Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage Storage Test
Although the RAID setups provide impressive throughput performance, they don’t accelerate application load performance very much. The Intel and SandForce SSDs all deliver 200+ MB/s, while the four-drive RAID array stays at 84 MB/s.
Something similar happens to gaming: throughput performance is only one part of the performance story and other, more powerful SSDs easily outperform the RAID arrays made of cheap SSDs.
For the video editing test, the results are a bit different, as this one requires lots of bandwidth. Two cheap 30 GB SSDs are sufficient to outrun all the other SSDs.
Windows Defender is I/O dependent, and hence performs best on the upper-class SSD products.
Windows Media Center requires streaming horsepower, which is why the RAID setups shine.
We would have expected the Windows Vista startup process to benefit from the substantial throughput of the Kingston SSDNow V 30 GB RAID arrays, but the benchmark reflects what we also found in real life testing: the fastest individual SSDs deliver better overall startup performance and Windows takes less time to boot. Keep in mind that the difference is only seconds on a fast machine.
Overall, the RAID arrays are a good approach to maximize SSD performance, but the money is probably better spent in a single, more powerful solid state drive like Zalman’s new N-series.
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- Angelbird Now Shipping SSD RAID Card for 800 MB/s
- SSD Performance In The Office: Nine Applications Benchmarked
- Exploring SSD Performance In Battlefield 3, F1 2011, And Rift
- SSD Performance In Crysis 2, World Of Warcraft, And Civilization V
- SSD RAID 0 Charts 2011
- SSD RAID: Do You Want A Cheap Array Or One Larger Drive?
- SSDs In RAID: A Performance Scaling Analysis
You're on a budget. You want to know if it'd be better to stripe a couple of smaller SSDs or simply buy one larger performance-oriented drive. Today we're comparing one, two, and four 30 GB Kingston SSDNow V drives to Zalman’s new 128 GB N-series SSD.
SSD RAID: Do You Want A Cheap Array Or One Larger Drive? : Read more
Nice read. I didn't even consider this when looking at SSD's but I'm glad you shined some light on this. I guess for gaming it's best to go with one bigger SSD. Thanks for the article.
Why would you pick such inferior drive in the RAID array for this test? $150 for two 30GB drives isn't saving you any money. Why not get two of the Zalman N Series SSD0064N1 for $129 at a website I could name? You'd get MORE storage for LESS money. You'd also have a far superior controller in a two drive array. THAT is the best setup.
Why not get two of the Zalman N Series SSD0064N1 for $129 at a website I could name?
Please tell me of this website! I can only find one of those SSD's for that price...
On another note, after reading this article I think I made up my mind in a future build to have SSDs in raid for my OS and games paired with three 320gb HDDs I already own for more storage and backup. I am particularly interested in the read speeds more than anything.
How about a simple comparison of 2 of the smaller sandforce drives 2x60GB in raid vs one 120GB drive? There should be not much difference in price, which i assume people will pay (me included) if there is enough performance improvement. I see no point in comparing raid arrays of such low performing and phased out drives.
How about a simple comparison of 2 of the smaller sandforce drives 2x60GB in raid vs one 120GB drive? There should be not much difference in price, which i assume people will pay (me included) if there is enough performance improvement. I see no point in comparing raid arrays of such low performing and phased out drives.
This is coming Edisonmk, just an FYI. In the same piece I'll also be comparing the dual-controller RevoDrive and quad-controller RevoDrive X2 (along with Intel's X25-M and OCZ's IBIS).
Chris
I agree... Apples to Oranges comparison isn't the best way to go forward with this.
Pick a manufacturer, and a specific line of drives by that manufacturer, pick 4 low cap drives, 2 med cap drives, 1 high cap drive. Compare them! The final drive in these tests should be approx the same size.
Test on all metrics per usual. Compare/Contrast results and provide Price/Performance analysis.
I'd like to see the benchmarks on two 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 in RAID 1.
I'd like to see the benchmarks on two 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 in RAID 1.
in RAID1, i imagine the performance would be almost as good as a single 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300
I think raiding these would be nice and worth doing honestly most people looking for a SSD want them for the access time and sequential reads when it comes down to it and even the writes aren't horrendous for the S100 series I imagine in 2+ raid array setup they'd be very reasonable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820139428
Interresting test, but the comparisons are like comparing 4 paintball guns mounted on a stick with a common trigger to an AK-47.
Redo the test with 1, 2, 3, and 4 SSD at 32 or 64GB compared against an SSD at 256GB using the same controller, and ffs, use a controller that is modern.
I suggest SandForce or C300.
I'm currently on an SSD RAID of 4x C300 64GB running on AMD SB850. I have 1150MB/s sequential read, 280MB/s sequential write, 32MB/s 4KB random read @ QD 1 (8k IOPS), 80MB/s 4KB random write at QD 1 (20k IOPS), 400MB/s 4KB random read at QD 32 (100k IOPS, maxed out at 2 drives), and 270MB/s 4KB random write at QD 32.
4x SSD = 10 to 15 watt... When most video catds use 30 watts at idle, and capable of hiting over 200 watts, it kinda seems silly to think about a measly 10 to 15 watts of power for RAID storage.
Then again... I do have 2 rooms in the house with LED lighting...
I have one of these 30gb SSD from this brand and my results were a little better in other test than what you have gotten but I didn't get it as a os drive but as a paging drive. Modern hard drives are far to slow when it comes to random 4k and it shows up in games that have a very large memory foot print like GTA IV.
What about TRIM???
My understanding is that although it is possible to connect a single SSD to a RAID controller and use TRIM, it is *not* possible to use TRIM on an array.
Has this changed??????
If not, then your RAID array's performance will inevitably decrease over time. And I would opine that end users would be better off buying a newer/faster/larger single drive.
Interesting article, the take away for me is this.....maybe I would enjoy getting a 2nd Intel X25-M G2 80GB drive and do a RAID 0 hehe
I don't think soft raid is good if you want speed.
What about TRIM???My understanding is that although it is possible to connect a single SSD to a RAID controller and use TRIM, it is *not* possible to use TRIM on an array.Has this changed??????If not, then your RAID array's performance will inevitably decrease over time. And I would opine that end users would be better off buying a newer/faster/larger single drive.
Clearly explained in the last statement of the article: We'll also dive into the implications of using an SSD-based RAID array on TRIM support in an upcoming story, so stay tuned!
I was wondering this all along. They should have used better small drives like OCZ's 40 GB Vertex2, which use the SF-1222 controller, instead of the Kingston units. The performance of the smaller SandForce-based drives is supposedly similar to their larger variants, so that would give you the best idea of RAID vs. one big drive.
your RAID array's performance will inevitably decrease over time. And I would opine that end users would be better off buying a newer/faster/larger single drive.
Actually, performance degrades only to a certain point, depending on your usage patterns, and affect only write performance. With the performance level of RAIDs of decent new SSDs, you wouldn't notice it, but could meassure it after heavy usage with a benchmark.