Raid 0 Hardware porn :)

Ok this has just landed at my door step :)

What you are looking at is 2x MTRON 32GB Pro SSD's and a Areca ARC-1231ML SATA / SAS PCI-E RAID Controller Card.

These SSD's will be installed in a Raid 0 setup. Future build will increase the number of SSD's for higher bandwith, with the end in mind of a total of 8 SSD's in Raid 0.

So this is build #1.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8222/img03303sx9.jpg

This is projected stats of this Raid 0 Setup.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/609...2x32gbpbr8.jpg

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Originally Posted by Buckeye

Ok this has just landed at my door step :)

What you are looking at is 2x MTRON 32GB Pro SSD's and a Areca ARC-1231ML SATA / SAS PCI-E RAID Controller Card.

These SSD's will be installed in a Raid 0 setup. Future build will increase the number of SSD's for higher bandwith, with the end in mind of a total of 8 SSD's in Raid 0.

So this is build #1.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8222/img03303sx9.jpg

This is projected stats of this Raid 0 Setup.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/609...2x32gbpbr8.jpg

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certainly nuts(cost - yikes), but I do look forward to the results!

You might need to keep a bucket of water nearby, to help keep the smoke down! :p:

That thing is a runner!! :cool: :up:

OMG...I need those for my DVD ripping. Would you accept an old outdated 5400 RPM IDE drive for trade?:shrug: ...It holds more data....

I looked at the SSDs, but was not impressed with file copy performance, or the lack of capacity. These drives are well suited for notebooks though...

Intel is supposed to be coming out with a new line of larger and faster SSDs in the very near future...I'll be waiting to see what they can do.:)

Nice, Buckeye!
I see you build is progressing nicely! :)

ur post says 1231ML... on the card it says 1280ML :shrug: :D

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Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

ur post says 1231ML... on the card it says 1280ML :shrug: :D

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You are correct, thats my error.

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Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

ur post says 1231ML... on the card it says 1280ML :shrug: :D

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by lutjens

I looked at the SSDs, but was not impressed with file copy performance, or the lack of capacity. These drives are well suited for notebooks though...

Intel is supposed to be coming out with a new line of larger and faster SSDs in the very near future...I'll be waiting to see what they can do.:)

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This will pretty much just have the OS installed on it, while other programs will be on a different drive. I do have space to put something like OS + Crysis on it though.

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Originally Posted by Talonman

You might need to keep a bucket of water nearby, to help keep the smoke down! :p:

That thing is a runner!! :cool: :up:

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LOL ! Jin is working on a solution for that problem with keeping the smoke down, HAHA ! it's gonne be great :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buckeye

This will pretty much just have the OS installed on it, while other programs will be on a different drive. I do have space to put something like OS + Crysis on it though.

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OK, maybe I'm being dumb... :shrug: but question:

2 x 32GB in RAID0 = 64GB usable space. How the hell can you NOT get OS + apps in 64GB????

Let's assume you are using Vista (charitably or uncharitably LOL) rather than XP which can slim down to WAY less than 4GB on its own, you'd need maybe 10-20GB of space for Vista, leaving around 50GB of space. What on earth do you have for "apps" that takes over 50GB of space? I have less than 5 to 10GB of actual "apps", by which I mean things that do real stuff, not games. If you mean games then say so, but you should certainly be able to fit Office and Photoshop and a heck of a lot of other bloatware into 50GB.

I guess I am REALLY not understanding why you need to waste all that valuable high-speed space just for a (single) game... :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IanB

OK, maybe I'm being dumb... :shrug: but question:

2 x 32GB in RAID0 = 64GB usable space. How the hell can you NOT get OS + apps in 64GB????

Let's assume you are using Vista (charitably or uncharitably LOL) rather than XP which can slim down to WAY less than 4GB on its own, you'd need maybe 10-20GB of space for Vista, leaving around 50GB of space. What on earth do you have for "apps" that takes over 50GB of space? I have less than 5 to 10GB of actual "apps", by which I mean things that do real stuff, not games. If you mean games then say so, but you should certainly be able to fit Office and Photoshop and a heck of a lot of other bloatware into 50GB.

I guess I am REALLY not understanding why you need to waste all that valuable high-speed space just for a (single) game... :eek:

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Yes you are right. There will be more installed on it. I am just playing it by ear atm and seeing how the build goes, leaving all options on the table. This rig will be a pure game machine and for me to tweak on. I have another machine that I do my work on and it is to important to me to mess around with it. That's why I am creating this new build.

The first plan was just the 1 32GB SSD, but I decided to expand it to the Raid 0 setup to leave more options available to me on what apps I want installed on the SSD's.

Are those the $1000 SSD's ?

You can see some prices here. It updates regularly as new stuff comes out or prices change ;)
http://www.neostore.com/SearchResult...0State%20Disks

I usually go right to here www.dvnation.com The people over there are outstanding, and very helpful. Jason over there is one cool guy !

I plugged 1 SSD in my work machine and installed Vista Enterprise on it to just get a feel of how it will perform. Clearly my work machine is not clean by any means.

So it installed as a dual boot setup. Boot time was about 20 seconds and I believe the problem is the dual boot setup. My main C: drive is 2x Raptors in Raid 0 so you can still see a fair amount of HD access :(

But it was enough to see what these can do. The loading bar on the Vista Startup screen goes around 7 times on a normal boot. With the SSD and even in a dual boot setup went almost 1 time accross the screen. The machine is very, very zippy running on the SSD. But I have no apps and just a fully updated Vista with Nvidia drivers installed on it atm.

Looking at the Raid card I have 4 Multi Lance connections. Each Multi Lance connector has 4 SATA plugs coming out plus 1 Sideband Cable, I believe I will not need the Sideband connection.

I am thinking now that I should have gone for the 16GB SSD's as it would have been cheaper for the full 8 SSD setup. But at the time I was only planning on 1 SSD so I went with 1 32GB. A full Raid of 8 of those would be a bit costly Ha ! But I will most likely end up with 4.

That will leave 2 Multi Lance connectors with nothing to do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buckeye

I am thinking now that I should have gone for the 16GB SSD's as it would have been cheaper for the full 8 SSD setup. But at the time I was only planning on 1 SSD so I went with 1 32GB. A full Raid of 8 of those would be a bit costly Ha ! But I will most likely end up with 4.

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So you've got about $2800 in these two drives and controller ?

That's about right.

Not counting the rest of the equipment for the new build.

Now it's 2x Silverstone TJ07 cases
QX9650 upgraded to a QX9770
EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
2 each EVGA GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB 512-bit GDDR3
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Dual Channel
Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W
HITACHI Deskstar 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Blu-ray_BURN LITE-ON|LH-2B1S SATA

:up:

Forgot to add the Phase cooling setup to that list :)

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Originally Posted by XS Janus

You can see some prices here. It updates regularly as new stuff comes out or prices change ;)
http://www.neostore.com/SearchResult...0State%20Disks

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wtf, the neo store sells ssd's:rofl:

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Originally Posted by IanB

Let's assume you are using Vista (charitably or uncharitably LOL) rather than XP which can slim down to WAY less than 4GB on its own, you'd need maybe 10-20GB of space for Vista, leaving around 50GB of space. What on earth do you have for "apps" that takes over 50GB of space? I have less than 5 to 10GB of actual "apps", by which I mean things that do real stuff, not games. If you mean games then say so, but you should certainly be able to fit Office and Photoshop and a heck of a lot of other bloatware into 50GB.

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Your calculations are slightly off. Vista wants at least 20GB for its install; unless you're running a vLite'd disk it will have a sad otherwise. So that's 42GB. You'd also lose some space due to gigabyte definition and the nature of RAID, so call it 40GB usable space after Vista.

I do agree that you could fit a decent number of apps into 40GB, however.

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Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

ur post says 1231ML... on the card it says 1280ML :shrug: :D

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The 1280ML is the parent card and the subsequent cards are just cut down versions of the 1280ML with fewer ports/controller chips. Areca could have at least put a sticker over the "1280ML" designation to denote the correct model, but I guess it wasn't a priority.

Awesome setup can't wait till I can afford some SSDs in RAID 0 :yepp:

What do you notice to be influenced the most by the SSDs?

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Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

ur post says 1231ML... on the card it says 1280ML :shrug: :D

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lutjens is correct ;)

The 1280ML has an additional 3 more connectors. You can see the spots on that board where the other connectors are left off.

1231ML has space for 12 drives (3x Multi connectors), while the 1280ML has space for 24 drives (6x Multi connectors).

It seems to be a labeling problem with Areca.

Thanks Napalm :)

I am in the process up upgrading even further atm