New LSI 9200 series controllers: 6Gb/s, 2.88 GB/s seq. reads, 1.87 GB/s seq. writes

[trans am]

http://www.scsi4me.com/lsi00247-fast...9260-9280.html


Okay lemme get this straight we need to pay $150 bux for the software and it offers huge performance boosts? I think its rad that LSI offers this hotrodding soft to add on its existing raid cards.
Paul do you have the software installed and did you see any improvements? I'm anxious to know because I want to crank these new sandforce drives I just got.

[Computurd]

thats the thing bro, not available for about twenty more days. kinda BS we have to pay for this.

[Computurd]

there is more to the story i guess.....
received this message today

The information I forwarded you was incorrect as it is an out of date document. More information will be disclosed after our May 10th announcement on these new additional features. Keep in touch with your distributor on release dates and pricing information as they interact directly with the sales and marketing team.

[Computurd]

http://lsi.com/channel/about_channel...new/index.html
www.lsi.com/channel/support/marketing_resources
http://www.lsi.com/DistributionSyste...FAQ_042110.pdf

[One_Hertz]

$150 bux for something which seems to just increase high queue small random reads/writes. I don't see that actually helping anything for a normal PC.

[GullLars]

If it reduces latency (overhead) for larger SSD RAIDs, it could make sense for the people buying controllers like the 9200 series.

[One_Hertz]

If it reduces latency (overhead) for larger SSD RAIDs, it could make sense for the people buying controllers like the 9200 series.

From the little info available it SEEMS like it only reduces latency in high queue + small file workloads + more than 4 drive R0, which would not be very useful (for us here on this forum).

[mbreslin]

We'll see what numbers computurd puts up, that should tell us if it's worth it even for large arrays. I thank him for being the guinea pig.

Today is the day I'm finally going to build arrays on ich, I want to see if there's a sweet spot for c300s at 3 or 4 drives.

[SteveRo]

Paul - thanks for taking one for the team!

[Tiltevros]

ok here is the misunderstanding..
Im talking to the guy who was at Cebit and demostrating the Fast Path.
Fast Path is a key that unlocks the lower latency algorithm and set power performance on SSD's.
The demostration was with 5 SSD (x25 E's) just to show that u can pass the 150.000 IO's with 8k file size witch means that 4k file size will be more.. This is nothing to do with large files because LSI never had any problems with them.
Now using more than 8 drives will give more than 150k IOs thats why FastPath is compatible with 9260 4 port.
Just give me and Paul some days to get the keys and we will post everything u want

[trans am]

tilt hit me on pm

[Tiltevros]

@ trans am
First of all update ur firmware. u r saying the best performance setup for what??? for databases?? for gaming? for IOmeter?? for PCmark Vantage? for what?

[trans am]

did it all. I have the latest and greatest of both. latest lsi fw/drivers and latest and greatest ssd drives. I wanna talk to you or paul or steve cuz ive been in the gutter and only been benching clarks and not really up to speed as far as the best all around lsi setup in webbios.

i was using the following in indinlinx raid:

2 x indinlinx 60gb
raid 0
9260-4i
raid0
stripe size 64kn
adapive read ahead
r/w
direct i/o
drive cache enabled
bbu off
ncq disabled.

use server 2008 x64 drivers for (win7 64)

my question is:

say I sent you my drives and you wanted to bench them.
what settings would you use when creating the raid set (latest may drivers and fw)

just want someone with me while we max these out.

fyi I just wiped the vertex2 with killdisk and as soon as you get back in here I will set the raid up and install win 7.


this is what I did the night I got it all installed but I think I can do better.







----------------

intel onboard raid on 2 x 50 gb vertex2

[Tiltevros]

adapive read ahead <--- Doesnt exist from firmware 2,30 now the new firmware is 2,60
ONLY
Always read ahead and no read ahead options
LSI performs best with Intels compatibility list is on the site LSI.com
ur performance is good as i can see.

[trans am]

okay tilt what about stripes? keep it at 64 or go higher or lower? I have adaptive option in webbios (ctrl-H) so I had same options when I set raid0 in webbios as auto and went into msm always showed read ahead only. but if you create in webbios adaptive is still there. which one? which stripe? lets get this rolling!

[Tiltevros]

16k for intels search for other brands u should try all of them.
this is the best thing with this controller. Start looking our threads there are millions setups here with 9260 read them ok?

[trans am]

tilt here is my ss from msm

[trans am]

im on 16kb right now. Gimme a bench to use
also waht about this guys settings?

[Tiltevros]

IOmeter

[trans am]

Oh man. can you set up a guide sticky for us to bench iometer? Ive been through this with paul so many times. I think it needs to be on paper. there are so many settings I alsways get lost. just make a sticky and we can all follow it and have something to follow once and for all. I'm gonna be out setting up the raid again and reinstalling. so this is what I'll do:

LSI

raid0 128kb
read ahead'
read/write
io direct
drive cache enabled
always write back
ncq disabled
bbu off

[Anvil]

You should try stripe size 32KB or 64KB using the Vertex 2.

No read ahead
Direct IO
Drive Cache Enabled
NCQ ON, why would you wan't to turn it off?

Write Back is OK but you could also try Write Through.

[Tiltevros]

BBU off?? <--- if u have BBU set it to write back with BBU
NCQ disable? <--- there r no difference if u have this enable or disable
read/write?? <--- let this as it is

Im testing LSI 9211 right now im waiting some keys for my 9260 this week so in the weekend i will have the time to play around.
But u should read the threads for 9260. To just set the settings is very easy but to hit the best result is differend to each one.
Im gathering some tips and when i will have the time i will post them here

BTW my booting time now with windows 7 ultimate FULL services is 12,21 seconds LSI 9260 with only 4 intels

[trans am]

I dont have bbu so I disable it. I just set to write back. no read ahead? then what? adaptive?

[mbreslin]

@trans_am: Honestly you need to try every single setting to see what works best with those vertex.

[Mastakilla]

Hi all,

I just tried creating my first RAID5 on my LSI controller.
I used all default settings atm (64KB Stripe Size, Write through since I dont have a BBU).

I just tried a few quick benchmarks.

Read speed seems normal: 40MB/sec min, 320MB/sec max and 196MB/sec avg in HD Tune
But write speed doesnt seem normal at all: 10MB/sec min, 22MB/sec max and 15MB/sec avg in HD Tune
CrystalDiskMark shows similar results...

Now I know that write speeds in RAID5 arent supposed to be shockingly fast, but I did expect around 100MB/sec for a 500 euro controller (I remember the ancient Areca controllers doing quite well in RAID5 write speeds)
I did a fast initialize and read about it that it writes the first 10MB and last 10MB of each disc with 0 and does the rest in the background.
However I don't see any ongoing operations in MSM...

So is this horrible write speed because of the secretly in the background running initialization? (if yes: where / how can I see if it is done?)
Or is this horrible write speed really the speed it should have? (because of the write through setting and RAID5)

I definitely hope something is still wrong somewhere

Thanks