LSI 9211-8i versus LSI 9260-8i versus Areca 1231ML-2G

[SteveRo]

Ok so using Compu's recommendations for settings - the 9260 is doing beter in PCMark Vantage but still a notch below the 9211 and 1231ML.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=259506

[Tiltevros]

after the 9th test iometer was not responding i left it open and after 30 min. it ends i dont know why maybe u will see 0 results

[SteveRo]

after the 9th test iometer was not responding i left it open and after 30 min. it ends i dont know why maybe u will see 0 results

Interesting, the test you where running should have given you the output located here - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...5&postcount=71

I think the 9th test was 2MB seg read at queue depth of 32.

Reboot, run just one iometer test - 2MB seg read at queue depth of 32 - see what happens, what driver are you now running?

[SteveRo]

Tilt, the 10th test was 3MB seq read at 32 - try to run that also.

[Tiltevros]

omg this profile work only for 15sec at 3mb file

[SteveRo]

omg this profile work only for 15sec at 3mb file

Change to the other driver I sent you.

[Tiltevros]

im getting worst results with the old driver

[SteveRo]

im getting worst results with the old driver

Alright, need to think about this one ..

[Computurd]

good morning just woke up!! alright gonna try the old driver then i will be back, i am getting irritated my setup is not working correctly

[Gogeta]

Threads like these are the best! By your powers combined...

[Tiltevros]

stevero u have mail

[Computurd]

I am having probs with my array, working on it gonna do some trim functions, etc maybe trouble shoot mobo before i do a run. tilt has done some runs with pcmarkvantage that he showed me in msn, and if they were with a good cpu and gpu he would be in the 20k easily. i am not stressing too much on the vantage results though, i have been testing game load times, and there is less than half a second difference between 9211 and 9260, this is with reboots in-between loads so that you dont get consecutive results. however the consecutive results are interesting with L4d what i did is just load the game four times in a row, consecutively. the 9211 beats the 9260 in the consecutive loads by a second on most stages. doesn't sound like much, however the loads only take around 3.4 seconds when loaded consecutively so that is a 30 percent speed difference in consecutive loads. that is very curious considering the 9211 does not have cache. i will post results of those test shortly, once i am sure i have been using the optimum setup. running into the issues with my drives is negating alot of my tests GAHHHH!!! the difference may be more pronounced than what i am showing here.

[trans am]

Hey turd and steve! I'm back and just got my card from my office and im home now.. This card installed. I just used the other x16 slot on my crossfire board since it lacks a dedicated 8x slot. so far heres where im at. last night I flashed my to the new summit firmware from ocz that enables GC and TRIM. I haven'd done any other steps on the ssds. Maybe I should reformat them since i had them in raid0 on sb750. The controller seems to be working. I get a prompt after post that says missing battery backup message. I just hit D to disable the message. I am using sata0 and 1 from the sas connector to the ssds. now when I go to set my raid and hit ctrlH it just blows through to the next screen and says i dont have bootable device windows message. is there a firmware flash i need to do so I can get into the webbios config utility? I have my bios set to standard IDE right now. does that have to be set to raid 1st? or if I set to raid will the sb750 raid take over? we dont want that. help me out. I wasnna show you guys some action!

[Computurd]

@steve-ro thanks for the driver i appreciate your time. i also have been putting alot of thought into that 9260 on the acards. i think you should try a smaller stripe like 64 if you get time,. i think it will suit that type of device better. just a gut feeling that it will make a tremendous increase in performance, nice run with it in vantage btw!!

@trans am- your first boot device needs to be set to the raid card within your bios. on some bios it will list the card by name, on others it will list it as "bootable add-in card" move either of those into the first boot position. there will be a prompt that tells you what keys to hit to gain access to the bios of the raid card while it initializes. there is plenty of time to do that. setup your raid array within that bios configuration of the card. then go ahead and run your windows install and it already has the drivers within the install disk. you can upgrade them later, and i will help you with that if you need. however, if you could make another thread with any other problems with the card here in the storage forum that would be great so that we dont derail the thread too much. i will be happy to help you get it set up so we can get ya speeding along!

[Computurd]

[trans am]

@steve-ro thanks for the driver i appreciate your time. i also have been putting alot of thought into that 9260 on the acards. i think you should try a smaller stripe like 64 if you get time,. i think it will suit that type of device better. just a gut feeling that it will make a tremendous increase in performance, nice run with it in vantage btw!!

@trans am- your first boot device needs to be set to the raid card within your bios. on some bios it will list the card by name, on others it will list it as "bootable add-in card" move either of those into the first boot position. there will be a prompt that tells you what keys to hit to gain access to the bios of the raid card while it initializes. there is plenty of time to do that. setup your raid array within that bios configuration of the card. then go ahead and run your windows install and it already has the drivers within the install disk. you can upgrade them later, and i will help you with that if you need. however, if you could make another thread with any other problems with the card here in the storage forum that would be great so that we dont derail the thread too much. i will be happy to help you get it set up so we can get ya speeding along!

okay man i went back ans set it up right in th bios. I can get in now. now i'm just confused about this LSI raid screen. The navigation is so bad. I'll figure it out. brb


a quick note my lis bios for 92604i is 3.07 the firmware is 12.01.0057FW

[SkOrPn]

Damn this thread is giving me goose pimples, lol... please dont stop commenting the read here is just fantastic info....

[SkOrPn]

Computurd, you mentioned that these LSI cards do not like some boards, do you know if its ok with Asus MaxIIForm?

[Computurd]

the 9260 is the one that does not like some boards. Biker has a list compiled somewhere of incompatible motherboards with that controller. the 9211 may share the same incompatibilities, but i am not sure. biker is on ocz and here so shoot him a pm for the list. god i need to bookmark it!

[Tiltevros]

stevero!!!!!!!!!!! compare this thing plz and tell me what u r thinking plz
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=259571

[SkOrPn]

the 9260 is the one that does not like some boards. Biker has a list compiled somewhere of incompatible motherboards with that controller. the 9211 may share the same incompatibilities, but i am not sure. biker is on ocz and here so shoot him a pm for the list. god i need to bookmark it!

Ok cool I know Biker I think... Also, you guys all seem to be running the next gen intel systems with more pci-e lanes. I believe my mobo drops the video card down to x8 when another card is placed into the secondary x16 slot, but Im not totally sure that it matters here.

[trans am]

@ steve and turd, get your asses back in here. I need your help asap. what fw and bios are you using 9260 on win7 64? I made a new thread so I dont crap this one anymore. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=241920.

turd said : excellent this is gonna be awesome the prospect of putting them head to head is exciting! for the 9260 the best for ssd is adaptive read ahead, disk cache enabled, direct I/O, NCQ disabled on the card, always write back, and the highest pcie packet size that your motherboard will allow. pci-e should be clocked to the same for each card. i would suggest 105. the size of any everest test files should be large enough to dissallow cache runs, and the profiles and test sizes of files should be the same. so if you come up with some standard tests that would be great. It is going to be interesting how the various cards handle the sheer power of those acards...i agree a like stripe size should definitely be used so that we can get a good comparison of that. game loads times will be a must, but only for comparison on your system only, as the load times will be specific to your setup.
also pcmark vantage scores should be a big must as well. i think that benchmark is about the best out there for real world usage.
it is going to be hard to quantify which is actually faster in real world usage, as all three are fast as hell also i think you should try to use the crysis warhead as a a good indicator because if it is like the original crysis it has a built in load level timer so that we get a computer score that is not subject to error. stopwatch is kinda...i dunno we are dealing with milliseconds and such! i hope the other games have built in level load timers?
this is going to be a very fun amount of testing for you! if done right this is gonna be great!

the newest firmware/driver combo from lsi for the 9260 will be your best bet! did you guys dos flash from usb boot drive 1st or flash once os was installed?

[Tiltevros]

@ trans am : flash ur lsi from ur MSM its the only way i think. now for the drivers that u pointed..... we r trying to figger out what is the best match... just stick to the threat plz.
test results will be depenting the stripe size for 9260 and how many drives can give u the best performance @ 9211 how many drives can be install to have the best perfomance and what specific driver..

[SteveRo]

stevero!!!!!!!!!!! compare this thing plz and tell me what u r thinking plz
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=259571

Just got back from seeing avatar - cool flick.
Double check and make sure you are using the driver I sent you - it should be -

[trans am]

@ trans am : flash ur lsi from ur MSM its the only way i think. now for the drivers that u pointed..... we r trying to figger out what is the best match... just stick to the threat plz.
test results will be depenting the stripe size for 9260 and how many drives can give u the best performance @ 9211 how many drives can be install to have the best perfomance and what specific driver..

I have the latest win7 64 drivers on the usb for F6 and the os iso is caching about to ask for raid drivers. I need to go back into the raid setup and turn off ncq and enable write cache.

lemme confirm:
adaptive read ahead, disk cache enabled, direct I/O, NCQ disabled on the card, always write back, and the highest pcie packet size that your motherboard will allow. sb pcie is clocked to 105 and stripe size is 64kb
what about disable BGI?