Bummer :down:Quote:
Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss
Printable View
Bummer :down:Quote:
Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss
:yepp:Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckeye
Josh, I only had time to pop the cover on mine before I left on my trip... The slots for the RAM looked pretty tightly spaced. Do you think many heat spreader equipped DIMMS are too big to place adjacently? It almost looks that way, just curious about your thoughts on the matter. BTW, any playing around with the CF slot yet?
Wade
Ok, I got 4x4GB in my box along with 4x2GB sticks. I ordered the Gskil 4GB sticks from newegg. Strangely(or maybe not) the heatsinks aren't glued to the RAM at all. In fact, I turned the box upside down while I was talking on the phone, and a heatsink fell off. I haven't ever seen this before. They have always been firmly glued onto the chips. All 4 sticks are like this, so I had a great opportunity to see about heat problems inside the box both with and without heatsinks.
I tested the temps using the slots that have RAM installed on both sides and after heavy use of the drive to ensure the sticks got as I could resonably expect.
Overall I noticed no significant difference in temperature between the sticks with the heatsink and the sticks without a heatsink. However the center chip on the board with the heatsink gets extremely hot.
I have decided that I am going to look into installing a fan somehow to keep some air flowing through the box to keep everything cool. Since these RAM sticks have heatsinks that are easily removed, I have removed all of the heatsinks from the 4GB sticks. There is some room, maybe 1.5mm tops, between the memory sticks when the heatsinks are installed. I just think that there is more opportunity for cooling without the heatsinks. Besides, if the heatsinks aren't securely fastened to the ram chips, how much heat can you reasonably expect to be transferred?
I do not have a CF card to test in my box. Right now I'm not planning to get a CF card. I did buy the external power supply for the ANS-9010, and I do have a UPS that the computer will be hooked up to, so I don't expect to have any problems with losing data in RAM. I also plan to do periodic backup images of the drive for safe keeping just in case. When CF get's a bit cheaper or there is a fire sale I'll get a good CF card. I'd just rather continue to put money into more RAM for the box before I get the CF card.
KVR667D2E5/4G, KVR667D2E5/2G and KVR667D2E5/1G are Kingston ECC Unbuffered/Unregistered sticks according to kingston sales dept
the 1GB and 2GB variety are very reasonably priced and will let you avoid any processing overhead of running the virtual ecc mode
The difference between the non-ECC and quasi-ECC feature was not significant(test results between the two were less than 1%). With this knowledge, I would avoid buying ECC unless the price is less than 1/9th the difference of non-ECC memory, or you do have a need for that 1/9th more RAM.
Now, there may be something unique to the design of the box, where ECC memory will perform faster than non-ECC(or using the quasi-ECC feature), but as I do not have ECC memory to test this theory, it is unproven.
I honestly wouldn't expect ECC memory to perform any faster than non-ECC(see above), but stranger things have happened.
the kingston 1gb sticks are ~14.00$, the 2GB sticks are ~27.00$ and quite unfortunately the 4Gb sticks are around 330.00$
Well, the 4GB sticks on newegg are $109 each.... If you price shop, you can find some good deals where 2Gb sticks are <$27 each.
Obviously though if you are getting 4GB sticks, you'd be crazy to buy ECC at that price. Today my core i7 computer will be assembled. The motherboard is the GA-EX58-UD5. I'll be installing Windows XP on the drive, and you bet I'll be performing benchmarks shortly after. I'll post them as soon as I get them.
Here's the new benchmarks for those interested. These were performed using the hardware RAID-0 of the ICH10R chip(in this case on a Gigabyte EX58-UD5 motherboard). I did the full benchmarks for h2benchw and HDTach using all available stripe choices. It appears that the ideal stripe size for these boxes are 16k. Since there was so many results, I decided to provide zip files of them instead of pasting it all here. The 16k stripe benchmarks for h2benchw are show below.
I did install Windows XP Pro on the box. This thing is so freakin' fast I can't believe it. I updated a program, and the update screen flashed so fast that I didn't even realize the program updated. I was able to install Windows XP in less than 10 minutes, then upgrade from SP2 to SP3 in 117 seconds. That's just AMAZING!
Ok, here's the results for 16k stripe size.....
nterface transfer rate w/ block size 128 sectors at 0.0% of capacity:
Sequential read rate medium (w/out delay): 304925 KByte/s
Sequential transfer rate w/ read-ahead (delay: 0.23 ms): 311081 KByte/s
Repetitive sequential read ("core test"): 304936 KByte/s
Sequential write rate medium (w/out delay): 262211 KByte/s
Sequential transfer rate write cache (delay: 0.27 ms): 266516 KByte/s
Repetitive sequential write: 261967 KByte/s
Sustained transfer rate (block size: 128 sectors):
Reading: average 306144.9, min 285985.0, max 309198.2 [KByte/s]
Writing: average 262580.0, min 243938.3, max 265505.7 [KByte/s]
Random access read: average 0.05, min 0.04, max 0.06 [ms]
Random access write: average 0.05, min 0.04, max 0.06 [ms]
Random access read (<504 MByte): average 0.05, min 0.04, max 0.06 [ms]
Random access write (<504 MByte): average 0.05, min 0.04, max 2.56 [ms]
Application profile `swapping': 116846.4 KByte/s
Application profile `installing': 351531.5 KByte/s
Application profile `Word': 253346.4 KByte/s
Application profile `Photoshop': 250514.4 KByte/s
Application profile `copying': 386762.0 KByte/s
Application profile `F-Prot': 168442.1 KByte/s
Result: application index = 229.8
If you look at the HDTach benchmarks, you'll notice that the benchmarks become really odd at larger stripe sizes.
Sorry if the attachments aren't fancy. I'm tired and stayed up to make sure to get these benchmarks done tonight. Enjoy everyone!
Thanks Josh !
I really like these babies :)
Thanks Josh1980!
From your previous posts, I see you have used a number of different memory configurations. What you are using now and how much? Are you using ECC? Also...is it possible to throw for example 4 x 4GB sticks with 4 x 2GB sticks in the box?
And one more question for everyone... has anyone tried using two 9010a or b's off an onboard or discrete raid controller?
I have 4x4GB, 2x2GB, and 2x512MB sticks. Some are 533 and some are 800. There is no requirement for pairs, and you can put different sizes in the box in any order and any speeds. None of the chips are ECC. The cost versus benefit wasn't worth it(cost is quite high for 4GB sticks).
Spoiler - There is a set of benchmarks I did with a pci-e RAID card I had. Not sure if that helps you at all since you wanted onboard and discrete. The benchmarks I posted yesterday are from an onboard card, while the first set I did was using a software raid as well as pci-e card.
Does anyone else notice that when you post messages it says it got posted, then it shows you the thread with the new message. Yet when you go and check later the thread is missing the post? I've had this happen at least a half dozen times on several different computers using both IE and Firefox.
What card?Quote:
Originally Posted by josh1980
This thing seems to be so much faster than any other hard disks out there. The only drawback is we need to spend on lots of RAM :(
My card is a Highpoint RocketRAID 2320.Quote:
Originally Posted by Speederlander
As comparison my 2x core v2 ssds in raid 0 on ICH9R get about half of those rates at app index 125.9.Quote:
Originally Posted by josh1980
Ok, so here's my latest and greatest thoughts on this hardware....
I will have spent over $1000 on this little box with 32GB of RAM by the time all is said and done. I have a UPS connected to my computer, with the ANS-9010 connected to a second power supply. I bought one of those IDE/SATA to USB convert kits and used the power supply for the ANS-9010. The cord comes in through the back of the computer to the ANS-9010. This gives me UPS power to the drive and it has power even when the computer is off. There is a power supply kit you can buy for it, but it costs $30 and my idea is identical to theirs but less expensive. The internal battery lasts about 2.5 hours if the box loses external power.
This drive is my boot drive. I installed the software that usually has alot of boot time loading requirements like Yahoo IM, MSN IM, Defrag(defragmenting this drive is essentially pointless), Antivirus, etc. Any other software that doesn't have high boot loading requirements I install onto my 1TB drive. My boot times have suffered very little from this method. Even with all of my software installed my boot times are less than 1 minute. It's still so much fun to load Windows and watch all of the programs in the toolbar load in seconds. I also have a Gigabyte I-RAM card with 4GB of RAM on it. I chose to use the I-RAM as a swapfile location.
I am quite impressed with the performance of this box. Being that I had money to throw at it, I find it a worthwhile investment(I could have spent it on alot more things that do less for me). I can't help but wonder if this was really worth the $1000 I'll spend on it. I don't really do video editing, or any of the stuff that would see the biggest performance boost from this drive. It's for my workstation that I do everything on from games to programming to Office related work. I will say that I do not fear the 5 minute reboots like I used to.
This box is amazing, but I would venture to say that 2GB sticks would have probably sufficed for my goal.
This box is definitely not for those with small pocketbooks. These things are not cheap to set up, and there is a higher probability of losing one's data since the box losing power = wiped drive.
Now that the Intel X25-E is being released, I would have some mixed feelings too about spending $1000. The intel drive is somewhat comparable in speed, but cost almost $300 cheaper.Quote:
Originally Posted by josh1980
it is not comparible in speed in any way shape or form.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoiler
For what Josh will be doing with it, I would believe that the speed of the two devices would be very much comparable. I would definately agree that the ACARD device surely wins in the benchmarks, but I can't imagine myself noticing much difference between the two devices when the main usage would be for gaming and general office work.
Well, once you get fast enough, doubling the speed isn't easily noticed anymore by the user. It only becomes an issue of faster benchmarks. It might feel a little snappier, and a few non-critical things like boot time may be faster, but somewhere down the line you are bottlenecked by the requirement to push things through the CPU, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by One_Hertz
I would like to see this drive benched for real-world feel and compared to SSDs on anand or somewhere else using their full suite of apps.
the fact that this ram drive doesnt get raped by random writes or just a simple combination of reads and writes means a lot. The agree that the STR means very little.
Where do you see the X25-E getting raped in random writes? For one, I am only basing my opinions off the latest review from the techreport.com And second, I could be wrong, but I thought the SLC devices didn't suffer from random writes nearly as bad as the MLC ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by One_Hertz
http://www.alternativerecursion.info/?p=106
When they run benchmarks, the drive showed it as top of the line in seek times, read and write performance. BUT, when it comes to random writes, it was horribly slow(4IOPS ROFL!). This was a MLC drive, not SLC. I'm very interested to see a similar breakdown in an SLC drive. If anyone finds a good benchmark for random writes of an SLC drive an link would be appreciated.
I've always been a little skeptical of SSDs ever since reading that article. Tom's Hardware did a big review of a bunch of SSD drives in August, and the 1 benchmark they didn't provide was random writes. When I can see SSD boot as fast as my computer does, i'll be a believer again. A ramdrive would make a significantly better pagefile drive than an SSD just because you don't 'wear out' ram drives.
Of course, SSD is new, and it will only improve. I see SSD drives being made with 2 principle purposes:
1. MLC - Drive that are designed for backup and long term storage(think your video collection, pictures, application zips, etc).
2. SLC - Drives that are your boot drives(your installed OS, Programs, User Profile).
Of course, some company could invent a 3rd hybrid that uses a combination of both chips.
I'm expecting that in 5 years I'll be buying MLC drives for that "big drive" need, and SLC for boot drives.
In the test that you linked to the problem is in JMicron controller, not MLCs.Quote:
Originally Posted by josh1980
X25-E review.
MLC drives can be very fast, just as good as SLC except for writes, especially small and random ones.
They are very good whenever you're streaming large data portions and are much cheaper than SLC.
I expect that the top consumer drives will be MLC + large RAM cache, that seems to be a better option than SLC...unless you have a server and need extra durability.