, so i am not sure wth is going on...getting anxious though, took a few days off from work for this bench session, now the card is not booting...put the card on two of my other rigs, same deal. no boot. then pulled out my 9260 and tested to rule out the possibility of my hardware being the issue, and it works on the rigs, so i am waiting...

good thing is they are open all night by USA time, so i will be getting some help here very soon...
got some screenies i will be posting in a few...

@devitto...man atto can be confused sometimes, try some crystal disk mark, and iometer, also do this:

elevate cmd prompt to admin status
type in:
winsat disk
at the cmd prompt.

show us what you get plz :)

[Computurd]

ok so doing some comparisons with read ahead, no read ahead, etc. so just some screenies here..
in some situations (when using cache) the no read ahead is faster.

read ahead on the left, no read ahead on the right, for all following benches...

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/256mbRA.pnghttp://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/256NRA.png

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/1gbfileRA.pnghttp://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/1GBNRA.png

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/100mbRA.pnghttp://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/100mbNRA.png

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/1000mbRA.pnghttp://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/1000mbNRA.png

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2000mbRA.pnghttp://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2000mbNRA.png



not bad for some old vertexes, but still i have gotten better results at some stuff (esp high qd 4k) with the 9260-8i

EDIT: Back up and running again!

[Tiltevros]

hay guys how r u?
i just logged in to see how r u doing and as i see u r doing perfect so just to rock the boat let me post u something :D

[Anvil]

Long time no see Tilt :)

The LSI lineup is still great, no doubt about it, will be comparing as soon as I get some time.

Still using 8 drives?

[Tiltevros]

yeah 8 intels nice to see u again anvil :D

[SteveRo]

Welcome back Mr Tilt - nice numbers!

[Anvil]

Nice to see you too Tilt :)

Looks like I'm finally getting FP, ordered early May, had to reorder, different vendor, long story.

A lot of exciting stuff going on :)

[Tiltevros]

did u try to buy it from the US??

[SteveRo]

@Mr CT - 1GB or 4GB for the benches you just posted?

Also - 8x Vertex 1's yes?

A little hard to do direct compare because not apples to apples but compare CT's latest numbers to the -

1231ML-4GB, 5x acards - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4343503&postcount=1

1231ML-4GB, 4x x25v - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4338587&postcount=141

Initial indications I see - based on benches posted so far - the 1880 should be the new pcmv king of the hill. :up:

I think for just out of the blocks - 1880 is looking very good! :)

[Anvil]

did u try to buy it from the US??

Yes
They wouldn't ship to norway
Should have it by NeXT week

[Nizzen]

What about 2x1880 in software raid? :D

[SteveRo]

Mr Nizzen, did you find a way to make it bootable?

[Nizzen]

Mr Nizzen, did you find a way to make it bootable?

I have not tested it yet, but it is no go to boot software raid with windows :(

[SteveRo]

@Mr Anvil, using a virtual machine can you run a virtual windows from a software raid?

[Computurd]

@steve-o The testfiles are listed for the individual benches:confused:..my benches dont even get close to yours :p:

one 4gb stick, from 12540 miles away! arrived pretty quick, good job UPS
now off to the benches!
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/2010-09-0212-25-02385.jpg

[Anvil]

@Mr Anvil, using a virtual machine can you run a virtual windows from a software raid?

Yes, using VMWare Workstation one can run a VM on any drive, it sits on top of the host OS. (been using the 9211 for that exact thing)
Not sure how that would work for pcmv, most operations and specifically graphics and memory runs a bit slower than running the real thing.
Would have been an interesting thing to try :)



one 4gb stick, from 12540 miles away! arrived pretty quikc, good job UPS
now off to the benches!


:)

Waiting......

[Computurd]

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/MUhAHAHAH.png:hump:

[SteveRo]

@ CT - wow, this is the best non-softraid AS SSD I think I've seen. :up:
My best 1231-4GB with acards that I can remember is 1945.
And this with vertex 1's - very nice! :shocked:

[DeViTTo]

@devitto...man atto can be confused sometimes, try some crystal disk mark, and iometer, also do this:

elevate cmd prompt to admin status
type in:
winsat disk
at the cmd prompt.

show us what you get plz :)

Here you go again though isnt cache playing its part here? like I said above 512k it seems to slow down score in atto wise. Feels good in OS though.

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/5725/winsat.jpg (http://img34.imageshack.us/i/winsat.jpg/)

@CT wow I need to get more drives and more cache :D should have bought a higher model I know that now.

[Computurd]

very stoked, i am having issues with this OS image though, might need to do a reinstall..the vid driver keeps dropping on me. going to do some other tweaks (IOH voltage, pci-e bus(this is 100, it will take 108) and also pcie packets (set at 1048 will go to 4096 though)
that was literally the first bench :)
i have not yet begun to bench!

[SteveRo]

@ Mr CT - i think its time for you to take about a weeks vacation!

[Tiltevros]

coming up with ARC and SSS6200 crash test on monday ;)

[Computurd]

@steve---yeah me and tilt are in video chat, i have three days off, specifically for this purpose, so we shall see what we get! :)

[Nizzen]

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/MUhAHAHAH.png:hump:

Looks like 4gb memory is Areca fastpath+ :D

Nice score!

The Areca 4096MB DDR2 ECC 800MHz DIMM (ARC-1880ix) delivery is comming tomorrow I hope. If not I will be MAD :D

[Computurd]

lol yes it is FastPath+!
having some OS issues is hampering things...but doing a cursory pcmv right now...
congrats on the memory, i dont know what the issue is with American availability. You are closer so you win! :)

[Tiltevros]

@ Nizzen can u post the e-shop that u bought it plz so i can order it??

[Nizzen]

www.iwill.no :up:

I do not know if they are shipping outside Norway.

Small firm with super service! 2.5 employees :)

[Computurd]

@nizzen have you tried pci-e overclock yet?

[Anvil]

@Tilt
The new LSI PCIe "SSD" looks great, 150,000 iops + :)
Seagate Pulsar SSDs?

@CT
wow, AS SSD score of > 2000, :)

My 1880 is currently running at pci-e 105, will try something higher once I've removed the 9211.

[PnoT]

WOW, Nice results CT!

Btw, which drives are you using in that array?

[Computurd]

eight gen 1 vertex R0 :)
they seem to be limping along nicely...

[lowfat]

108)also pcie packets (set at 1048 will go to 4096 though)


What do you mean by this? I've never heard of such a thing.

[Computurd]

it is the size of the pci-e packets that each device sends across the pci-e bus. when the devices on the bus communicate, they do it by sending "packets". It is much like traffic...so when they are sharing the bus each device sends its packet, then the next, so on, so on. rapid fire. but each packet is a certain size. now you increase the size thus increasing the amount of info sent across on each of that particular devices "turn". in some motherboards you can set the size of the packets sent, from 128 (which is default on most boards) then 512, 1094, 2048, 4096.
only thing is if you set the packet size too high you will introduce stuttering into your video, if it is also coming across pci-e express ports. the videos packets will not be being recieved fast enough for good play, etc. Uber tweaking at its very finest, finding the good settings yield great results. shhh! dont tell anyone the secret :) i still havent done it yet on this run btw, havent had time yet for those last few percentage tweaks, jumping hurdles right now :)

Jumped up 5k points on PCMV only at 4.3 on my 920, i am up to 28k\
i need a 980x
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=358183

[Tiltevros]

nice results paul. on monday i will try to play with PCM i want my name on that list :D . maybe wont be the top cause of the MP but im hopping to be on top 20 somewhere :S

[Computurd]

ty tilt, there is more to be given, having issues with either bad fanouts (gotta spare though) or a bad drive(spare for that too). will have to do more testing in the AM to isolate the problem. slowing me down big time. You should receive great results with those dual xeons, and the benefit of the dual IOH!
need SB these guys cpu scores are tremendous! cant wait to see what nizzen/anvil can do with their gear, some awesome scores inbound i am sure!

[Tiltevros]

i want to try them on 5520 chipset to see how ARC works there and what will be the benefits of stock settings no Overclock for me

[Ao1]

it is the size of the pci-e packets that each device sends across the pci-e bus. when the devices on the bus communicate, they do it by sending "packets". It is much like traffic...so when they are sharing the bus each device sends its packet, then the next, so on, so on. rapid fire......

Hey Comp, great results. :up: Looks like the Areca 1880 is shaping up very nicely. Not wishing to derail the thread but the issue you raise on shared bandwidth on the pcie interface was one of the reasons I was excited about the Viking nand solution for a “ram” based SSD module. By all accounts it can send data via the memory socket and that gives a direct interface to the cpu. A memory socket seems to be the fastest interface on a mobo as far as I can see with nanosecond latency and transfer speeds up to 17,066 MB/s, but maybe I am missing something as it got slated in the news thread when it was announced. :confused:

[Computurd]

yes i couldnt agree more, there are some issues with sharing of the bus, and the thing about the packet optimizations, is that if you go too far you will end up adding latency, so there is a definite inherent weakness of the interface. not neccesarily the lanes themselves, but that they terminate at the IOH, which in turn handles traffic. some of the serious advances with sandy bridge should be absolutely phenomenal, such as the inclusion of the pic-e controller onto the chip, should handle the throughput much faster, not to mention pci-e 3.0. the pci-e 3.0 controllres are where my next goal lies. 600,000 iops and a dual 1.4 ghz ROC on the next gen of the LSI. hopefully areca is going to implement this same controller into their line of products. i think now that they are over the whole marvell fiasco you should see much faster r&d in the future, which is an impression i have gotten from speaking with them.
the nand module you are speaking of is an excellent concept, and i am sure that one day we will see some implementation of that, as a matter of fact things are headed that way with memresistor (am i saying that right?) which could double as storage and ram at the same time, exciting stuff! i could be wrong, but i believe that the implementation you are speaking of is actually only using the power form the memory socket to power the device, yet it has a sata port on the side, and that is why they arent too excited about it, it still connects via the sata port i think. future versions will go over the memory lanes themselves. they do seem like very good ideas though. its crazy that a year ago everyone was thinking that getting the nand on the pcie was the way to go...but things are advancing so fast, now they are shifting to memory/ram implementations over the ram slots!

my testing continues today, only have made about three solid runs, having issues with my system...

[Spoiler]

....not neccesarily the lanes themselves, but that they terminate at the IOH, which in turn handles traffic. some of the serious advances with sandy bridge should be absolutely phenomenal, such as the inclusion of the pic-e controller onto the chip, should handle the throughput much faster, not to mention pci-e 3.0.....

You can try your theory out on a P55 motherboard. The P55 has the PCI-e controller on the cpu. I'd love to see the differences in latency from a P55 and X58 using a high end raid controller or even better an IOxtreme card. I mentioned this a while ago, but I haven't seen anyone draw any comparisons yet.

[Computurd]

that is an excellent observation. i will not be testing the p55 though, unfortunately. or maybe i will...they are pretty cheap. An IOextreme isnt going to really test the throughput as well as the high end raid cards out right now. it simply does not have the sheer IOPS.

[Computurd]

actually, steve-o arent you beating on a P55 right now? are there any differences with your 1231 that you could relay? or is it about the same?

[SteveRo]

Haven't even tried to see if the board would boot with a 1231 -it is a very little board - only one pcie slot and no onboard raid.
I will post a pic.

[Computurd]

ty sir...

also on some testing of a different variety, after reading this form gfody at storage review.com:


In my testing with Areca the storport driver doesn't scale past 32 where the scsiport scales up to 256. The storport tests showed significantly more iops than the scsiport at the same queue depth though. Sorry I don't have the data handy.

i ran some more tests, and he is correct the 4k scales much higher, up to 482 mb/s with QD of 258. going to make up another graph to compare, but that will be in the future..still doing some pcmv action.

[Computurd]

wow the 1231 prices just went down..

[SteveRo]

Ok so way off topic but CT asked.
Gigabyte H55N-USB3 mini ITX under cascade. :D
Almost as good an overclocker as the x58 UD7. :yepp:
I did need to do a silver pen mod to the 655K for CBB but other than that the mobo/proc is stock.

The H55N-USB3 looks to be a very little board expecially whne setting on the big cascade.

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/6433/dsc03674b.jpg (http://img685.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03674b.jpg)

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/523/dsc03671ii.jpg (http://img707.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc03671ii.jpg)

[Computurd]

jesus lord that is beautiful :) MAN it is small...your evap dwarfs it...poor little board...:shock:
it would be very hard to get that card on there...

[SteveRo]

Thanks CT!
How's the pcmv progress coming - you know to use x64 of the app right?

[Computurd]

The PCMV work continues, but i fear my ol 920 is just at the limits my man...here is a view of my cramped work area...need a bigger room but wife wont have it!
OF course some new firmware for the 9260 released today while im busy with other things....really need to get that on to try, with LSI new firmwares are UBER....
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/DSCF4203.jpg
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/DSCF4202.jpg

[SteveRo]

Good morning CT,

Looks like you have all kinds of room! :D
Yes 980 really helps pcmv suit scores no question.
You do have a couple excellent storage options between the 1880-4GB and the 9260, keep pressing and good luck!

[Computurd]

yea, believe me i wont stop till i see smoke!:smoke:

[SteveRo]

All right Mr CT - you are making progress!
Looks like you just posted the #9 pcmv score - 28124 - very nice. :up:
You have the highest quad cpu pcmv score on the ORB - looking good! :yepp:
The 8 in front of you are all 980's - time for a new proc soon? :yepp:
Very nice work and much congrats! :up::up:

[SteveRo]

@ Mr Peanutskeeter - nice score 24769 with 980 at 4763?
#12 on the Orb! :up:
What are you using for storage?

[Computurd]

just hit 29437 steve....still working my friend...finally put all ten vertex on the thing so here we go........dialing up the clocks a bit too..
EDIT:29796
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/goodasssd.png

[SteveRo]

All right! - #7 and only ~1k back from Mr Nizzen! :up:
and with a 920 - well done! :up:
If you went to a six core you would add 2+K to that score. :yepp:

edit - also - very nice AS SSD score too! :yepp:

[Computurd]

things going well gonna have to call it a night/morning? though soon.
running the small stripes now, but the vertex do not respond as well to that...there is more to give from this setup i feel it!
also a few other things i will do differently tonight...
but all in all not a bad show from the 920..i can dial it up to 4.6 but i have to find my perfect setup first...I dont feel i have found it yet..
an excellent show though from the 1880! wow i cant say enough about this controller!

EDIT: just jumped another 500....i will add 2k without the six-core!:p:

[Anvil]

Great resullts Computurd,

Can't wait for that 4GB stick :)

I've been playing a bit with raid-5, looks good as well.

I did try storeport vs scsiport, couldn't find that much of a difference, about the same number of iops @4K.
(scsiport was installed by default on my system)

[Nitrobass24]

@CT

You can pick up an ES L5640 on ebay for around $400. Cheaper way to get 12 threads compared to the 980x.
Now of course it prob wont clock as high as the 980x but you still be able to pull 4ghz.

[Computurd]

i will make a graph if there is anything left after this kamikaze run i am setting up for :) there were some differences on my setup, but i only checked quickly, while i was doing other things. i will need to make a bigger test file..

[Computurd]

@nitrobass excellent suggestion...with a six core i could make a run at the top three i believe. i should be able to get top five with a bit more persistence with this here 920...but that will not last for long I am sure without a sixcore. some of the HDD suites on the runs i have are better than any on there...

[Anvil]

I've ordered a few more SF drives :), should be here early next week.
(should be interesting comparing to all the C300s out there)

I'll postpone my pcmv testing until I get the 4GB stick, looks like it's worth the wait :)

[Computurd]

yeah lol...let me savor my rank for a little while at least:ROTF:
the 4gb and this controller are the ticket...

@anvil i believe your SF will torch the c300's

[Anvil]

C300 vs SF?
could go both ways, as long as the SF drives are fresh, they seriously kick ass.

I haven't benched for a long time on my 980X rig, using the 920 rig for experimenting, the 980X rig still hosts the dual 9260 config. (about to try the new fw on one of them)

[Computurd]

dual 9260 config just SOUNDS uber..
i dont think it will be as close with the SF v c300 like most do. In real life usage the SF just seem better to me....
EDIT: GL with the 9260 firmware...my 9260 is totally borked, have to wait for level 3 support on tuesday (holiday monday) the card wont even boot so there is no means of accessing it. very disappointing.

[SteveRo]

Famous quote from CT now applies to me - *grabs popcorn*

[Computurd]

lol !
i have been benching for twelve hours, now it keeps crashing....gonna give it one more shot then rest!
@30394 btw..so close to nizzen...
tbh the points would happen if i let the GC run on the drives LOL pushing too hard!

[Anvil]

Looks like the 1880 is on its way to the 980 rig, iops on the new 9260 fw are gone!
Tried to downgrade one of the cards and now the card wont boot :mad:

[SteveRo]

It's a wonder I've never bricked a 1231 - i have punished them severely.

Let the 9260 set unattached for a day or so - stray capacitance?

[SteveRo]

@ CT congrats on breaking 30K!
Even more of an accomplishment since gen 1 vertex and only quad core!
I think in the bot forum they refer to this as efficiency.
You have efficiency to the max!

[Anvil]

It's a wonder I've never bricked a 1231 - i have punished them severely.

Let the 9260 set unattached for a day or so - stray capacitance?

I'l do that, going to try removing one of the cards first, might help as well.

edit:

Congrats to CT, great achivement, especially without the 980X.

[Nizzen]

lol !
i have been benching for twelve hours, now it keeps crashing....gonna give it one more shot then rest!
@30394 btw..so close to nizzen...
tbh the points would happen if i let the GC run on the drives LOL pushing too hard!

How high are you pushing the 920?

I like low clock challenge :p: I`m still on hot air cooler :shrug:

Some close to Areca said that a bbu unlock even more performance to the 1880! I ordered a bbu just in case :D

If the performance go down, I just plug out the bbu again :p

[Computurd]

excellent idea nizzen...but the price! how much is a BBU?
the 920 has only been at 4.45 i think during my highest run so far...i am back awake...Coffee!! and going to work on a few things. i agree a low clock challenge would be nice, however, i need to have about a 4.6 to hang with the 980 at 3.2:ROTF:
also bear in mind that i am running a venerable GTX280 so that isnt making things easy either.

tyvm guys for your comments, to be honest that was one of the best sessions i have ever had..great to get runs that good! also some credit to Tiltevros, he helps me very much with the thought process in video cram sessions, always my right hand man! thats what throws my schedule off when i tear off on runs, i have to live on Athens time! :)

I am not naive, however, I know you guys (tilt, nizzen, anvil) will come charging once you guys get your cards/cache, but still fun to strike while the iron is hot!

gonna do a big refresh with G3, might even pick up a proc (and definitely a GPU) so dont get lazy guys...:)

@anvil...that is what happened to my card as well! downflashing borked it. they have serious issues with that firmware, i am getting tiresome with LSI lack of support for enthusiasts. the most troublesome part is the lack of any type of access to the card, including the CLI...makes it an unworkable issue! one i am sure will end with RMA:down: doubly disappointing as i had a plan for it with my runs...you do have a server motherboard though?

[Anvil]

Computurd,

I'm currently using them on my X58-UD7, I do have a few servers I could try though. (Dell)

It lists 5 lines of text, showing FW package etc, while initializing devices it stops with the message. (takes a minute or so)
"A discovery error has occured, please powercycle the system and all the enclosures attached to this system"

I've tried on an AMD system, same result.

Not sure what's going on, the new firmware might require some kind of action, there are a few options in the MSM that weren't available before.

I'm making a few backups and then it's Areca time.
I'll have to contact LSI somehow on monday, there must be a way to downgrade/revert to older fw or else it's 2 cards offline/RMA or whatever it takes to get them fixed.

well, enough about the LSI card...
I'll make a few posts in the FW upgrade thread.

[Computurd]

A discovery error has occured, please powercycle the system and all the enclosures attached to this system"

GAH! i have the exact same error...i called LSI last night (their support is here in my city, of all places!) and they said i have to wait for tech support Level 3 and they come in tuesday. monday is a holiday here in the states!
What is so troubling is that there is no way to access anything, not even pre-boot cli...just noting to do but be irritated!
I also tried on multiple motherboards, all intel though but three of them. no luck!

[Computurd]

I just flashed my 9260-4i with the latest firmware (dated 9/3/2010) and am having no issues on an Asus Rampage Formula x48. Note though that if I do not put my ICH in IDE mode and have the JMicron RAID chip on my motherboard disabled, I am unable to either install windows or get into WebBIOS.

have you tried with ACHI/RAID off?

[Anvil]

Areca 1880, booting off of 2R0 X25-E, coming soon...
(about to HDDerase the drives as well as upgrading to bios F7 on the UD7)

:)

One week ahead of schedule.

[Computurd]

*hides*:sofa:

EDIT: cant wait to see these results!

[Anvil]

First benchmark, no tweaking, all windows updates installed, no OC. (3.33+turbo)

C:\Windows\system32>winsat disk
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 1'
> Run Time 00:00:01.39
> Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 1'
> Run Time 00:00:00.17
> Running: Storage Assessment '-scen 2009 -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:51.47
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:01.28
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.48
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.28
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 1 -ransize 4096'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 1 -ransize 16384'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.02
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 567.05 MB/s 7.9
> Disk Random 16.0 Read 327.95 MB/s 7.9
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 0.15 ms/IO 7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 5.64 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Long IOs 4.16 units 7.8
> Responsiveness: Overall 23.50 units 7.7
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 3191.80 MB/s 7.9
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.436 ms 7.9
> Latency: 95th Percentile 0.193 ms 7.9
> Latency: Maximum 177.943 ms 7.4
> Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.077 ms 7.9
> Total Run Time 00:00:56.57

[Computurd]

awesome. that max latency seems to be an issue i have been running into as well with my card..can you do a everest latency test, to see if yours spikes? mine has intermittent spikes every thirty seconds or so...
EDIT: that random read is unbelievable :)2 x-25e?

[Anvil]

2R0 X25-E stripe size 4KB, volume read ahead Normal

I installed the storeport driver this time, I used the scsiport on the other rig, not sure which one is the better one, will try.

I'll do a few latency tests before I start OCing a bit, the new bios on the UD7 needs some testing.

[Computurd]

no read ahead on top, read ahead on bottom. hate to see the ten drive array get embarrassed by those x-25e's though. wonder if i have to many devices on, strangling the ROC? your random is much better. the latency spikes are less pronounced with the 4g. i take it you are still on 1gb right?
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/winsatnoreadahead.png
http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/winsat.png

[Anvil]

Still 1GB cache, I'll do a quick test using no read ahead...

C:\Windows\system32>winsat disk
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 1'
> Run Time 00:00:01.45
> Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 1'
> Run Time 00:00:00.20
> Running: Storage Assessment '-scen 2009 -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:51.40
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:01.26
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.31
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.34
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 1 -ransize 4096'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 1 -ransize 16384'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 521.16 MB/s 7.9
> Disk Random 16.0 Read 331.40 MB/s 7.9
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 0.16 ms/IO 7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 5.75 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Long IOs 4.14 units 7.8
> Responsiveness: Overall 23.85 units 7.7
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 3116.23 MB/s 7.9
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.153 ms 7.9
> Latency: 95th Percentile 0.348 ms 7.9
> Latency: Maximum 0.519 ms 7.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.158 ms 7.9
> Total Run Time 00:00:56.47

[Computurd]

wow much better seems read ahead is introducing the big spikes... i know it has a negative impact on latency of course..

[Anvil]

AS SSD

Great score using 2 small drives :)

107386

[Computurd]

im tellin ya...its a racehorse! i am on the edge of my seat for the SF drives on there!

[safan80]

anybody have any actual file transfer info?

[Anvil]

Same test using VOL read ahead

107387

I'll play with this setup until tomorrow...

edit:

It's getting better :)

OC 4GHz, pcie 105 (two consecutive runs)

107388 107389

[Tiltevros]

new firmware +FP @ winsat
128k stripe size No read ahead and WT

[Anvil]

Tilt,
I should have kept the new firmware for a day or so :), but the initial tests were terrible! (don't know why, just plain awful)


Everest read avg access on the Areca

107391

[Computurd]

wow much better than mine! hmmmmm

[Anvil]

Steve,

Looks like the 1880 disappears at PCIe 108 or 109, it boots safely at 107.

[Nizzen]

winsat disk:

Os drive and very tired array bacause of benches :D

8xc300

[Anvil]

Fresh install : 4R0 Vertex 2 60GB ss 4KB, WB, no read ahead

C:\Windows\system32>winsat disk
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 1'
> Run Time 00:00:02.62
> Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 1'
> Run Time 00:00:00.17
> Running: Storage Assessment '-scen 2009 -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:51.33
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:01.26
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.30
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.31
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 1 -ransize 4096'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 1 -ransize 16384'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 526.25 MB/s 7.9
> Disk Random 16.0 Read 364.20 MB/s 7.9
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 0.12 ms/IO 7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 5.33 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Long IOs 2.73 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Overall 14.54 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 3331.80 MB/s 7.9
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.160 ms 7.9
> Latency: 95th Percentile 0.350 ms 7.9
> Latency: Maximum 0.436 ms 7.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.170 ms 7.9
> Total Run Time 00:00:57.46

[Computurd]

very nice guys!
I have found a point of instability here with my card
when i reach a certain benchmark (pcmarktv and movies) i am having instability/crashes which is causing me to not be able to run at speeds i have pulled off before with my chip. i have done it at 4.6 before. but with the new card no dice.
so in the course of things i turned off the alarm on the raid card. and it beeps constantly during that benchmark. looking thorough the raid cards error log turns up a low power error. so not enough power to the card via the pcie bus is causing the issue. so what is the setting that will actually put more voltage across the bus, to the card? any ideas?

[Computurd]

it says specifically "3.3 voltage Under Voltage"

so i checked the 3.3 volts during run with eleet and it gets down to 3.14 during the heavy loads, when it beeps...

[xeon_1]

It could be that the power draw on the 3.3V line with the acerca and the oc is to high.
Whereas previously there wasn't such a power hungry card on the line.
Or the card is sensitive to small power dips when the cpu starts at 100% causing a momentary drop in voltage until the psu can compensate.

At any rate trying another psu might slove it as that one might have a higher current rating on the 3.3V line and/or a better/faster voltage controller.

[Computurd]

Good idea. any other voltages you think i could tweak to fix it? also i have a sound card on a pci slot...do you think taking that off or disabling it would help?

[Nitrobass24]

Taking it out couldnt hurt.

[eva2000]

remember software reported volts may not be accurate, try multimeter yet ?

[Computurd]

no but not entirely sure how to check the 3.3v with my mutlimeter..noob at that...

[eva2000]

how to measure using multimeter http://i4memory.com/f60/guide-using-digital-multimeter-measure-power-supply-rails-2632/

[Computurd]

ty for the link eva. Bad psu! my zues 1200w has taken a shat all over me...LOL 3.3 v is borked. jumped the zues and used it for everything except mobo, then hooked my good ol pc&p 750 just to the 24-pin and it is running like a champ.
ordered a st1500 so i dont have to worry about it for awhile. gonna explore rma with the zm1200 and see what they say.
been just pounding with this thing trying to get above 4.3 for the love of christ, with a chip i have hit 4.6 with easily in the past, very frustrating it took me that long to pinpoint it. the only good thing is that i did tweak the hell outta the raid and card etc for ultimate setup...so now i am in perfect position!

[Computurd]

well now we are working! up to sixth

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=359435

I believe i can take 5 very soon...

[SteveRo]

Wow Mr CT - looking good! #6!
Looks like no question, areca 1880-4GB should be the new king of pcmv.
Come on Mr Nizzen, Paul's got you by 30 points!

[Computurd]

*eyes corsair labs*

[SteveRo]

That's another 2k points.
That would be an amazing achievement considering you're on 920/water/gen 1 vertex. :yepp:
Planet was on areca 1680 with 11xR0 F200 200GB drives, GTX2 memory and 980 under ln2 at 5790! :shocked:

[Computurd]

gah my ram is still loose, not dynamic switching yet, and haven't even hit the volts on this 280...ive got room my friend.
however, i just missed my friend mbreslin by 76 points..time to work on ram
nothing is impossible (besides you and mike :) )
lofty goals make for outstanding accomplishments
or horrible crushing disappointment LOL

[Computurd]

alrighty enough for tonight.
got the number five spot by a few points. tomorrow it is really time to really work it. not being arrogant, i know the controller is making it easy :)
but i do have a goal :)
once others get the controller cache it will be game over for me :(

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=359473

[Anvil]

Congrats Computurd,

I've been playing a bit with a few Vertex 2s and I can tell you, without that extra 4GB cache it would take a lot of work and a lot of OC to get to 30'
(possibly a few tweaks as well, are there any known tweaks/guidelines?)

I'm staying at 4GHz for the moment though, still hunting for the optimal stripe size.

[SteveRo]

Good morning Mr Anvil,
The optimum # of drives changed for me based cpu speed.
4800 - x5 drives
5200 - x7 drives
also pcie max oc droped from 119 to 118
reminder - use only the x64 version of pcmv

[SteveRo]

whow!!
And there goes Mr CT screaming past Mr Mbreslin to take the #5 position! :up:
Narrowest of leads - CT's 31268 to Mbreslin's 31252 - 16 points! :D
Paul has to be pouring magic sauce into that ancient 920/gen 1 vertex array! :up:

[dinos22]

has anyone compared 1231ml vs 1880 with SSDs

also cache size performance scaling

[xeon_1]

ty for the link eva. Bad psu! my zues 1200w has taken a shat all over me...LOL 3.3 v is borked. jumped the zues and used it for everything except mobo, then hooked my good ol pc&p 750 just to the 24-pin and it is running like a champ.
ordered a st1500 so i dont have to worry about it for awhile. gonna explore rma with the zm1200 and see what they say.
been just pounding with this thing trying to get above 4.3 for the love of christ, with a chip i have hit 4.6 with easily in the past, very frustrating it took me that long to pinpoint it. the only good thing is that i did tweak the hell outta the raid and card etc for ultimate setup...so now i am in perfect position!

Good the see you found it.

I had that happen to me once on my first s939 board also took me a while to find it
But there is was a 12V line

[SteveRo]

has anyone compared 1231ml vs 1880 with SSDs

also cache size performance scaling

I'm planning on doing a 1231 vs 1880 but probably not till next month.
And probably not SSDs but up to 12x acards :shocked:

Mr Dinos, sir - why not YOU do it for us!! :yepp::yepp::yepp:

[dinos22]

i would if i had the cards. I borrowed the card from areca and they are asking for it to be sent back....
i also dont have any 4GB sticks nor do i have the 1880 card to compare

[SteveRo]

Maybe areca would let you borrow both a 1231 and an 1880 and you could do a nice write up for them?

[dinos22]

i dont know it went through HQ so i dont know what those people discuss but i would certainly love to do that. Ive spent a lot of time on it already. This storage business is very addictive :D ... so has my mate James :D

[SteveRo]

Yes, very time consuming!
There are so many tweakable variables and the veriables interact - trying to find optimum is sometimes more an art than a science.

[Nizzen]

Some other 1880 fun..

16xhitachi 2tb raid-0 :p:

I going to test performance @ raid-5 and raid-6. I have to have something to fill up the ports on the controller :D

And 4gb cache test soon ;)

[Computurd]

ancient 920/gen 1 vertex array!

This 920 is rockin until the SB 2011 socket is out...:up:


I'm planning on doing a 1231 vs 1880 but probably not till next month.

was wondering when you would bite!

@nizzen..jesus that is a ton of devices! would be fun to play with :)
how long until you get your 4gb and come to kill me?:)

[Nizzen]

This 920 is rockin until the SB 2011 socket is out...:up:



was wondering when you would bite!

@nizzen..jesus that is a ton of devices! would be fun to play with :)
how long until you get your 4gb and come to kill me?:)

UPS is killing me :p:

Friday it was in germany or so... Fingers crossed for tomorrow :)

Until then I have fun with 32TB fresh HardDisks

I do not know what the spike is, but who cares :rolleyes:

[Computurd]

good gives me time to get set for my final trick..the coup de grace...never used it with the 1880, works with 1680&1231 (hint , they have something the 9260 doesnt)(and not cache!), but didnt work with the 9260 OR 9211...the last trick in my hat (once i am in optimal setup)...good for some serious points...:cool:

[SteveRo]

@ Mr. Nizzen - the very nice huge 2500+ MB/s spike on hd tune writes is most likely your cache - when you go to the 4GB it should probably be same huge speed and last longer (a "wider") spike. :)

Alright Mr. CT! - will you take down Mr Planet?
That will be most impressive if you do - that's another - almost - 1700 points. :shocked:

edit - sounds like you're both happy with your areca purchase so far? ;)

[Computurd]

I am leaving the wife....running off with 1880!

[SteveRo]

If you keep the 1880 powered up it can even keep you warm at night :ROTF:

[Computurd]

VERY warm!!

[F.E.A.R.]

Which is the right 4GB-module? Minimum DDR2-800 (PC-6400)???

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgeizhals.at%2Fdeutschland%2F%3Fcat% 3Dramddr2regecc%26xf%3D253_4096~256_1x%26sort%3Dr


@ Computurd

Please shot a pic from the module-label (ram-timings)

[Computurd]

there are only two known sticks that work at 800 mhz and they are--
(i have been through three sticks that were incompatible so there is no wiggle room here)

KVR800D2D8P6/4G kingston

UG51T7200N8DR-8CC unigen. to my knowledge not publicly available yet.

these are the onlly two that will work. this is per areca tech support. i am using unigen. i have a 2g of the kingston, but havent used it.
there are many that will work with 2 gb

[F.E.A.R.]

there are only two known sticks that work at 800 mhz and they are--
(i have been through three sticks that were incompatible so there is no wiggle room here)

KVR800D2D8P6/4G kingston

UG51T7200N8DR-8CC unigen. to my knowledge not publicly available yet.

these are the onlly two that will work. this is per areca tech support. i am using unigen. i have a 2g of the kingston, but havent used it.
there are many that will work with 2 gb

410€ or US-$ 525 :eek: http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a363721.html


Why not these modules?

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a363726.html&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhg1cVmCfdU68MdN73lOWrsnZ5HoMQ

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a354410.html&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiMculX7pyUAnAka3F-DPVz3bCFrg

[Computurd]

same thing i said. multiple times. thats why i kept buying and they kept not working.

The spec is:
512M x 72-bit 4GB (4096MB) DDR2-800 CL6 SDRAM
(Synchronous DRAM) "dual rank" Registered w/Parity memory module. The
components on
this module include eighteen 256M x 8-bit DDR2-800 SDRAM in FBGA packages.
This 240-
pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.8V

it MUST be x8 or x16... (18 IC only is what is making it hard to find a
replacement.)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4527990&postcount=28

[Computurd]

there arent any out there other than kingston, which are discontinued, thus expensive as hell.

[DeViTTo]

Bit of 4 drive Raid0 action 64k stripe. P40 Corsair.

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/8422/raidb.jpg ("[URL=http://img693.imageshack.us/i/raidb.jpg/)

[Nizzen]

Atto is epic fail with a controller with cache.. The numbers are most cache numbers.

Use Iometer, everest, or even hdtune. Crystal diskmark with testfile over cachesize and ASS ssd bench.

[Anvil]

5R0 Vertex 2, 60GB, stripe size 32KB

7.9 all the way, looking good :)

C:\Windows\system32>winsat disk
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 0'
> Run Time 00:00:02.62
> Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 0'
> Run Time 00:00:00.17
> Running: Storage Assessment '-scen 2009 -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:51.18
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:01.15
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.39
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.28
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 0 -ransize 4096'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-hybrid -ran -read -n 0 -ransize 16384'
NV Cache not present.
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 930.38 MB/s 7.9
> Disk Random 16.0 Read 490.57 MB/s 7.9
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 0.11 ms/IO 7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 4.56 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Long IOs 1.31 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Overall 5.99 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 3390.42 MB/s 7.9
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.231 ms 7.9
> Latency: 95th Percentile 0.286 ms 7.9
> Latency: Maximum 24.231 ms 7.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.119 ms 7.9
> Total Run Time 00:00:57.19

[Computurd]

WOW awesome results!

[DeViTTo]

Atto is epic fail with a controller with cache.. The numbers are most cache numbers.

Use Iometer, everest, or even hdtune. Crystal diskmark with testfile over cachesize and ASS ssd bench.

I know Nissen I only have 512k but I suppose it still kicks in even so on writes even when testing 1gb atto. I will take your advice though still not sure what best stripe size to use general usage with the areca seems they like smaller stripe size. Any suggestions for boot and apps general use 128k or smaller with this areca?

[hlonipha]

I know Nissen I only have 512k but I suppose it still kicks in even so on writes even when testing 1gb atto. I will take your advice though still not sure what best stripe size to use general usage with the areca seems they like smaller stripe size. Any suggestions for boot and apps general use 128k or smaller with this areca?

my 1880i comes in tomorrow with a pair of c300 256gigs :D

Wondering about the same.. which stripe size is best for games, apps windows experience. also does the card comes with memory or do I have to buy a 2 gig stick ? as the only 4 gig stick that could be use with the card is no longer available.

[Computurd]

that version of the card does not allow memory expansion, only the arc1880ix-12 and up allow expansion!
that unit comes with 521 mb of memory, no upgrading!
(should still be a good card, but for that much cache i personally wouldve gotten a 9260-8i. better low cache performer!!)

[hlonipha]

that version of the card does not allow memory expansion, only the arc1880ix-12 and up allow expansion!
that unit comes with 521 mb of memory, no upgrading!
(should still be a good card, but for that much cache i personally wouldve gotten a 9260-8i. better low cache performer!!)

i wish i would have known about this earlier today. hopefully the new setup is better than my motherboard controller with my intel drives.

[F.E.A.R.]

there arent any out there other than kingston, which are discontinued, thus expensive as hell.

sona.de recommends this 4GB-modules :( (~ US-$ 348)

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sona.de%2F.1494742621-4-GB-ARC-DDR2-4096-ECC (but only DDR2-667)

[F.E.A.R.]

Is the ARC-1880 including Multilanes?

[hlonipha]

Should I leave 64k as raid 0 stripe size? I setup the raid as quick volume raid setup. Should I do it in any other way?
Hlo

[SteveRo]

experiment and see - with areca controllers with SSDs usually smaller strip is faster.

[F.E.A.R.]

Realy? ;)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3996834&postcount=26

[Nizzen]

ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/BIOS_Firmware/ARC1880/Beta/

1880 beta bios :D

I will try tomorrow :up:

Good night from Norway :) (00:25)

[Computurd]

ty nizzen for the notice!

2010-1-4
1 Rebuild all SAS model
V1.48 20100104

this is what i was waiting for! i knew they had to be running an older sas set because they seemed to be running the same FW as other cards on it...

[Computurd]

new firmware...
gah! gonna have to get into benchmode again...lets see what vantage thinks of this!

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/New1880FW.png

[F.E.A.R.]

@ Computurd

You have PM ;)

[SteveRo]

Realy? ;)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3996834&postcount=26

Good morning Mr FEAR,

I found with 1231/acards that i got my best pcmv suite scores with 4k stripe.
Mr Anvil should chime in, with SSDs instead of acards I thought 4k stripe was still the best.

[SteveRo]

new firmware...
gah! gonna have to get into benchmode again...lets see what vantage thinks of this!

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/paullie1/New1880FW.png

Wow CT, huge score there guy!

[Nizzen]

http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=373808

4k random read Iometer;

New firmware:

Iops?

[SteveRo]

Very nice numbers Mr Nizzen, what drives and how many?
Do you have your 4GB cache yet?

[Anvil]

Good morning Mr FEAR,

I found with 1231/acards that i got my best pcmv suite scores with 4k stripe.
Mr Anvil should chime in, with SSDs instead of acards I thought 4k stripe was still the best.

I'll find out this weekend.
The 1880 does seem to be a bit limited at 4K strips, that is, using > 3-4 SSDs

[Tiltevros]

so 16k is the best for ARC and intels?

[Nizzen]

Very nice numbers Mr Nizzen, what drives and how many?
Do you have your 4GB cache yet?

They epic failed and sendt 2gb memory. 4 gb memory with UPS express :shakes:

The iometer test was with 1gb memory. I want the 4gb now ! :mad:

[Spoiler]

Anyone have a (US retail ) link to a 667Mhz 4GB memory chip for this card? I'll try that out if nobody can find a legitimate 800Mhz 4GB chip.

I wonder what kind of performane difference that would make.

[Tiltevros]

i know a retailer that is spotted in cyprus that has the kingston 800MHz that has the approval from ARECA. If anyone wants just pm me.

[Computurd]

hey storage gurus could you guys weigh in on this for me?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=4546074#post4546074

i know its not storage related, but....

[Computurd]

terrible news here..hooked up the st1500 and then started hearing arcing/seeing smoke/smelling fire/etc..
so of co0urse i have to unplug the psu
this is the first boot mind you
and the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ign thing fried 3 of my ssd's!!! one is torched, the other two are toasted, but no visible scorching.
all three were on the same cord, which has visible scorching on it.
unbelievable.
absolutely unbelievable.
fried the sas/sata fanouts on the ssds as well, but thank god the controller looks to be alright.
sheer dumb luck that somehow it would fry the cables, yet leave the card in fine shape.
i am crushed! now time to see what they will do about it
i am wondering if they are going to cover the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing damage here. this : was hooked up correctly. there is no reason in gods green earth that the sata port should do that.

[adsyf]

hey comp, I once did that by assuming that modular cables would be the same across psus when I checked the manual on the new psu I found that the same (psu) connector on new psu actually was for a higher voltage (not hard disk) output. Are you sure that power cable was from the new psu? It destroyed the psu and fused the sata cable to the intel 80GB ssd connector!!

[xeon_1]

terrible news here..hooked up the st1500 and then started hearing arcing/seeing smoke/smelling fire/etc..
so of co0urse i have to unplug the psu
this is the first boot mind you
and the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ign thing fried 3 of my ssd's!!! one is torched, the other two are toasted, but no visible scorching.
all three were on the same cord, which has visible scorching on it.
unbelievable.
absolutely unbelievable.
fried the sas/sata fanouts on the ssds as well, but thank god the controller looks to be alright.
sheer dumb luck that somehow it would fry the cables, yet leave the card in fine shape.
i am crushed! now time to see what they will do about it
i am wondering if they are going to cover the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing damage here. this : was hooked up correctly. there is no reason in gods green earth that the sata port should do that.

Well to be honest i never heard of the brand of psu you use and i have heared and experienced that those non brand/cheaper brand's fry stuff.

Be quiet
antec
thermaltake
ocz
corsair
evga (its a rebranded antec with the option to tweak the voltages)

Those are the only brands i thrust for psu's.

But hopefully you can get a few new free ssd's out of this.
Intel G3's perhaps

[Tiltevros]

im very sad about this paul. if u need anything tell me :(

LSI SSS6200 on AS ssd i have some screens from june where i was testing that thing

[F@32]

hey comp, I once did that by assuming that modular cables would be the same across psus when I checked the manual on the new psu I found that the same (psu) connector on new psu actually was for a higher voltage (not hard disk) output. Are you sure that power cable was from the new psu? It destroyed the psu and fused the sata cable to the intel 80GB ssd connector!!

Silverstone is one of the top notch PSU makers, along with Seasonic, PC Power&Cooling, Corsair and Antec. Jonny Guru is known for proper PSU reviews, I'd also check with HardOCP and Anand on that subject matter. OCZ and Thermaltake on the other hand were spitting cheap generic re-brands for long long time. Some OCZ models are getting quite good though. But there are not the names come to my mind when I think quality PSU.

Sorry for your ordeal mate. I had once PSU go pop like that but in fairness I pushed all my stuff to the brink and it didn't have enough juice.

Hope Silverstone would step-up. I still have all my equipment going through UPC that in addition to fuse will provide protection against power drop...

[Anvil]

@CT

That's just terrible.
SilverStone is a reputable brand, just proves that accidents happen.

@Tilt

Awesome :)
But where's the rest of that AS SSD score :D

[Tiltevros]

@Tilt

Awesome :)
But where's the rest of that AS SSD score :D

the mesurement was when the server is Online

[Anvil]

I figured it was low on writes, great result though.

Is this using raid-5?

[Tiltevros]

yeah strange and i couldnt stop the built-redunt which was 90%

[Anvil]

Tilt,

If you've still got access to it you should create a new thread, it looks awesome on random reads

[Ao1]

terrible news here..hooked up the st1500 and then started hearing arcing/seeing smoke/smelling fire/etc..

i am wondering if they are going to cover the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing damage here. this : was hooked up correctly. there is no reason in gods green earth that the sata port should do that.

I’m gutted for you. I would imagine that Silverstone would want that unit back to see what went wrong. If it is a serious manufacturing defect you might be lucky to get compensation for the damage it caused but warranties generally exclude collateral damage and only cover replacement of the product.

Could you claim it on house insurance as accidental damage? I know it was not an accident as such but I was able to claim when my house got hit by lightning and it took out anything that was plugged in at the time. I was also able to claim on flood damage when my water cooling system leaked and took out half my PC but that is another story.

[eva2000]

terrible news here..hooked up the st1500 and then started hearing arcing/seeing smoke/smelling fire/etc..
so of co0urse i have to unplug the psu
this is the first boot mind you
and the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ign thing fried 3 of my ssd's!!! one is torched, the other two are toasted, but no visible scorching.
all three were on the same cord, which has visible scorching on it.
unbelievable.
absolutely unbelievable.
fried the sas/sata fanouts on the ssds as well, but thank god the controller looks to be alright.
sheer dumb luck that somehow it would fry the cables, yet leave the card in fine shape.
i am crushed! now time to see what they will do about it
i am wondering if they are going to cover the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing damage here. this : was hooked up correctly. there is no reason in gods green earth that the sata port should do that.
ouch did you test the psu standalone before plugging it in ? I always use my 2x cheap psu testers one from antec to test new psu standalone before plugging it it. Sometimes you can get faulty psu out of the factory. I had one brand new psu arrive, tested it with antec psu tester and switch on and entire house electricity and safety circuit trip! So rma back to retailer to test, they plugged it and and turned it on and it fried their entire power surge board with smoke literally a mini fire happened EEK. Straight rma replacement :D

[Computurd]

well went to bed pretty dejected last night, felt like my dog had died :(
came into the room today and it still smells like someone was burning a rubber tire in here, but thanks guys for the words, cheers me up more than you would imagine!
the best thing i guess is that they were just gen 1 vertex 30gb, resale value on them is probably 50 bucks each if im lucky. (worth more to me than that, though :) )

Dont get me wrong guys, SilverStone is a helluva company, and their PSU are definitely world-class...just a bad cable is all. took an old 20gb platter and tested the other sata outputs one by one, all were good. the psu itself is running fine, god i am ballsy trying it though< wish i had some gear like you mentioned eva2000! I have used silverstone psu's for years, and know many who use them, some by my recommendation, so i am not going to be quick to bash them, thats for sure. they do make good stuff!
gonna see if silverstone will step to the plate with the ssd, but have a feeling i will get bonered on it. just gonna have to eat it i guess.
really it could have been much worse. 1500 watts to the motherboard would've been a real disaster! raid card/ram/gpus....all would be toast so i guess i should actually be counting my blessings!
'tested' the 1880 by doing a few runs this am, and lemme tell ya, there is definitely a big difference power wise! the 3.3v was getting weak on my old one, but with 40a on this one it definitely is ROCK solid. also with the two eps 8-pin with a 12v rail for EACH, total of 50A of power just toasting this cpu! actually i think that i was overcompensating with volts for the weakening psu, as now the cpu is running hotter a little bit, also when i am making changes it is much more responsive to that. this is a great psu JohnnyGuru's review was pretty glowing, and when it impresses that guy that much, its gotta be good :)
I am going to have to re-do my OC though, i think i am way overvolting, to the extreme!

@tilt-wow you've been holding out on me you greek you-know-what, that AS SSD is stupendous! 391@4k QD1...mind boggling! you shouldve run PCMV on it! (j/k i know it was in a server :))
you do need to make a thread though, just maybe some of your thoughts/observations on that device as you seen it..would make for great reading. that was more than one device though, correct?

@aydsf-they were cables that came with the unit, unfortunately. I guess it would be easier to swallow if it had been my own error. god that had to suck though, hate to lose gear to this type of stuff, and that information you gave me i will never forget thats for sure. i was thinking that it was cool that i had some other spare cables that were with another psu...didn't try it thank god, but might have!

@ F@32-yea i hope they step up too!

@A01-i am thinking siverstone will want the unit back as well. it is working fine, but if i can get my ssd replaced i will send them those too, to prove it was the psu or whatever. with the low resale value of the vertex i dont think it would be worth it to claim, but reading your post makes me realize i should be thankful, it could be much worse! i couldn't imagine losing everything that is plugged in, as much of a tech nut i am i would probably lose it and go live in a grass hut in the mountains or something, never to be seen again...:rofl:
sorry to hear that happened to you though, but glad that insurance helped ya out.

strange though that it fired the sas/sata fanouts but not the raid controller..that is just too much luck...:worship:

[eva2000]

Ballsy indeed trying the psu after that, i wouldn't have confidence in the psu and go for rma. I had to rma my 2+ yr Silverstone OP1200 a few months back as i smelt a burning smell coming from my bench rig even though it ran fine. Couldn't pin point if it was psu or board as no visible sign. Contacted Silverstone Taiwan via online tech support they said even if i wasn't sure if it was psu, they should check it out for me. Referred me to local Silverstone Aussie disty and they confirmed it was faulty. Took a while to get back as disty only sends faulty unit back to manufacturers in batches. Got replacement unit a few months back works fine. My OP1200 is old with only 4x 6pin PCI-E instead of newer OP1200 with 6x6pin PCI-E, only emailed them recently and they sent me 2x 8pin to 6pin PCI-E converters free of charge. This is for a psu i bought 2+ yrs ago heh

So really, would you really want to trust the psu ?

As to psu testers lots at http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=psu+tester&x=0&y=0

[Computurd]

yea you are right...i am not going with it for the long run at all. i will be RMA for sure...just waiting on getting my other one back is gonna be a PITA>

EDIT: that psu tester is cheap, gonna pick one up, thanks for the link!

also i didnt realize there was online support...cant find it

[eva2000]

support contact form http://www.silverstonetek.com/contactus.php?area= :)

[SteveRo]

@ Mr Nizzen,
Too bad about the mem!
Yes, agree, looks like you want the 4GB mem for sure :yepp:

[Computurd]

@eva-ya i know that one :) i thought you were saying an online chat, like newegg does. those are the best for fast resolution of issues.

[SteveRo]

yea you are right...i am not going with it for the long run at all. i will be RMA for sure...just waiting on getting my other one back is gonna be a PITA>

EDIT: that psu tester is cheap, gonna pick one up, thanks for the link!

also i didnt realize there was online support...cant find it

Wow CT, sorry about your damage!
I plan to get one of these ps testers also!

[Nizzen]

4gb arc mem waiting bench;

ICH10 testing :shrug:

Ass bench
6xc300 128gb 4k stripe @ ich10 @ p6t7 supercomputer

Not bad for a waiting bench? :p:

[SteveRo]

@ Mr Tiltevros - wow - very nice AS SSD - only one controller? :up::up:

@ Mr Anvil - just noticed you uped your pcmv score by about 2500 pnts!
Very nice work - over 30K!
#8 on the orb - job well done - :up::up: - http://service.futuremark.com/search/pcmarkvantage.action?product=pcmarkvantage.action&page=&receiver=%2Fajax%2Fsearchresultpcmarkvantage.actio n&doSearch=true&cpuId=&cpuSpeedFrom=&cpuSpeedTo=&logicalProcessors=-100&physicalProcessors=-100&multicore=-100&hyperthreading=-100&gpuId=&gpucorespeedFrom=&gpucorespeedTo=&gpumemoryspeedFrom=&gpumemoryspeedTo=&gpuMemory=-100&shadermodel=-100&cooperativeGpus=-100&operatingsystem=-100&filterDuplicates=true&bmbits=-100&email=&newestminorversion=0&benchmarkminorversion=1&scoretype=0&scoreFrom=&scoreTo=&settings=-100&resolution=-100
Give us details !!! :yepp::yepp::yepp:

[SteveRo]

@ Mr. Nizzen, very nice for ich10 :up: