AMD SB850/890GX with SSD RAID-0 first look

December 24, 2010 update: See 3, 4, 5 drives RAID-0 tests here.

July 5, 2010 update: Re-ran all benchmarks with tweaks and NCQ on. ICH10R slightly outperforms SB850 in small file read/writes - see AS SSD and ATTO benchmarks. Overall it offers amazing performance for SSD drives on par with ICH10R, so now at least AMD fans can have worthy controller and not feel left behind. Note that ICH10R was more forgiving in terms of partition alignment.

In a nutshell:
- ICH10R is faster with small files (<128Kb) performing read/write operations
- SB850 has higher sequential throughput. Multiple tests and users show it is about 1000MB/s (I reached a bit over 900MB/s). Thanks TassadarDavid's and mattkosem for the benchmarks. Vanilla ICH10R is capped at about 600MB/s
- In my 2R0 benchmarks it topped out at 61,000 IOps in 4K random read QD32.
- SB850 right now offers native SATA3, while Intel uses third party solutions, many were reported to be performing not so well with SSD SATA3 RAID-0

Looking at this graph, SB850 with 890GX config will be capped at theoretical 2GB/s, which SATA shares with PCI, USB, PATA, Ethernet and HD Audio.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...890GXblock.jpg

To get maximum RAID performance from SSDs on SB850
1. You need to manually align partition even if you are on Vista or 7 (see alignment calculator by W1zzard here http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/157)
2. C1E and C&Q off
3. SATA3 should be off for SATA2 drives (x-18/25m saw 4K QD16 IOps quadrupled with SATA3 off.)
4. 8.71 and newer chipset, AHCI and RAID drivers
5. NCQ on in RAIDXpert - thanks to Ourasi for the tip
(For single drive that means SB 850 is in RAID mode, but drive is not RAID members. You will loose TRIM in RAID mode.)
6. Write back caching on in RAIDXpert and Windows drive properties.
7. Buffer flushing off
8. Other OS tweaks (i.e. Defrag off, Indexing off, etc.)
9. For factory resetting your drives: HDD Erase will only recognize drives attached to port 4 and 5 on SB850 in IDE mode or JMicron SATA connectors
10. Task xx timeout errors on your array. This is caused either by RAID option ROM (see more details in the Nov 5 update) or by having SATA3 enabled for SATA2 SSDs.

Hi folks!

The test:
- Intel x-18m G1 RAID-0 SATA2 on SB850 SATA 6Gb was tested after quick build
- Compared to ICH10R, performance is about the same
- Write-Back and NCQ options can be enabled in RAIDXpert application in Windows
- To eliminate the usual suspects I tested JMicron as well in RAID-0 and single drive mode on that board, after resetting drives to fresh condition
- It is possible, that bios/drivers will need some work.
- I hope SB850 will shine with SATA3 6Gbs SSDs
- TRIM support is available in AHCI mode with 8.7 and later drivers
- Make sure to grab latest (as of this writing it is 8.71 chipset/SATA/AHCI/RAID/RAIDXpert drivers from your motherboard manufacturer's website)

Test set-up:
ICH10R
Drives: Intel X-18M Gen1 80Gb
RAID set-up: Stripe 128Kb, 4K NTFS allocation unit, write-back caching enabled
Storage Driver: intel_rst_full_9.5.4.1001 with IntelMatrixWin764bit8.9.0.1023
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P, bios F10f
CPU: C2D E8400, TRUE-120 default clocks
RAM: 4x1Gb DDR2 Buffalo FireStix 800MHz (Micron D9s)
Video: Asus HD5850, Cat 10.2
Sound: X-Fi XtremeMusic, SBXF_W7DRVBTA_US_2_18_0013
NIC: Intel Gigabit CT PCIe
PSU: Antec Quattro 850Wt
Case: Antec 1200
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

SB850
Drives: Intel X-18M Gen1 80Gb
RAID set-up: Stripe 128Kb, 4K NTFS allocation unit, write-back caching enabled
Storage Driver: AHCI/RAID 8.71
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H, bios F6
CPU: Phenom II 965, TRUE-120 default clocks
RAM: 2x2Gb DDR3 G-Skill Ripjaws F3-12800cl9d
Video: Asus HD5850, Cat 10.6
Sound: X-Fi XtremeMusic, SBXF_W7DRVBTA_US_2_18_0013
NIC: Intel Gigabit CT PCIe
PSU: Antec Quattro 850Wt
Case: Antec 1200
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Benchmarks/tools used:
- iometer-2008-06-22-rc2.win.x86_64
- atto_234
- AS SSD Benchmark 1.4.3645.3568
- HD Tune Pro 3.5
- Crystal Disk Mark 3

AS SSD. SB850 on the left, ICH10R - right
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...H10R742010.png

HDTune Random Read. SB850 on the left, ICH10R - right. Don't know what to say here. SB850 performs very nicely in HDTune Pro...
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...H10R742010.png

ATTO Sequential read and write. SB850 on the left, ICH10R - right
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...H10R742010.png

SB850. IOMeter 4k random read, QD4, 1.5min test run
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...0QD47-4-20.png

SB850. IOMeter 4k random read, QD16, 1.5min test run
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...0QD167-4-2.png

SB850. IOMeter 512k sequential read, QD4, 1.5min test run
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...QD47-4-201.png

SB850 IOMeter 512k sequential write, QD4, 1.5min test run
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...0QD47-4-20.png

SB850. Crystal Disk Mark.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...507-2-2010.png

You have to enable NCQ via the AMD Raid tool, things will look alot better then...... And "Tony TRIM" kills performance on X25 Gen. 1, a complete waste and image+HDDErase is the only way to go on Itel Gen. 1............ The WriteBack Cache you have enabled on ICH is fine for the odd bench, but useless in realworld, so direct comparison with other controllers this must be set to off.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ourasi

You have to enable NCQ via the AMD Raid tool, things will look alot better then...... And "Tony TRIM" kills performance on X25 Gen. 1, a complete waste and image+HDDErase is the only way to go on Itel Gen. 1............ The WriteBack Cache you have enabled on ICH is fine for the odd bench, but useless in realworld, so direct comparison with other controllers this must be set to off.....

---

Does the intel ssd toolbox work on G1's?

No. Intel left G1 owners high and drive with no TRIM

OK, here are the challenges. AMD hasn't released RAIDXpert for 8xx series yet. HDDErase does not work on this board regardless of mode (SATA3, SATA2, AHCI, IDE) or controller (SB850, JMicron). There is no other way to reset Gen 1 x-18/25 on this board except PerfectDisk+AS_Cleaner.

Just installed OS on my third drive and going to bench SSDs in single mode and see what the hell is going on with SB850.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

Just installed OS on my third drive and going to bench SSDs in single mode and see what the hell is going on with SB850.

---

Vertex LE100 on the 4A89GTD Pro/USB3, AHCI.


http://www.edgeofstability.com/image...le100/atto.jpg

OK, I'm running them now as non-OS drives, will post proper benchies soon. Hint: it's not THAT bad ;-) BTW SB850 beats that crappy JMicron...

EDIT: Updated first post with link to the latest chipset drivers.

I have SB850 RAIDXpert on a disk here if you want I can zip it and upload it...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BeepBeep2

I have SB850 RAIDXpert on a disk here if you want I can zip it and upload it...

---

Thanks chief :up:, I have updated first post with the link to 8.70RC1 and RAIDXpert for 850 chipset. Do you see NCQ option anywhere there? I'd better run several QD tests with IOMeter this weekend, otherwise picture is incomplete... Too bad my ICH10R system is all disassembled.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

Thanks chief :up:, I have updated first post with the link to 8.70RC1 and RAIDXpert for 850 chipset. Do you see NCQ option anywhere there? I'd better run several QD tests with IOMeter this weekend, otherwise picture is incomplete... Too bad my ICH10R system is all disassembled.

---

Thank you very much for your tests F@32..:up:

been waiting this for long time...:p:

Can you see which RAID option ROM is your board using ? 3.2.1540.6 maybe ?

Seems that SB850 has become better than its predecessors, but still has room to improve...

I've also tried SSD RAID on AMD's controllers (SB600,SB710,SB750) but on Vertex drives. If you have any avail, maybe we can compare.:)

EDIT : And, i forgot (as usually)...Did you have the option of Write-Back in the RAID ROM Menu ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by felix_w

Thank you very much for your tests F@32..:up:

been waiting this for long time...:p:

Can you see which RAID option ROM is your board using ? 3.2.1540.6 maybe ?

Seems that SB850 has become better than its predecessors, but still has room to improve...

I've also tried SSD RAID on AMD's controllers (SB600,SB710,SB750) but on Vertex drives. If you have any avail, maybe we can compare.:)

EDIT : And, i forgot (as usually)...Did you have the option of Write-Back in the RAID ROM Menu ?

---

Hey Felix,

RAID ROM on my F4c bios is 3.2.1540.15. When I set it up I didn't see Write-Back option. However I have write caching enabled and write-cache buffer flushing disabled in Windows. Sorry, I traded couple of Vertexes for x-18m's. I still have hope that with new RAID ROM and better drivers we might see some performance improvement, but probably it will not touch ICH10R.

Cheers mate.

Added IOMeter results.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

IOMeter 512k sequential write, 4 outstanding IOs, 1Gb test file (yeah, it's not pretty)
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...-0SB850QD4.png

---

Downloaded the 512k sequential write file and ran it on the Vertex LE100 with the controller set to AHCI.

http://www.edgeofstability.com/image...12_compare.jpg

Nice, the power of SandForce 1500 in action. Can't wait for wide availability of SF 1200 drives. SF 1500 are too pricey for MLC drives.

Cheers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

Nice, the power of SandForce 1500 in action. Can't wait for wide availability of SF 1200 drives. SF 1500 are too pricey for MLC drives.

Cheers.

---

Unfortunately I don't have two drives to test in RAID. A single drive is down slightly in benchmarks compared to the ICH10R. But I think one would be hard pressed to tell the difference in actual use between the two controllers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Praz

Unfortunately I don't have two drives to test in RAID. A single drive is down slightly in benchmarks compared to the ICH10R. But I think one would be hard pressed to tell the difference in actual use between the two controllers.

---

Not a problem. One bit of information I'm really curious to see is maximum read throughput of SB 850. Wonder if it's higher than 660 MB/s limit of ICH10R. For that I would need another couple of x-25m. Hate spending money on HW I will not be using in the long run ;)

What was the maximum for SB750 ?

We need some real benchmarks for this. Will google. In a meantime, according to this OCZ forum post (no bench) it's tops out at 600MB/s. You also posted there.

Quote:

---

I found that the 750SB will not run stable at max throughput about 600MB/sec any higher than that for 24/7 use causes me problems.

---

lol, i'd forgotten this thread.
From my tests, seems that performance is very much dependable of driver version. So , if not driver limited, 600MB/s could be the limit.
I had atto runs on SB600 of 450max reads with just 2 drives, so maybe M.Yancey did reach the limit of SB750.

I haven't tried more than two drives (vertex is all i have) on SB750, but since i broke my LSI array for maintenance of drives, maybe if i have time this weekend, i'll try.

I meant official max throughput, though. I haven't found any reference on AMD's documentation for throughput of SB600/SB7xx.

Anand shows mild improvement with SB 850 using new BIOS on Asus board.

Unfortunately one of the ad servers on Anandtech has been hacked and it is serving malicious software right now, so FF is blocking most articles, but not the home page.

I think he says that performance with latest bios was not improved, but after using latest AHCI driver (1.2.0.164) there was an increase :

Quote:

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I received an ASUS 890GX board for this followup and updated to the latest BIOS on that board. That didn’t fix my performance problems. Using AMD’s latest SB850 AHCI drivers however (1.2.0.164), did...sort of

---

I figured out what was bothering my 2-80G G2's with the Gigabyte SB850.

If I enabled "Sata 3.0" mode, the raid controller wouldn't see the G2's any more, and even on the onboard jmicron connections, the G2's would still be flakey as hell just because the onchip controller had sata 3.0 enabled.

That was with F4 bios and the latest Intel firmware as well.

But otherwise, they work great and are fast as hell. With NCQ enabled they are running 170MB/s write 540MB/s read for 2-G2's in raid0.

Did you have to increase SB voltage to get these results, or running stock?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by uwackme

I figured out what was bothering my 2-80G G2's with the Gigabyte SB850.

If I enabled "Sata 3.0" mode, the raid controller wouldn't see the G2's any more, and even on the onboard jmicron connections, the G2's would still be flakey as hell just because the onchip controller had sata 3.0 enabled.

That was with F4 bios and the latest Intel firmware as well.

But otherwise, they work great and are fast as hell. With NCQ enabled they are running 170MB/s write 540MB/s read for 2-G2's in raid0.

---

How do you enable NCQ? Don't see this option in RAID mode anywhere: BIOS, RAIDXpert, Device Manager...

It is in the RaidXpert, if you highlight each drive and then pick settings, it has acces to write-cache and NCQ settings to enable/disable.

The drives come default NCQ off.

Wich is just retarted. WHY on earth would AMD set NCQ as disabled for RAID by default? And then require you to download a tool to activate it. It should at least be accessible in BIOS/RAID-BIOS.

Nah, i think it's disc specific.

The first two Vertex i bought had this setting each one differently. The first i connected was enabled, the second was disabled.

I don't know the logic behind this, but i guess it's disc specific set.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by uwackme

It is in the RaidXpert, if you highlight each drive and then pick settings, it has acces to write-cache and NCQ settings to enable/disable.

The drives come default NCQ off.

---

OK, with NCQ on, C1E off, SATA3 off, Cool'n'Quiet off - getting sequential read/write performance closer to ICH10R in ATTO. When I will have time, I will reset disks and re-bench properly.

Do a run of AS SSD, newest version. 4KB random IOPS and 4KB-64thread (QD 64) will show you how well the NCQ is working.

I was thinking of not putting my ssd's in raid on my new 890fx board , since it kills trim .
Do any of you think the drivers will be trim enabled in the near future ?
I guess it's no priority for AMD to support this .. ?

I think AHCI drivers support TRIM, but I can't test with the current SSD I have around. Wouldn't make sense that first native SATA3 controller doe not support TRIM. I wouldn't hold my breath for RAID TRIM. But at the same time, are you that concerned with write degradation over time? To me random and sequential reads are the most important things for gaming machine. And once in a while I perform Tony TRIM.

Any one tried to run HDD Erase on SB 850?

I tried both hdderase from a bootdisk and from within the asus raid config tool .

From within asus raid config tool at post takes the longest . (20 min)
From bootdisk took 1 minute per disk .

I had to put both my ssd drives on sata 5 and 6 and ide mode or else they didnt get recognized by the tool .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrimInalA

I tried both hdderase from a bootdisk and from within the asus raid config tool .

From within asus raid config tool at post takes the longest . (20 min)
From bootdisk took 1 minute per disk .

I had to put both my ssd drives on sata 5 and 6 and ide mode or else they didnt get recognized by the tool .

---

Thanks, that confirms my preliminary conclusion that v3 of HDD Erase is not compatible with SB850 (I tried IDE, AHCI, RAID modes). Folks should attach their drives to JMicron controller in non-RAID mode to secure erase SSDs.

i used v 4.0 , but what you say is true

Gigabyte 870A-UD3 ... had to be on plugs 4 and 5. I'm using HDDERASE 3.3 with the enhanced erase option, ports 5 and 6 of the 850 southbridge work for me.

Whats up with SATA III not recognizing my Intel SSD's?? Is AMD going to fix this??

Are there gunna be any updates to the SB benchmarks soon?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stinkas

Are there gunna be any updates to the SB benchmarks soon?

---

Will try doing it this w/e if I get free time.

EDIT: OK, updated first post. No matter NCQ, it still way behind Intel. IOMeter pretty much didn't change, so I kept original results. On other hand HDTune and ATTO looking better, but we know not to trust in those, right?

Someone on oczforum posted 3Rx0 with Vertex on SB850. Not impressed...

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...8&d=1274551222

100GB Vertex LE and 120GB Vertex 2E in Raid 0 on the Crosshair IV Formula. NCQ enabled via RAIDXpert. IOMeter test file is 4k random write.


http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/st...p/jpg/atto.jpg


http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/st...jpg/as_ssd.jpg


http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/st...up/jpg/cdm.jpg


http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/st...pg/iometer.jpg


http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/st...p/jpg/pass.jpg

Argh, getting a lot of Task 30 time out errors in RAIDXpert since F7B BIOS...

try altering SB voltage ? i have/had the same on my crosshair IV ..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrimInalA

try altering SB voltage ? i have/had the same on my crosshair IV ..

---

Figured it out. After flashing BIOS I flipped SATA3 mode back on when setting everything up. And it screws RAID up. Now with 1024K alignment and SATA3 off I think I unlocked the performance of the SB850 I expected all along. Posting fresh benchies shortly...

Quick preview:
4K random read QD16 before 1024K alignment and SATA3 mode turned ON
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...0SB850QD16.png

4K random read QD16 with 1024K alignment and SATA3 mode turned OFF
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...0QD167-4-2.png

This is mine on SB850 (CHIV)

http://www.skybed.be/xtremesystems/b...%20enabled.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrimInalA

This is mine on SB850 (CHIV)

---

Niiice. OK, first post has been updated with benchies using correct set-up. I think I'm finally happy with SB850 :D

Nice results!:up:

Hi all,

First of all, I have to say I'm new in this forum, this is my first post, although I've read you many times.

I come from some spanish forums like hardlimit, Noticias3D, Esoeslodemenos or hard2mano, where my nick is Tassadar. I suppose anyone of you will know who I am.

I'm here becouse I've spent a lot of time trying to configure correctly this mobo:

Quote:

---

-Mainboard: Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3.
-Processor: Phenom x6 1090T
-2x SSD Corsair Force F60 in raid 0
-8 Gb 1600 mhz Mushkin CL6

---

And I'm not capable (is this the appropiate word?) of reaching the results of the master: F@32 :)

-I have activate NCQ in both disks in RaidXpert
-I've set off C1E and C&Q in bios
-I've configure SATA2 in bios instead of auto or SATA3
-I've disable auto-defrag in win7
-I've enable write back caching in RaidXpert
-I've align partition (I really have use this calculator, and it says my partition is ok)

Here is a shot RaidXpert, in which can be appreciated that NCQ y and write back caching are on (using driver RAID 3.1.1540.151):

RaidXpert view:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6049/...rtfinciona.png

View of RAID driver used (the one that comes with AMD Catalyst 10.7):

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/6...araidxpert.png

Nevertheless, using revisions 3.2.1540.24 and 3.2.1540.35, ever when are newer, AMD RAID console doesn't appear on device administrator...

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/7...olaamdraid.png

...as a consequence, it becomes impossible activating NCQ, since disks are not recognized under RaidXpert:

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/9...dxpertnova.png

My best results are those:

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/3...diskmark30.png

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/7...rktassadar.png

As you can see, can't even the results of F@32:

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/6...rk30tiodex.png

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4...ktiodextre.png

In this point, I don't know what to do..... :(

The only stranger thing I see is in the shot of "AS SSD Benchmark", it is in the detail under "ahcix64s"; where I have "103424 K -OK" and in F@32 image the number is "1024 K - OK". Al the rest seems the same. Can this be my problem?

Any help????

thank you very much to all, and I hope you can sorry my english, whose is not as good as I would like

Hi again,

I've download a newer version of RaidXpert, the 3.2.1540.10, and it support the hard drives even when using driver RAID 3.2.1540.35.

As I told in my first post, my results are not good at all, and I would like you to help me :help:

Today I've made tests with driver 3.1.1540.151 and 3.2.1540.35 and with stripe size 64 kb and 128.

Those are my results, in every picture there are 4 different scenarios, using different stripe sizes and raid drivers:

CrystalDiskMark:

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/4...rkdriver31.png


ATTO BenchMark

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9...ver3115401.png

AS SSD

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9...r311540151.png

I sincerely would appreciate and thank any help

v3.2.1540.75 WHQL certified RAID/AHCI driver is available.

donwload

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TassadarDavid

Hi again,

I've download a newer version of RaidXpert, the 3.2.1540.10, and it support the hard drives even when using driver RAID 3.2.1540.35.

As I told in my first post, my results are not good at all, and I would like you to help me :help:

Today I've made tests with driver 3.1.1540.151 and 3.2.1540.35 and with stripe size 64 kb and 128.

Those are my results, in every picture there are 4 different scenarios, using different stripe sizes and raid drivers:


I sincerely would appreciate and thank any help

---

Did you wipe drives before each scenario ?

Also, can you update AS-SSD results with image showing all 4 scenarios ?

Thanx

Not really completely on topic, but there seems to be a reason that NCQ is disabled by default. ALL benches go down on my array (2x 1TB Samsung F3 7200RPMs in RAID0 on SB750/790FX by a considerable amount, with HDTune's bench often hovering around 1.9MB/s. Disabling NCQ takes my minimum to around 60MB/s for a very brief time. It's not just the one bench, everything crawls. For example if I double click on a folder, there can be a pause of a few seconds where the hard drive activity light is on solid but I can hear the drives are idle. The drives themselves are fine, they were each tested for a solid seven days before being put in the array and all problems disappear with NCQ disabled.

Thanks to all for the answers! :)

Finally I bought another 2 SSDs and made a four drives raid 0.

The problem comes with ATTO Disk Benchmark:


http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/9846/atto.png

As you can see, performance falls near to 0 in big files. Problem persists using the drivers recommended by Oliverda:

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9846/atto.png

I don't know if its a problem given by the program, or a real performance problem. I tryed 1 gb total lenght and i obtain a more than 100000 result, but problem remains. ¿does it mean that is not a program problem but a real one?

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/4069/longitud1gb.png

The only way to avoid this problem is disabling NQC.


The results on the other tests are amazing:

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1315/asssd.png

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/6...aldiskmark.png

But as you can suppose, I don't know if I should disable NQC, and then I get this (obviously worse result, and much worse on "AS SSD" and "CrystalDiskMark":

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3528/nqcdisabled.png

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3...qcdisabled.png

Or ignoring ATTO and leaving NQC Enabled....

I've just perform an probably stupid test xD

I've enabled NQC on 2 drives, and disable on another 2.

I think that if it would be a real performance problem given by NQC, in this scenario (2 drives enabled and 2 disabled) the dramatic performance fall should remain, shouldn't it? Or at least I would get lower performance compared to 4-disable.

In the other hand, if the problem is a program problem, that can't handle those speeds, we would get a result similar to the "4-nqc disable" test.

This is the result:

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/8...2andenable.png

So i think that is not a real performance problem, but a ATTO problem handling those high speeds. If the NQC would really produce que performance disaster, having 2 enabled and 2 disabled should still persist....

Any opinion?



EDIT: I answer myself.

Problem solved, It was due to que ATTO program, just downloading latest version (2.46) makes the deal:

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6672/nuevoatto.png

Hi all!

ATTO is the only bench which doesn't give wildly different results with NCQ on, although they are still different enough - especially with smaller files. I'll be leaving it OFF.

Left is with NCQ off, right is with NCQ on

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...101/ncqoff.pnghttp://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...0101/ncqon.png

OJ101, Enabling NCQ is a common practice for SSD's only on SBXXX Controllers. True, on normal HDD's it will not help on Raid performance,it will even give worse results for small files.

Hey man, I was replying to the guy complaining about NCQ being off by default ;)

:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [XC] Oj101

Hey man, I was replying to the guy complaining about NCQ being off by default ;)

:D

---

Hey, no prob mate :)

:up:

Guys, is there an AMD chipset driver that passes TRIM yet?

If not what are the options to TRIM with the Intel Toolbox? Do you need to be in IDE mode for the toolbox to be able to see the SSD?

What is the best configuration (driver/ settings) for a single SSD on Win 7?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ao1

Guys, is there an AMD chipset driver that passes TRIM yet?

If not what are the options to TRIM with the Intel Toolbox? Do you need to be in IDE mode for the toolbox to be able to see the SSD?

What is the best configuration (driver/ settings) for a single SSD on Win 7?

---

Just installed mine today
(bios SATA 6GB/s "Enable" - Amd AHCI rom "Disable"):
Crucial C300 128Gb
Asrock 890GX Extreme3 (SB850)
Win7 64 (SSD tweak + write caching ENABLE)
AMD all in 1 driver ver: 8.70_WHQL
Catalyst 10.9

http://www.pctunerup.com/up/results/...10_2010_SO.JPG

Crystaldiskinfo set Trim su ENABLE but there is another tool to check if Trim is real Enable?

EDIT: Just checked
fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify report "0"
HDTune Pro 4.60 report NCQ and Trim Enable

Hey i am new to the forum. umm is it possible for the thread starter to post out his steps of raiding the pair of hdd here? as in what to do to raid although this thread is to discuss the performance of the ssd i really hope you would kindly do so i'v been trying for 2 months trying to raid my 2x2tb WS 2tb caviar black to no avail and that means not using my pc for that long. I sincerely appreciate anyone that could lend a helping hand been going through tutorial online for a really long time with no result.

here is what i do to start my raid. i follow exactly according to my mobo manual by defining the raid array 0 in bios after that boot into my windows 7 x64 using the dvd and loading the driver at the screen since raid hdd cannot be detected and this where i got stuck because every driver i got has error to them i'v tried vista x64 win 7 x64 but its the same even the driver chipset from gigabyte btw i m using the same mobo as the thread starter my board is the 1.0 revision 890gpa-ud3h so i m getting really hopeless right now. thx for any help ^_^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lolitsme

Hey i am new to the forum. umm is it possible for the thread starter to post out his steps of raiding the pair of hdd here? as in what to do to raid although this thread is to discuss the performance of the ssd i really hope you would kindly do so i'v been trying for 2 months trying to raid my 2x2tb WS 2tb caviar black to no avail and that means not using my pc for that long. I sincerely appreciate anyone that could lend a helping hand been going through tutorial online for a really long time with no result.

here is what i do to start my raid. i follow exactly according to my mobo manual by defining the raid array 0 in bios after that boot into my windows 7 x64 using the dvd and loading the driver at the screen since raid hdd cannot be detected and this where i got stuck because every driver i got has error to them i'v tried vista x64 win 7 x64 but its the same even the driver chipset from gigabyte btw i m using the same mobo as the thread starter my board is the 1.0 revision 890gpa-ud3h so i m getting really hopeless right now. thx for any help ^_^

---

Hey, sorry I've been away for two weeks and didn't monitor the thread. Seems that you need to DL RAID floppy/USB driver that is needed for Win7 to recognize and install on the array.

Win7 64bit http://ee.giga-byte.com/products/mb/...tml?os=win7_64

For RAID download the "AMD AMD SATA RAID Driver (Preinstall driver, press F6 during Windows* setup to read from floppy)"

Good luck.

@ TassadarDavid
Hey mate, those are very nice scores with CDM and AS SSD. Don't worry about ATTO - it does not work accurately with SSDs. I'm happy to see 1000MBs bandwidth for onboard budget controller. Great job. As far as why your intermediate scores were low... As someone accurately suggested you should have reset drives using HDDErase between the benchies and OS should run on the different drive. I have Hitachi 2TB hdd with Win7 for running benchmarks. After major change to the array (NCQ, stripe, RAID ROM, RAID drivers) I perform HDDErase and run new set of benchies. That's the magic sauce.

@ [XC] Oj101
That might be true regarding HDD performance degradation with HDD. I've noticed that SSDs benefit from it at least on ICH10R and SB850.

Cheers!

P.S. There is F8 BIOS out for rev 1.0 of the board that has new RAID ROM. Will test it out shortly. Cheers.

Got F8 BIOS installed, but RAID option ROM version reads 3.2.1020.39.
The latest one for SB850 I thought was 3.2.1540.31. Can someone confirm please?
I've contacted Gigabyte support for clarification.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

Got F8 BIOS installed, but RAID option ROM version reads 3.2.1020.39.
The latest one for SB850 I thought was 3.2.1540.31. Can someone confirm please?
I've contacted Gigabyte support for clarification.

---

According to this thread, as far as I can tell at least, there were issues with SSDs on 3.2.1540.31 and it was reverted back to 3.2.1020.39 (on the 880GA-UD3H at least):

http://bbs.gigabyte.cn/showtopic-18018.aspx

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mattkosem

According to this thread, as far as I can tell at least, there were issues with SSDs on 3.2.1540.31 and it was reverted back to 3.2.1020.39 (on the 880GA-UD3H at least):

http://bbs.gigabyte.cn/showtopic-18018.aspx

--Matt

---

That's odd. Why didn't they keep 3.2.1540.15, and provided F8 BIOS description that it has a new RAID option ROM lol?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

Hey, sorry I've been away for two weeks and didn't monitor the thread. Seems that you need to DL RAID floppy/USB driver that is needed for Win7 to recognize and install on the array.

Win7 64bit http://ee.giga-byte.com/products/mb/...tml?os=win7_64

For RAID download the "AMD AMD SATA RAID Driver (Preinstall driver, press F6 during Windows* setup to read from floppy)"

Good luck.

@ TassadarDavid
Hey mate, those are very nice scores with CDM and AS SSD. Don't worry about ATTO - it does not work accurately with SSDs. I'm happy to see 1000MBs bandwidth for onboard budget controller. Great job. As far as why your intermediate scores were low... As someone accurately suggested you should have reset drives using HDDErase between the benchies and OS should run on the different drive. I have Hitachi 2TB hdd with Win7 for running benchmarks. After major change to the array (NCQ, stripe, RAID ROM, RAID drivers) I perform HDDErase and run new set of benchies. That's the magic sauce.

@ [XC] Oj101
That might be true regarding HDD performance degradation with HDD. I've noticed that SSDs benefit from it at least on ICH10R and SB850.

Cheers!

P.S. There is F8 BIOS out for rev 1.0 of the board that has new RAID ROM. Will test it out shortly. Cheers.

---

Thx for the reply unfortunately gave it a try already the same even got desperate enough to try the ahci driver despite being a whole different thing went online and google a bit more then i found this thread, details of how this guy does his radi on his asus mobo and the problem that plague others in raid 0 lol so here is the link if u pls give it some time reading it and thx again wont stop till i get the raid sucessfully raidED ^_^ http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...hreadid=121333
. This is just one of the many example people are facing problem as mention by the person with asus board all he did was putting in the bios from asus site onto the thumbdrive and voila everything works but there is just some of us guys that do accordingly to the instruction and somewhere still went wrong therefore i ask for a detail explanation but pls do it on ur free time triple thx ^_^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lolitsme

Thx for the reply unfortunately gave it a try already the same even got desperate enough to try the ahci driver despite being a whole different thing went online and google a bit more then i found this thread, details of how this guy does his radi on his asus mobo and the problem that plague others in raid 0 lol so here is the link if u pls give it some time reading it and thx again wont stop till i get the raid sucessfully raidED ^_^ http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...hreadid=121333
. This is just one of the many example people are facing problem as mention by the person with asus board all he did was putting in the bios from asus site onto the thumbdrive and voila everything works but there is just some of us guys that do accordingly to the instruction and somewhere still went wrong therefore i ask for a detail explanation but pls do it on ur free time triple thx ^_^

---

There is a post in that thread by francisw19 that is as good instructions as they get. Don't think I would lay it out any better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

There is a post in that thread by francisw19 that is as good instructions as they get. Don't think I would lay it out any better.

---

Thx for the advice lol currently looking up to it i should be able to get on to raiding in a few more days when i have free time from college ^_^ hopefully soon enough i will be posting results instead of question the next time u see my reply :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lolitsme

Thx for the advice lol currently looking up to it i should be able to get on to raiding in a few more days when i have free time from college ^_^ hopefully soon enough i will be posting results instead of question the next time u see my reply :)

---

No problem, that's what these forums are for :up:

Alright, here are the refreshed results with the latest version of benchmarks comparing 3.2.1540.15 vs 3.2.1020.29 RAID option ROMs. As you can see there is no difference.

Drives: 2 Intel X-18M Gen1 80Gb
RAID-0 set-up: Stripe 128Kb, 4K NTFS allocation unit, write-back caching enabled
SB Driver: AHCI/RAID 8.71
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
CPU: Phenom II 965, TRUE-120 default clocks
RAM: 2x2Gb DDR3 G-Skill Ripjaws F3-12800cl9d
Video: Asus HD5850, Cat 10.6
Sound: M-Audio Audiophile 2496, Win7_64bit_Delta_6_0_2_5_10_0_5074
NIC: Intel Gigabit CT PCIe
PSU: Antec Quattro 850Wt
Case: Antec 1200
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Benchmarks/tools used:
- AS SSD Benchmark 1.5.3784.37609
- Crystal Disk Mark 3.0h x64
- atto 2.46

Quote:

---

RAID OPTION ROM - 3.2.1540.15
BIOS - F6
RAID Driver - 3.2.1540.35

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...SSSDMBview.png http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...SDIOPSview.png

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...4015CDM30h.png http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...015ATTO246.png

---

Quote:

---

RAID OPTION ROM - 3.2.1020.29
BIOS - F8
RAID Driver - 3.2.1540.75

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...SSSDMBview.png http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...SDIOPSview.png

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...2039CDM30h.png http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...039ATTO246.png

---

For those who follow Gigabyte BIOS RAID ROM development. Apparently 3.2.1020.39 is actually mislabeled 3.2.1540.39 which is customized Gigabyte's version from 3.2.1540.31. It does however bring back small delay when scanning devices. Source

Quote:

---

AMD SATA RAID rom V3.2.1020.39 special edition for the Gigabyte motherboard SATA RAID ROM, and modify from V3.2.1540.39, their version than AMD SATA RAID rom V3.2.1540. 31. New.

---

November 5, 2010 update: Gigabyte reverted newer BIOS versions to older RAID option ROMs. (Thanks to mattkosem for the heads up )Apparently 3.2.1540.xx have some issues with SSDs. F8 BIOS for GA-890GPA-UD3H rev 1.0 is using 3.2.1020.39. Did extensive tests and there is no performance hit from older RAID option ROM. See for more info Gigabyte's Chinese support forum

Quote:

---

Gigabyte Technology Consulting in Taipei based on our side, indeed the future of the BIOS version F5 replacement back to the old, more mature version of SATA RAID ROM 3.2.1020.39, as verified by detecting the discovery of new SATA RAID ROM 3.2.1540.15 version of the brand with some SSD Solid State Drive SATA RAID set up there will be some problems, including the Intel SSD, SSD, etc. Kingston, so the version of the motherboard BIOS F5 for the more mature we modify the SATA RAID ROM 3.2.1020.39 version.
如果用户没有使用相关SSD固态硬盘组建SATA RAID 的话，建议可使用主板F4版本的BIOS。 If you do not use the relevant SSD Solid State Drive SATA RAID set, then, suggests using the F4 version motherboard BIOS.

The latest AMD SB850 RAID ROM version is 3.2.1540.31 The version currently in test validation process, in the principle of responsibility to consumers in the new version of a similar RAID ROM update, we need to complete a comprehensive validation testing, sure no problem until the introduction of the new version of the BIOS, updated, of course, the verification time may be rather long, please understand.

---

Some 3, 4, 5 SSD action :D Not sure I like high latency of SF1222 controller. Intel for example shows 0.065ms.

3R0 SF1222 64Gb
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...03R0SF1222.png

3R0 2xX18M and 1xSF1222
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...X18MSF1222.png

4R0 2xX18M and 2xSF1222
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...X18MSF1222.png

5R0 2xX18M and 3xSF1222
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...X18MSF1222.png

Merry Christmas!

guys..i have problem with this,

trying to raıd 0 with 4 x samsung but i already get same results with 2xsamsung raıd0..

so i try different board..

i try different harddısk,all same,

so there is a limit on 300mb..raıd cant go over 300mb..so why?is this a amd problem?amd systems doesnt use 4 hdd on raıd0?pls help me..

i am getting 250mb avarage with 2xsamsung (max 280 around)
and
i am gettting 270mb avarage with 4 samsung (max 325 around)

----------

4 samsung f3 500gb

gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 board

I'm doing pretty well on the latest driver/bios combo for my rev 2.0 890GPA-UD3H and 4R0 C300 64GBs.

--Matt

Yeah, very nice! :up:
What about garbage collection? Do drives recover performance well?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zalbard

Yeah, very nice! :up:
What about garbage collection? Do drives recover performance well?

---

Added CDM on too. Yeah, they do seem to keep themselves squeaky clean. It's better now with the latest bios too.

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by calebkan

guys..i have problem with this,

trying to raıd 0 with 4 x samsung but i already get same results with 2xsamsung raıd0..

so i try different board..

i try different harddısk,all same,

so there is a limit on 300mb..raıd cant go over 300mb..so why?is this a amd problem?amd systems doesnt use 4 hdd on raıd0?pls help me..

i am getting 250mb avarage with 2xsamsung (max 280 around)
and
i am gettting 270mb avarage with 4 samsung (max 325 around)

----------

4 samsung f3 500gb

gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 board

---

i am betting you still only have 2 drives in the raid 0 for some reason.
i had this happen to me long time ago with nvraid and 4 sata2 drives in a raid 0 (non-ssd)

system specs are below.
raid bios: 3.2.1540.6
64KB stripe
amd driver: 3.3.1540.17

followed the directions from first post (and my settings are exactly like posted)

here is atto:
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/551/attoi.th.jpg

as you can see i am getting 800 read/write in alot of tests...

now here is my problem (when i had my x25-m 80GB as my main OS drive) i then added the 2 OCZ drives in windows disk management as a raid-0 set
in other words in my bios for sata i had it set as AHCI and not RAID

i was getting almost 1100MB`s with ATTO when drives were in RAID-0 in a WINDOWS RAID-0
that is way faster then my bios raid....
what is going on????

anyone?
could use some help here?

Bump!

is this forum dead or is it just this thread?
i been asking for help like a week now
not one reply in a thread that had 37,000 views
come on

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tdbone1

is this forum dead or is it just this thread?
i been asking for help like a week now
not one reply in a thread that had 37,000 views
come on

---

Sorry no one got back to you. And yes, this thread is dead. Folks moved on to new shiny things including me ;)
Any how. Back on topic. First of all please run CDM with 1Gb test size for both scenarios. In off chance that your Windows RAID is still faster - do not despair. It is not unusual what you are observing. On some hardware Soft RAID-0 will be faster when it runs on host CPU. When you are running SB850 it is in essence Hybrid RAID. Someone will have better explanation as to why this is the case. This is even more pronounced on PCIe HBA like 9240 and 9211.

Nothing to worry mate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by F@32

Sorry no one got back to you. And yes, this thread is dead. Folks moved on to new shiny things including me ;)
Any how. Back on topic. First of all please run CDM with 1Gb test size for both scenarios. In off chance that your Windows RAID is still faster - do not despair. It is not unusual what you are observing. On some hardware Soft RAID-0 will be faster when it runs on host CPU. When you are running SB850 it is in essence Hybrid RAID. Someone will have better explanation as to why this is the case. This is even more pronounced on PCIe HBA like 9240 and 9211.

Nothing to worry mate.

---

i already posted a pic of the ATTO using bios-raid 0 with 64KB stripe but here it is again along with CDM
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9413/54768882.jpg

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/551/attoi.jpg
By nunyerb at 2011-09-22

i dont actually have my 80GB back until tomorrow but when i get it back i will run more tests with the (2) 60GB back in windows soft raid

i already did the ATTO and it was almost 1100MBs with win7 soft raid0
it was awesome

btw i dont know what you mean about shiny new hardware
i have the best micro mboard out for amd (even though it is 1 year old)
my SSD are sata3 and rock
so dont know what you mean about shiny better....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tdbone1

btw i dont know what you mean about shiny new hardware
i have the best micro mboard out for amd (even though it is 1 year old)
my SSD are sata3 and rock
so dont know what you mean about shiny better....

---

Llano chipset has better/faster raid. If you run AS SSD benchmark does it indicate any alignment issues?

--Matt

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/3...bsataiiix2.jpg

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/3...bsataiiix2.jpg

windows 7 x64 Dynamic Disk = two 60GB sata III (OCZ Solid 3`s)

hmm interesting results

no one interested in compairing my pics in post # 80 and 82?

The CDM benches are within a margin of error of each other. The drives had quite a bit less data on them in the second benches too. ATTO really sucks as a benchmark though tbqh, and is not to be trusted if you're looking for a realistic representation of the performance of the drive because of the highly compressible nature of the data that it uses. Do you have CnQ enabled? Have you tried AS SSD? Were the drives secure erased before either of the tests? Are the partitions on the drives aligned? Are you sure sata3 is enabled? If you pick 0 fill in CDM, do the numbers look closer to ATTO? Try Anvil's bench or straight Iometer.

You have to remember that these are SSDs and, in raid especially, are not going to show the same bench results on every bench run. Writing a lot to the drives in a given day can easily explain a 200MB/sec drop in seq reads. I've seen it time and time again, on 4+ drive setups at least. Heck, if you left your system completely idle overnight and ran the benches again you'd probably see better numbers too. These are also sandforce based drives and will respond much differently with compressible vs incompressible data.

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mattkosem

The CDM benches are within a margin of error of each other. The drives had quite a bit less data on them in the second benches too. ATTO really sucks as a benchmark though tbqh, and is not to be trusted if you're looking for a realistic representation of the performance of the drive because of the highly compressible nature of the data that it uses. Do you have CnQ enabled? Have you tried AS SSD? Were the drives secure erased before either of the tests? Are the partitions on the drives aligned? Are you sure sata3 is enabled? If you pick 0 fill in CDM, do the numbers look closer to ATTO? Try Anvil's bench or straight Iometer.

You have to remember that these are SSDs and, in raid especially, are not going to show the same bench results on every bench run. Writing a lot to the drives in a given day can easily explain a 200MB/sec drop in seq reads. I've seen it time and time again, on 4+ drive setups at least. Heck, if you left your system completely idle overnight and ran the benches again you'd probably see better numbers too. These are also sandforce based drives and will respond much differently with compressible vs incompressible data.

--Matt

---

everything is setup as per post #1

800MBs seq read = my onboard raid controller vs 1050MBs = windows 7 stripe volume (dynamic disk)

i think my onboard raid controller is capping me dont you?

You didn't really answer many of my questions. I'm trying to help you diagnose this, but can't really help if you won't try these things. As I explained, not all of these benches produce apples to apples comparable numbers (especially on SF drives) and what you are seeing is probably correct/normal for the hardware you are using.

That said, I doubt that your controller is crapping out on you. The "onboard raid controller" is the same hardware as the non-raid onboard controller and, as F@32 mentioned, software raid is sometimes faster than hardware raid (hardware being used loosely in this case since its just an alternate implentation of software raid in this case).

--Matt

i posted benchmarks from different programs
both programs show the dynamic raid is faster then the fake-raid/bios-raid.
i have read even in this thread that the 890gx raid controller caps out at 800MBs wasnt it and the intel capped out at 600MB`s?
if that is true it shows that is what i am getting.

the problem is i can not put back the dynamic raid to bios-raid.
my computer is now setup with the OS on a single ssd x25-m 80GB with the two ocz solid 3 60GB in a dynamic raid
its going to be hard to benchmark the solid 3 on the bios-raid as i have a lot of data on the dynamic raid set.

with the data i have already given....2 benchmark apps that were run on the bios-raid and on the dynamic raid we should be able to make some kind of conclusion shouldnt we?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tdbone1

i posted benchmarks from different programs
both programs show the dynamic raid is faster then the fake-raid/bios-raid.
i have read even in this thread that the 890gx raid controller caps out at 800MBs wasnt it and the intel capped out at 600MB`s?
if that is true it shows that is what i am getting.

the problem is i can not put back the dynamic raid to bios-raid.
my computer is now setup with the OS on a single ssd x25-m 80GB with the two ocz solid 3 60GB in a dynamic raid
its going to be hard to benchmark the solid 3 on the bios-raid as i have a lot of data on the dynamic raid set.

with the data i have already given....2 benchmark apps that were run on the bios-raid and on the dynamic raid we should be able to make some kind of conclusion shouldnt we?

---

Just because the answers that F@32 and I are giving you aren't the ones you want, doesn't mean they aren't correct or aren't answering your questions. If you look back even one page, you will see that SB850 with bios raid produces numbers of ~1GB/sec in both AS SSD and CDM with the right drives. If you were to search a bit more in this forum, you would find that SB850 can even produce numbers of nearly 1100MB/sec.

I'm just going to summarize/paraphrase what we have already told you again here:
1) Not all raid implementations (software, hybrid, or otherwise) perform the same.
2) Your sandforce-based drives will only produce the advertised max throughput numbers with incompressible data (as is used by ATTO).
3) CDM, AS SSD, and Anvil's utilities use almost completely incompressible data by default and, as a result, will show you numbers that are lower than ATTO. These numbers should give you a realistic representation of worst-case scenario performance on your drives and are generally very consistent from test run to test run.
4) If you were to run CDM with the 0-fill option enabled, it would likely produce numbers similar to what you see in ATTO because the 0-fill data can be compressed.
5) If you run the same benchmark on the same SSDs, you will not always see the same numbers.
6) Completely wiping the drives prior to benching will generally produce the highest bench results.
7) Having more data on your SSDs will slow them down.

The answers to your questions lie within those pieces of information. All signs point to "what you're seeing is probably normal".

--Matt

Quote:

---

3) CDM, AS SSD, and Anvil's utilities use almost completely incompressible data by default and, as a result, will show you numbers that are lower than ATTO. These numbers should give you a realistic representation of worst-case scenario performance on your drives and are generally very consistent from test run to test run.

---

is that supposed to say "compressible"?
otherwise im not understanding

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tdbone1

is that supposed to say "compressible"?
otherwise im not understanding

---

No, it's definitely meaning to say incompressible (as in, cannot be compressed). ATTO, as well as CDM if using 0 fill, uses very compressible data. Since the SandForce controllers derive much of their performance edge from compressing data, the nature of the data makes a big difference when benchmarking those drives.

--Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mattkosem

No, it's definitely meaning to say incompressible (as in, cannot be compressed). ATTO, as well as CDM if using 0 fill, uses very compressible data. Since the SandForce controllers derive much of their performance edge from compressing data, the nature of the data makes a big difference when benchmarking those drives.

--Matt

---

in "as ssd" it shows my dynamic drive is showing as 2 seperate drives.
how do i test when it is showing them as seperate drives?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tdbone1

in "as ssd" it shows my dynamic drive is showing as 2 seperate drives.
how do i test when it is showing them as seperate drives?

---

Ah, yeah, forgot it's not volume aware. You'll have to try anvil's bench if you want to run a third bench.

--Maty

ok here is Anvil with default settings on my (2) sata 3 60GB drives in a windows 7 x64 dynamic volume stripe.
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7870/anvil.th.jpg

OK, let's back up for a second. What are you trying to figure out or accomplish? Is your goal to test Windows Soft RAID vs AMD Hybrid RAID? Or is your goal to ensure your SB850 performs at spec?

To ensure it performs up to the spec - see the 1st post tips. For apples to apples comparison you will need OS installed on independent drive and perform CDM or Anvil tests after drives were secure erased. Make sure to set everything up as posted in the 1st post of this thread. With 2 of my X-25M Soft and Hybrid 2R0 performed the same. Let me see if I can dig out bench screen...

Here you go:
SB850 Hybrid RAID (click to enlarge)
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...Hybridraid.png

SB850 Soft RAID (click to enlarge)
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...R0Softraid.png

P.S. Regarding new shiny things. Mattkosem is partially right. You could blame Intel's PCH for stealing SB850 short lived throughput crown. But mostly because thanks to Ao1 with his and others research on this forum, you will soon realize that all that you need to remove disk bottleneck is single SSD capable of pushing at QD1 200MB/s sequentially and about 20MB/s randomly...

Quote:

---

Is your goal to test Windows Soft RAID vs AMD Hybrid RAID? Or is your goal to ensure your SB850 performs at spec?

---

i did a simple test when i bought both the sata3 drives (i made it a dynamic volume) and seen them do 1050MB`s
originally my goal was to use the drives on the bios-raid (thinking this would be as fast as they could go) little to my dismay did i discover that they were only doing 850MB`s (so i thought)
guess i might have been using the wrong benchmark tool but i really dont understand how that matters because i use that same tool on both tests
it clearly shows a difference from bios-raid to dynamic volume stripe
actually did two tests (CDM and ATTO) and CDM didnt show to much of a difference but ATTO showed 300MB`s read difference
so i decided that was to much to lose so i put them back to dynamic volume stripe

but now i have my os installed on a signle 80GB ssd (x25-m) and i have the dynamic volume setup as a stripe (with 100GB of data on it)
so i really can not go back.

now i am moved on to the 2nd part of your question and just making sure they are performing as they should

i am configured as per post #1 except i never did the secure format but i did do an acronis disk director format
i think 1050MB`s is doing pretty good isnt it?

Hi all!!

I'm back looking for advices :)

I've just install 2xC4 128mb raid0 on a Asus M5A88-M and the results doesn't seems to me as good as they should be.

The configuration is:

-Phenom II x6 1075 (still stock, I'll overclock)
-2x4Gb RAM 1600mhz
-Asus M5A88-M
-SSD's in SATA1 and SATA2 ports

Important info:

-Sata3 enabled on bios
-C1E disabled on bios (I've also try to disable C&Q, result is the same)
-Catalyst 11.10
-Write cache enabled (by default) on Win7 device manager.

In RaidXpert th NCQ is enabled on both disks (it's the accurate, isn't it?):

http://i40.tinypic.com/14ucfg9.png

But, in the other hand I've noticed this configuration that seems to indicate that both caches (write and read) are disabled, and I can't enable any of them!! (No matter I click on the other options, checks can't be activated):

http://i42.tinypic.com/142g0h5.png

The results in this moment are those:

http://i42.tinypic.com/1zbgqhz.png

Are them ok??? Do I have to change some configuration??

Thank you very much

Hi guys,

Can anyone answer if AMD has Raid Trim support for SSDs? I have an Asus CHIV. Think thats an 890 chipset?

Thanks.