Intel x25-V

[SteveRo]

Frankenstien Raid 4xR0 (2x x25-v and 2x Kingston 40's flashed to intel's f/w)
ich10R, 16k stripe wbc off, no oc, pcie at 100 - iometer Random Read 0,5-64kb exp2 QD1-128 v4 attached

and screen shot below -

[SteveRo]

Frankenstien Raid 4xR0 (2x x25-v and 2x Kingston 40's flashed to intel's f/w)
ich10R, 16k stripe wbc off, oc at 4.8, pcie @ 119 - iometer Random Read 0,5-64kb exp2 QD1-128 v4 attached



and screen shot below -

[SteveRo]

Frankenstien Raid 4xR0 (2x x25-v and 2x Kingston 40's flashed to intel's f/w)
Areca 1231ML-4G, 16k stripe agressive read ahead, 4.8 oc, pcie 119 - screen shot below.

Iometer Random Read 0,5-64kb exp2 QD1-128 v4 same as above but no oc pcie at 100 - abend multiple times at approx 16KB - reason unknown - file attached

[Anvil]

Hmm,

PCIE @ 119 seems to work wonders on reads

[SteveRo]

Hmm,

PCIE @ 119 seems to work wonders on reads

Was it you or GullLars that was looking for the iometer files (attached above).

[GullLars]

It's my IOmeter config and project, i will skim your results and get back to you with an initial assessment after breakfast, and maybe data-mine it and add it to charts by tonight (i'm at GMT+1, for times i'm reffering to)
Anvil has also worked with the config a bit, and has more knowledge on IOmeter and high-end RAIDs than me since he works with it and for me it's just a hobby.

[SteveRo]

Thanks GullLars - always interested is your assessments.

[GullLars]

It seems your ML1231 hits a wall around 120K IOPS (but this is on the 1GB testfile and with 4GB cache, so it could be your cache IOPS limit), it may be because of just 1 worker. The crash at 16KB may be a bug from aggressive read-ahead with 16KB stripe, correlation or co-incident?

On the ICH10R it seems you are CPU-bound for 0,5-2KB at high queue depths, and would benefit from more workers, but that's for testing outside the project here.

I have one issue, and that's with with you using the config on ML1231 with a 4GB cache but only 1GB testfile, on the norwegian forum we have set a condition that testfile must be 2-3X of cache size, 10GB f.ex could be OK in your case, and you'd just have to add a 0 to the testfile size.

[SteveRo]

Yep, I forgot the 1gb thing again!
I remembered on earlier tries but i have never been able to get it to run completely through and forgot on the later ones.
16k stripe and 1gb test file might be the problem, I did run it w/o aggressive read ahead but that did not fix the problem - still abend
I put a fan in front of the Areca heat sink thinking maybe over-heating but nope - still abend.
At some point (don't know when) I need to rerun at 10GB files size and try 128K stripe with normal read ahead.

I really need to tear down the system and start insulating - SS should arrive tomorrow or Thursday.
I plan to conformal coat both front and back of the board - let it dry over night.
Then apply kneaded eraser and shop towels like here - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=224911

[jalyst]

Hmm,

PCIE @ 119 seems to work wonders on reads

Doesn't ICH10R have direct access to the CPU, rather than hang off the PCIe BUS?
Perhaps my memory fails me...

[SteveRo]

jalyst - looks lie both ich10 and pcie go through the x58 ioh - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:X58_Block_Diagram.png

[jalyst]

hmm thanks, but I'm H57 chipset + Core i3-530 (for now)

[SteveRo]

google h57 architecture or go direct to wikipedia

[jalyst]

naturally I've tried that, my google-fu skillz mustn't be what they used to be :|

Best I've found so far is this......
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/mainbo...ipsets-p1.html
But it still leaves unanswered questions....

[GullLars]

I've just posted some new graphs of Steve's Frankenstien setup in another thread, here's a link to the post:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=186

[sequoia464]

I've just posted some new graphs of Steve's Frankenstien setup in another thread, here's a link to the post:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=186

In the Comments for the Anand article you mentioned using the Kingstons as worth considering for raiding. You mentioned the V+, but also mentioned the JMF618 controller " The Kingston V+ G2 (JMF618) 64GB is IMO a drive worth considering RAIDing " - are you refering to the 425V or the 325V+ Kingston series?? If I understand correctly the V has the JMF while the V+ has a Toshiba controller.
Appreciate any insight on which of these Kingstons would be best for a raid setup. - Thanks

[GullLars]

It depends on the usage pattern you're going for. The SSDs with Intel, SandForce, and Marvel (C300) controllers are much better suited for OS and apps (system drive) because of their low responsetime, they're also better suited for databases and servers depending on IOPS.
The SSD based on JMF612/618 (618 is also called Toshiba controller, since it's made to work with Toshiba flash) are very good at price pr GB and throughput, while delivering sufficient IOPS (3-5K each). This makes them worth considering for huge games, VMs, and scratch-disk (partition for data being worked on) for various workstation uses.
If you were to make a RAID of 4 or more JMF612/618, performance would also be good for OS and programs.
JMF612/618 are the 425V i think. It's the newest series often marked as G2 or gen2.

[sequoia464]

It depends on the usage pattern you're going for. The SSDs with Intel, SandForce, and Marvel (C300) controllers are much better suited for OS and apps (system drive) because of their low responsetime, they're also better suited for databases and servers depending on IOPS.
The SSD based on JMF612/618 (618 is also called Toshiba controller, since it's made to work with Toshiba flash) are very good at price pr GB and throughput, while delivering sufficient IOPS (3-5K each). This makes them worth considering for huge games, VMs, and scratch-disk (partition for data being worked on) for various workstation uses.
If you were to make a RAID of 4 or more JMF612/618, performance would also be good for OS and programs.
JMF612/618 are the 425V i think. It's the newest series often marked as G2 or gen2.

I mostly run office programs and more importantly - blueprint takeoff software - lots of file transfers and conversions. I currently have Windows 7 on two Intel 40's in raid 1 with 2 Intel 80 GB drives not raided for data and programs. Given what you said I'm leaning towards ditching the 40 gb Intels ( headed for some laptops) and getting one additional 80 gb Intel and run the 3 in a raid 5 setup. I backup every night but my data is crucial to my business - that's the thinking for the raid 5. Also have a couple of HDD's that are used for storage and backups in the system.

Does this seem logical or am I missing something here??

[Musho]

I mostly run office programs and more importantly - blueprint takeoff software - lots of file transfers and conversions. I currently have Windows 7 on two Intel 40's in raid 1 with 2 Intel 80 GB drives not raided for data and programs. Given what you said I'm leaning towards ditching the 40 gb Intels ( headed for some laptops) and getting one additional 80 gb Intel and run the 3 in a raid 5 setup. I backup every night but my data is crucial to my business - that's the thinking for the raid 5. Also have a couple of HDD's that are used for storage and backups in the system.

Does this seem logical or am I missing something here??

Raid5 (or raid6 or raid1 for that matter) are _never_ replacements for backups though! Keep that in mind! ALWAYS make backups of critical data, and store them in a different physical location. Backups are useless if your house burns to the ground and takes down both your PC and backups.

Raid1/5/6 is also useless if you accidentally delete an important file, or if a virus does so.

[DragoonXX]

all right, taking some downtime on my silver computer to redo the raid array
running windows XP, now have the stripe size set to 16k, re-downloading a windows 7 repair disc (can't find an earlier copy I did, forgot to label it, and I've got so many toasters laying around from too badly crippled winxp)
asking for some help for sector offset reccomendation.
winxp pro SP3 (x86)
2x X-25v drives, r0 16k stripe
asus P5Q pro board
I have an acronis backup of my OS as it was standing, I had tried from an unformatted state, doing a sector by sector recover...didn't align properly

[SteveRo]

I have also found that acronis will not maintain alignment when moving from one controller to another, for example 1231 moving to 9211.
Also - i think - when just changing the number of drives to the same controller - breaks the alignment also.
When comparing performance - aligned vs unaligned - it makes more difference on some drives vs others.
Acards don't seem to care much.

[jalyst]

What is Acards?
I've heard the term throw around a bit.

[SteveRo]

Acard 9010 - DDR2 based SATA connected storage - http://www.acard.com/english/fb01-pr...&type1_idno=13

[jalyst]

Oh yeah I remember that brand now,
I recall reading a madshrimps review some time ago which basically concluded that these things are way too pricey compared to regular SSD's to be worthwhile.
Unless you must have ultimate performance no matter the expense, I personally don't fall under that category

[DragoonXX]

well...steve, I'm moving from the same controller, I just have to re-preformat my array, and that's what I'm asking for some help on, yes, I know there is some generic info on the OCZ forums, I'm asking for some of the wisdom of those here with X-25V drives for their experience and knowledge