Patriot: We Built a 40 SSD Drive Crazy Computer

Reporting from CeBIT 2010, TechPowerUp has set its eyes on the fastest PC in the world, at least in the storage department.

The PC's configuration is also pretty beefy:

- (5) LSI Mega RAID SAS/SATA 9260-8i raid cards 
- (2) 1000W Thermaltake TRX-1000M power supplies 
- (1) Thermaltake case 
- (1) Super Micro X8DTH-I X58 Server motherboard 
- (2) Intel Xeon 5550 CPUs 
- 48GB 1333MHz of Patriot DDR3 ECC-Registered memory (12) PS34G13ER-E 

The storage system of the computer though,--where the true performance lies--speaks for itself.

A sustained rate of 155,000 IOPS/s is generated by using forty 256GB TorqX SSDs connected to five LSI SAS PCI-E controllers. According to the TechPowerUP article, the system supposedly is able to "rip an entire Blu-ray in 0.9 seconds." Clearly, this is impossible as no optical drive can manage that. What more likely happened was that a reporter misquoted Patriot.

The system is capable of making a duplicate copy of a "Blu-ray rip" on the 40-drive SSD array in a blistering fast 0.9 seconds. That's at least an 8GB file copy in under a second. We don't know about you but, load times be-gone!

Currently there's no indication on when this insane beast will be unleashed.

  • alvine
    i wonder how much it all cost!
    Reply
  • If I gave them 5 dollars, do you think they would let me have it?
    Reply
  • microterf
    Crazy stupid fast.
    Love It.

    Right after I can afford a drive setup like this, FERMI should be available for actual purchase and life will be good ;)
    Reply
  • kelfen
    I can buy a corvete for the amount of sdd's that are in that case
    Reply
  • skykaptain
    "- (1) LSI Mega RAID SAS/SATA 9260-8i raid cards," shouldn't that be 5 as you say here, "forty 256GB TorqX SSDs connected to five LSI SAS PCI-E controllers."
    Reply
  • rhino13
    Yea... but can it run...
    No = Fail
    Reply
  • Doomsy2006
    Can we say Ultimate *Contest* Prize!
    Reply
  • zelannii
    So, give or take $50K, maybe 60? but only 10TB of storage in RAID 0, or 2.5TB in RAID 1/0. 150,000 IOPS can be achieved for less per TB with even basic SAN architectures, and they're far more redundant.

    A nice achievement for a PC tower, but not something I believe to be taken seriously. I can't begin to imagine a use case for that many IOPS on that little storage that would run under those 2 CPUs (or 20 of them)...

    I must admire the cabling detail though...

    Reply
  • traken
    Why?...
    Reply
  • envolva
    I love the "everything you can fit inside the case" kind of deal.
    Reply