Adaptec MaxIQ: Flash SSDs Boost RAID Performance

Test Hardware And Setup

Adaptec RAID 5805, Fujitsu SAS HDDs

Test Setup

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System Hardware
Hardware Details
CPU Intel Core i7-920 (45nm, 2.66 GHz, 8MB L3 Cache)
Motherboard (Socket 1366) Supermicro X8SAX Revision: 1.1, Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R, BIOS: 1.0B
RAM 3 x 1GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX
HDD Seagate NL35 400GB ST3400832NS, 7,200 RPM, SATA 1.5 Gb/s, 8MB Cache
Test HDD (x3) Fujitsu MBA3147 147GB 15,000 RPM, SAS 3 Gb/s, 16MB Cache
RAID Adapter Adaptec RAID 5805 Eight Port SAS Controller, Firmware Ver. 5.2.0 Build 17544
Adaptec MaxIQ SSD ASM-00603-01-A-R (v2009.3 / v6.3), Intel X25-E 32GB
Power Supply OCZ EliteXstream 800W OCZ800EXS-EU
Benchmarks
I/O Performance IOMeter 2006.07.27Fileserver-BenchmarkDatabase-BenchmarkWebserver-BenchmarkWorkstation-Benchmark
System Software and Drivers
Drivers Details
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
Intel Chipset Chipset Installation Utility 9.1.0.1007
AMD Graphics Radeon 8.12
Intel Matrix Storage 8.7.0.1007

In order to analyze the benefits of a 32GB cache, we decided to limited the arrays in four increments: 5GB and 25GB capacities ensure that the 32GB cache can still buffer all the data on the hard drive-based RAID array, while 50GB and 100GB array sizes reflect the performance scenario if you’re working with larger arrays.

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