[HappyHacking]

Hi, everyone, after reading the tomshardware article about 16 ssds, and considering the resulta i decides to build my own array.
Currently i own 8 Intel x25-M G2 80GB drives, and im looking, for the fastest raid 0 array i could made.
My test system: Dell XPS 720, Quad Core QX6800 @3.4GHz, 8GB HyperX RAM, Nvidia 8800 GT.
My Future system:
-Intel Core i7-980X
-24 GB DDR3 HyperX RAM
- 2 or 3 Nvidia GTX-480 in sli way
- EVGA Classified 4way sli motherboard

with all this on mind my question is about the best possible ssd raid card for a raid 0 array.
The ellection of the card and array size will determine the available PCI-E port for my SLI array.
I was thinking about the LSI 9260-8i, but its limited to 8 sata ports, there is a 24 port raid card uses for the Samsung 24 ssd raid 0 array, but its PCI-e x8 1.0
if i get another 16 ssd drives and 3 LSI 9260-8i i will get just 2 available ports for 2 nvidia cards, but you cant join the LSI raid arrays into a single drive for máximum performance
and if you made a Windows dynamic disk (strip mode) you could use it but you cannot install or boot your Windows 7 from dynamic disks.

So im stalled here, dont know what to do:
1.- Buy a LSI 9260-8i and do a raid 0 array with my 8 ssds and to have 3 x Nvidia GTX-480 in 3 SLI way.
2.- Get The samsung guide card with the 24 port and buy another 16 ssd drives, and keep my 3 way sli array.
3.- Get 3 LSI 9260-8i and 16 more ssds, and use a 2 x Nvidia GTX480 cards in sli, and check any way to install Windows 7 on dynamic disk

Notes: As a note ive readed the specs from other raid card malekers and none states PCI-e x8 2.0, and more than 800 MB/s read speed.

Since i dont have money limit, i want to keep the best performance gaming desktop, any sugs aré welcome thanx.

[DetlevCM]

On a side note...
What for are you trying to do this?

The SSDs will not help with gaming (beyond a certain point) - yes, such a setup might be useful for programmes that use large temp files - but as far as I am aware games are not one of them.

[HappyHacking]

Hi, thanx for your interest: im a heavy user, i work with a lot of software like: Oracle, Matlab, Mathematica, SPSS, Adobe suite, Corel, Autodesk suite, Blender, Boinc, VMware, Crysis, etc etc.

R8 now im on a Dell XPS 720 as described above, but with that bunch of software it feels pretty laggy, it really sucks most of time r8 now, so im trying to get the best of both worlds, a poweful workstation and a good gaming machine, and after some use i realized the the disk subsystem its the worst boottleneck in my Dell desktop and i want to have the best performing boot/system drive.

[DetlevCM]

HappyHacking, on 08 February 2010 - 07:30 AM timestamp=, said:

Hi, thanx for your interest: im a heavy user, i work with a lot of software like: Oracle, Matlab, Mathematica, SPSS, Adobe suite, Corel, Autodesk suite, Blender, Boinc, VMware, Crysis, etc etc.

R8 now im on a Dell XPS 720 as described above, but with that bunch of software it feels pretty laggy, it really sucks most of time r8 now, so im trying to get the best of both worlds, a poweful workstation and a good gaming machine, and after some use i realized the the disk subsystem its the worst boottleneck in my Dell desktop and i want to have the best performing boot/system drive.

Well, OK VMware and certain Adobe products can benefit from a multiple SSD setup.

I'm thinking - what about "Multiplying" the Sata connection?
You possibly couldn't reach the maximum speed theoretically possible, but could increase your random reads and writes - which I suspect are the problem.

Else you can see if you can get any info from these guys:
http://blog.tmcnet.c...gadgets/memory/

Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.c...WOEa4Djs&fmt=22

This post has been edited by DetlevCM: 08 February 2010 - 03:36 AM

[continuum]

Wow, you have quite a budget.

At that level of complexity you may want to call Adaptec, Areca, LSI Logic/3ware, etc. directly and see what kind of performance they can provide. Areca is well known for an established history of SSD compatibility, but I believe the other makers are catching up.

The IOP348 processors or equivalent that most of these guys use tends to top out about 1200MB/sec in the 1.2ghz version (I forget under what RAID type that is, almost certainly RAID0).

This tells me you will need multiple RAID cards for optimal performance, so three 8-port RAID cards if you want to drive 24 SSD's is probably the way to go.

You may want to shift to a workstation-class board and Xeon processors to get enough PCI-e connectivity, if you really demand this much performance, such as the Supermicro X8DTH-i.

[Computurd]

you have the right idea. i have built a system such as this,
evga classified
9260-8i
8 vertex ssd in raid o
3 gtx 260 in sli
one creative audio card.

my results are spectacular. my rig is tenth all time hall of fame on pcmark vantage. you will not need much more than what you are describing to hit the top of your needs. you wil not need a multi raid cared setup. iop348 is dead. don't touch 3gb.s stuff with a ten foot pole. it is outdated. go with the 9211 or 9260.

[continuum]

Sorry, I keep forgetting about the LSI SAS2108 chip. How much throughput can one sustain though? Fastest I've seen is about 3000MB/sec, which is damned good, but for the OP's requirements of 24 SSD's, he would still need at least two SAS2108-equipped cards anyway...

(and damnit, a 9260-8i is under $500 cheap? Crap. Must. Resist. I.. do.. NOT.. need.. one...)

[HappyHacking]

Hi, finally i selected the LSI 9260-8i Raid Card, to made a single Raid 0 Array, since i cannot bind 2 or 3 cards for array.

LSI 9260-8i Exceptional Features:
1.- Its x8 PCI Express 2.0 host interface, so max bandwidth is about 500MB/s for x8 = 4GB/s theorical maximum.
2.- Support for 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s SATA, so an aproximated practical maximum performance is about 520 to 540 MB/s for 6Gb/s SATA port.
3.- Superior performance ,Maximum reads: 2,875MB/s, Maximum writes: 1,850MB/s.
4.- Support for SSD drives disabling HDD features that could degrade SSD performance like "Sector Patrol".

With that said, i will keep my 8 Intel X25-M 80GB G2 SSD Drives for a RAID 5 array plugged into the Motherboard sata ports, and for my LSI 9260-8i i decided to buy 8 of the best performing drives available right now:

Crucial RealSSD C300 Features:
1.- The first SSDs designed for the high-speed SATA 6Gb/s interface
2.- More capacity, 128GB and 256GB versions.
3.- Up to 355 MB/s read and 215 MB/s write, with the 256GB version.
4.- Up 355 MB/s read and 140 MB/s write, with the 128GB version.
5.- Inexpensive for such a performance upgrade, the drives will be priced at $399 and $799 respectively.

So this is the best setup i will have, and with 8 Crucial RealSSD (8 x 355 MB/s = 2840 MB/s maximum theorical read) so i think this will saturate the bandwidth of my Raid Card, i hope this will be enough for my needs, and of course i could attach 3 new Fermi Nvidia cards on SLI.

Any sugs are welcome....

[Brian]

We're actually waiting for the C300 to come in for review. Since this site is just now kind of re-booting, we're not as high as we should be on Crucial's list. When you get them in, please do start a new thread with some benchmarks, comparing to the Intel drives if you can. I'd be very interested to see how well Crucial does. I suspect Intel has a fight on their hands.

[DetlevCM]

I'd suggest stick with Intel drives for your "Performance setup" - if the "M drives" are too slow, try the "E drives" - performance degradation isn't a bad/not really existent on Intel drives - and they've shown themselves to be reliable.