2x Crucial C300 Asus P6x58D-E and Raid 0 Performance

[FrobinRobin]

Hi all..
I recently bought 2x Crucial C300 64GB Sata3 SSD's for my Asus P6x58D-E.. however I'm confused about the performance benchmarks I'm seeing.

Looking on the net I found some good reviews; namely this one:
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/crucia...rive-review/4/
I have configured Win7 with the common suggestions, I did not remove the write cache as it affected my burst rate in HDTach (from 3800MB/s to 300MB/s).

Now, this review is one disk in AHCI mode, the average read in HD Tune Pro is 287MB/s - this is the highest they have seen.. what happened to the 355MB/s quoted on the C300 box?

The 64GB version (that I have) only state a 70MB write, and when I put the disks in RAID 0 mode I get a lovely 140 MB/s Write speed (a performance boost one would expect from RAID 0), however the read speed is 237MB/s in HDTunePro (50mb/s under the single disk from the above review).

When I check with other benchmark programs I obviously get differing results.. I cannot understand them all .. but I wanna know where is my 355MB/s PLUS read speeds? (I say plus because of RAID 0)

[Anvil]

You're using the 6Gb/s Marvell controller, it does not perform at all in raid mode, just forget about it!

Switch to the ICH and you'll be happy.
(as the ICH is limited to 3Gb/s you wont be getting the max throughput but it's your best option by far)

[FrobinRobin]

But will the ICH perform OVER 355MB/s average read?
I really don't want to rebuild again as these are my system disks.. I really should have benched them as secondary disks first.
What sort of performance difference should I expect moving to the ICH controller?

[F@32]

But will the ICH perform OVER 355MB/s average read?
I really don't want to rebuild again as these are my system disks.. I really should have benched them as secondary disks first.
What sort of performance difference should I expect moving to the ICH controller?

You should get about 550MBs in R0.

[FrobinRobin]

So I have to rebuild again? but on the ICH controller (ffs!)
Will this fourth rebuild affect my SSD lifespan? should I run some sort of cleaning program? (I have been using win 7 and the drives are trim compatible)

I'm pretty disappointed about the Sata3 controller, would it be better to buy 2 x Sata 2 OCZ Vertex SE with sandforce (285 read/275 write) ?
Or will they fix the 6GB/s problems and my (should be much better) disks actually get better?

[Anvil]

I expect you'd have to reinstall, don't worry about the lifespan.
The drives will serve you well, no need to wonder about the Vertex SF drives.

The 6Gb/s onboard controller is more like a gimmick. (it's not part of the X58 chipset)

For 6Gb/s support, wait for the next Intel chipset or get a 6Gb/s controller.
(for 2 drives there really isn't any controllers that outperforms the ICH)

I'm quite sure you'll be more than happy with the ICH.

[FrobinRobin]

And here's the results on the Sata 2 controller..

[mbreslin]

Slight difference on ich from marvell eh?

[Computurd]

wow looks very good for two drives. that marvell is sad...

[hecktic]

so are these the best SSD drives for most storage to most performance ratio,... esp in games???

[mbreslin]

Without consideration of price there are larger capacity drives with similar performance, crucial 256gb c300, intel 160gb x25m g2, vertex le/vertex 2 100gb.

Price/Performance/Capacity these 64gb c300s seem golden.

[FrobinRobin]

Looking at reviews/benchmarks on the internet, the marvel controller seems to work with a single disk; so really it's just the RAID that's buggered... but at £120 each these disks are worth it imo.. upgrading to a 4Ghz core i7 gave a snappy response, but these disks added another level of snappiness.

I've been let down by the raid performance of the marvell controller.. So, I'm considering getting a 6GB/s PCIE Raid card, anyone know of a good inexpensive one that would give me better performance than the ICH above? or are we talking £300+ for the raid card?

Thanks


FYI, I'm going to bench my brothers 3 x OCZ Agility in RAID 0 with all the above programs, he's using an intel sc5200 with the SAS module, he has benched them already but I don't have copies.

[Unoid]

Definitly use the ICH Raid.

I'm using two Vertex LE 60gb's in raid 0 (sandforce)

I get about 500mb/s write and read, I'm on 16k stripe.

You're writes still look low.

[FrobinRobin]

Sandforce does 285 read and 275 write, c300 does 355 read and 70 write (for the 64GB version). Which is why I'm a bit upset I cant use the marvell controller in RAID.. I could have just bought 2 x Vertex if I'm using ICH10

[Anvil]

FrobinRobin,

The SandForce does not do 285/275, not with real data.
For sequential reads they are on par with the C300, some ups and downs depending on the data.
On sequential writes the SandForce is more like 90-150MB/s, again depending on the data, iow not that much of a difference.

What is your goal?, getting high sequential througput?
If so then go with a cheap 6GB/s controller, but the sequential throughput will come at a cost -> random io.

Random io is what really matters and thats what you get using the ICH.
I'm not aware of any controller that generally matches or outperforms the ICH on random io, that is using up to 3-4 drives.
(there are exceptions of course, like expensive controllers with a huge cache)

Wait for the next Chipset from Intel or some yet to be released 6Gb/s controller that matches or outperforms the ICH in all areas.

[hecktic]

what about the crucial 256gb drive? (I know its pricey but I can get um around $500 a piece)

[Anvil]

hecktic,

At that price, I'd get one. (or more )

All C300s are more or less equal wrt read performance, writes is a different matter.
Sequential writes:
64GB ~75MB/s
128GB ~140MB/s
256GB ~210MB/s

Random writes increase as well for the larger models.

The thing with the 64GB is that 2x in raid-0 (2R0 for short) performs much better than a single 128GB drive and it does so at a lower price as well.
(this is why it's such a great drive, high performance, low cost)

The same tihing applies to the SF 50-60GB drives as well of course (performance wise), not so sure about the price/value though.
SF based drives tend to be more expensive, that might change or differ depending on where you live.
In Norway the SF based drives (Extended series) are competitively priced for the larger models but for the 50-60GB drives they are not.

[Johnny87au]

hecktic,

At that price, I'd get one. (or more )

All C300s are more or less equal wrt read performance, writes is a different matter.
Sequential writes:
64GB ~75MB/s
128GB ~140MB/s
256GB ~210MB/s

Random writes increase as well for the larger models.

The thing with the 64GB is that 2x in raid-0 (2R0 for short) performs much better than a single 128GB drive and it does so at a lower price as well.
(this is why it's such a great drive, high performance, low cost)

The same tihing applies to the SF 50-60GB drives as well of course (performance wise), not so sure about the price/value though.
SF based drives tend to be more expensive, that might change or differ depending on where you live.
In Norway the SF based drives (Extended series) are competitively priced for the larger models but for the 50-60GB drives they are not.

+1 mate

[hecktic]

sorry to hijack this thread, but thanks for the tips... what about the ocz revo and the vertex 2 / LE ?

[Johnny87au]

Well the ocz revo drive is a good drive which uses up a PCI-E Slot, I know for a fact you cant raid these so the performance is limited, has no trim atm but OCZ said their in the making of getting Trim to work on these new SF controllers.. Take a look here..

Random/Read write



Sequential Read/write



As you can see it quite good but isnt the best, the price range is exceptional though which makes it a good OCZ.. take a look here for the full review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3788/o...ble-pcie-ssd/3

[hecktic]

thanks, would have been nice to see the crucial drives in those results also..... this is a tough decision.

[FrobinRobin]

It's all about getting your money worth!
Here's my way of looking at it..

a) Are you buying one SSD OR can you afford the extra £50 for 2 x Vertex compared to 2 x c300?
b) Will you upgrade to the next ICH if it has Sata3?
c) Can you afford to buy 2 x 128MB c300?
d) Are you likely to buy more SSD's within a year or two?

If you answered yes to A then buy the Vertex or other sandforce..
But if you answered yes to B then buy 2 x c300 64gb
And if you answered yes to C then definitely buy 2 x c300 128mb as the write is much better on the larger SSDs.
But if you answered yes to D then just get some Vertex / Sandforce SSD as they'll improve within a year/two for sure.
I decided £120 for each C300 is ok for my budget, maybe I'll get the next ICH mobo or even upgrade SSDs next year when things are more mainstream.

I looked at the Revo and other PCIE but I think they are far too expensive tbh, yes performance is good, but I guarantee that you get 3xC300 or 3xVertex in R03 and things will look different (especially on a decent raid controller), my bro is running 3 x ocz agility on sc5200 with the sas module and they aren't sandforce but are bloody quick! still gotta get them bench screenshots.

[hecktic]

It's all about getting your money worth!
Here's my way of looking at it..

a) Are you buying one SSD OR can you afford the extra £50 for 2 x Vertex compared to 2 x c300?
b) Will you upgrade to the next ICH if it has Sata3?
c) Can you afford to buy 2 x 128MB c300?
d) Are you likely to buy more SSD's within a year or two?

If you answered yes to A then buy the Vertex or other sandforce..
But if you answered yes to B then buy 2 x c300 64gb
And if you answered yes to C then definitely buy 2 x c300 128mb as the write is much better on the larger SSDs.
But if you answered yes to D then just get some Vertex / Sandforce SSD as they'll improve within a year/two for sure.
I decided £120 for each C300 is ok for my budget, maybe I'll get the next ICH mobo or even upgrade SSDs next year when things are more mainstream.

I looked at the Revo and other PCIE but I think they are far too expensive tbh, yes performance is good, but I guarantee that you get 3xC300 or 3xVertex in R03 and things will look different (especially on a decent raid controller), my bro is running 3 x ocz agility on sc5200 with the sas module and they aren't sandforce but are bloody quick! still gotta get them bench screenshots.

ah thanks but the C300 is SATA 3
http://www.crucial.com/pdf/Tech_spec...-10_online.pdf

so a board with ICH that has SATA 3 support will allow the drive to run at 6gb

Oh by the way price just dropped at crucial website:
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspe...DDAC256MAG-1G1
$599.99 compared to most others charge $100 more

on C) do you mean 128mb cache??? or 128gb as in the drive density?

[hecktic]

ocz ssd spec sheet comparison
http://www.ocztechnology.com/res/man...kdown_Q3_1.pdf

oh and ocz revo 240gb is $200 more than the crucial c300 256gb ($500)

[mbreslin]

ah thanks but the C300 is SATA 3

But the raid controller on the latest intel chipset (ICH10R) isn't.

He's asking you if you will be upgrading when there is an intel chipset with a SATA 3 controller. If so you'll be ready with the crucial SATA 3 drives.