SAS Feedback

[saaya]

Alright, im gonna kick off some polls to check what features you guys like, dont like, use, not use etc so I can make sure our next boards match what you guys want

thanks for the feedback!

[CmB]

I cannot see the poll. Ooooooh I love polls!

[zanzabar]

if my blackops had sas i would be using it, but it needs raid 1/0

[Methious]

I've got 10 Sas Savvio 15k.1 and an LSI hardware RAID controller.

For the price of Sas I'd say the moneys better spent for VelociRaptors and if you got the cash a Hardware RAID controller.

Sas is really server oriented and in some cases slower than SATA, at least that's what the PR guy I got the Savvio From.

I'm getting ready to fre them up in hardware RAID 0, 1 and probably a few other configurations if you want more feedback later.

I tried two onboard Sas ports on the P6T Deluxe and they ran about like VelociRaptors.

[INFRNL]

I do not have a sas drive and think that ssd will be more popular. also I think most guys run a separate controller anyways; provide better performance. I was thinkng of running a sas drive but was recommended to wait till prices of ssd come down and runn ssd drives instead

[saaya]

yeah, heard the same stuff as you guys and have the same opinion about it
ssd > sas

there wasnt anything else around at the time of the x58 design process but a sas controller... well we could have gone for a normal sata raid controller like gigabyte and some others to add more sata slots, but i figured thats kinda a waste... or would you guys want more sata ports? hmmmm lets start another poll on that

[INFRNL]

How about a good quality separate controller that could be used for ssd or sas. and would be backwards compatible with sata as well. I usually us onboard sata, but have recently heard that a lot of the xtreme guys dont use onboard anyways and get separate controllers for significant performance gains. I dont know if this only applies in a raid config or what not. But I think maybe ditch the sas and possibly include a separate card. Kind of how the Sonar sound card is. If some of the guys have their own controller they can use it instead or the one you can supply would be better than std onboard and people that arent too xtreme can use the add on card!

[saaya]

hmmmm well i wonder how big the difference between onboard and seperate raid is, i really dont know...
i think in gaming, windows and other comon tasks its very small to not noticeable. only in benchmarking or workstation apps you probably notice a speed up from using professional raid controllers. i was looking for reviews on this topic the other day and couldnt find anything tho, so i cant be 100% sure...

and i wonder how big the difference between ICH10 raid and Marvell SAS raid is... did anybody compare it?

there are raid controller cards which cost 30-150$ which are essentially the same as what boards have integrated.
then there are propper raid cards which cost 400-1500$ which have one or several processors on the card that handle all the work, socpu usage with those cards is 0 or close to zero even when massive amounts of data are beeing moved and split into raid or reconstructed. those controllers have their own memory as well, usually sdr ddr and the latest ones use ddr2.

now, making a card like the first one, like existing cards, wouldnt make sense... its essentially like a normal raid card just a bit cheaper... but its still something most people wouldnt really use or care about, and those of you really interested in hdd speed would not use it for sure, since there are faster solutions out there. making a card with its own risc processor and memory would be fast, but it would cost a lot... id say 50$ at least... and thats adding a lot to the cost of the board, while most people dont even run onboard raid... and it will still be slower than proper 500$+ raid cards, so again those of you who are really into performance and benching would use their dedicated cards for that... and another thing is, like i said, for most of us using such a professional raid card, or a cut down version of it to bundle with the board, would make a tiny if any difference at all in boot times, gaming etc...

now, the gap between onboard raid and professional raid cards is quite large, and luckily marvell is going to close it soon
they will release a raid controller with integrated cut down risc processor and external memory support... the only problem is that they just started working on it, so itll take a while and might be too late for the P55 launch so we cant use it on P55...

[zanzabar]

what about the lsi one that super micro uses

[BenchZowner]

On-board SAS controllers ( decent ones at least ) should only find their way to Workstation boards.
Enthusiast boards need no SAS controllers ( especially if it's a 2 Port only controller ), enthusiasts use SSDs nowadays.

[xXlAinXx]

I must fully agree with BenchZowner, nowday enthusiasts will use SSD.
By the way, some ppl already reported some glitch in ICH with high bandwidth "general card" so, intel must provide some updated microcode for their ROM module, and manufacturer must be at least cooperate and fix their firmware product issue.

[saaya]

what about the lsi one that super micro uses

is it any good? idk, is it better than other sas controllers? any reviews?
8 port sas... that sounds very expensive... my guess would be 40-60$ for the controller alone... thats quite hefty and i dont think it makes sense...

I must fully agree with BenchZowner, nowday enthusiasts will use SSD.
By the way, some ppl already reported some glitch in ICH with high bandwidth "general card" so, intel must provide some updated microcode for their ROM module, and manufacturer must be at least cooperate and fix their firmware product issue.

yes i heard about this as well, what was that all about?
so if a raidcard uses too much bandwidth it causes problems?
or was a problem of the ich itself having problems with huge bandwidths when raiding ssds?

[HDCHOPPER]

ssd all the way !

yes you can saturate the onboard controller with 4 ssd'd , yet another thing needed is a 256 k stripe with onboard ..... please intelllllllllll