Enhanced RAID6
Enhanced RAID 6 works with triple redundancy. This might make sense for 8 and 12-port controllers, but certainly not for this quad-port model...
Product Comparison Table
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| Manufacturer | AMCC 3ware | Areca | Highpoint | LSI Logic | Promise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model Name | 9650SE | ARC 1210 | RocketRaid 2322 | MegaRAID SATA 300-8ELP | SuperTrak EX4350 |
| Firmware | 3.06.00.003 | 1.41 | 1.04 | 5.0.1-0041 | 1.3.0.7 |
| Driver used | 3.00.02.070 | 1.2 | 1.0.4.912 | 1.21.0.32 | v3.0.0.8 |
| SATA II ports | 4 | 4 | 8 external | 8 | 4 |
| Connector Type | Multi-lane x4 | Discrete | Mini-SAS | Multi-lane x4 | discrete |
| Cache | 256 MB DDR2 533 | 256 MB DDR333 ECC | - | 128 MB DDR333 ECC | 64 MB DDR ECC |
| Interface | PCI Express x4 | PCI Express x8 | PCI Express x4 | PCI Express x4 | PCI Express x4 |
| Optional versions | 2, 8, 12, 16, 24 ports | 8, 12, 16 ports | - | 4 | 8, 12, 16 |
| Multiple card support | yes | yes | yes | yes | 2 controller |
| Card Format | low profile | low profile | standard | low profile | low profile |
| XOR Engine | 8th-generation StorSwitch | Intel IOP332 | - | Intel IOP333 | Intel IOP333 |
| RAID Level Migration | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Online Capacity Expansion | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Multiple RAID Arrays | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Staggered Spin-up | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Hot Spare Support | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Battery Backup Unit | optional | optional | - | optional | optional |
| FAN | no | yes | no | no | no |
| OS Support | Windows 2003/XP/2000, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, Fedora Linux, 2.4 Linux kernel, 2.6 Linux kernel, FreeBSD | Windows 2000/XP, Windows Server 2003, Redhat Linux, SuSE Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris 10x86, UnixWare 7.1.x, Netware 6.5 | Windows, Windows X64 Editions, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X | Windows 2003/2000/XP, Red Hat as Linux, Suse Linux /sLes | Microsoft Windows 2000/2003/XP, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, Miracle Linux (Asianux), Fedora, Linux open source, FreeBSD |
| Other | X4 external storage enclosure | RAID 6, Enhanced RAID 6 (3-drive failure support) | |||
| Estimated Price (US $) | 373 | 310 | 260 | 600 | 320 |
| Warranty | 3 years | 3 years | 3 years | 3 years | 3 years |
Test Setup And Benchmarks
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| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor(s) | 2x Intel Xeon Processor (Nocona core)3.6 GHz, FSB800, 1 MB L2 Cache |
| Platform | Asus NCL-DS (Socket 604)Intel E7520 Chipset, BIOS 1005 |
| RAM | Corsair CM72DD512AR-400 (DDR2-400 ECC, reg.)2x 512 MB, CL3-3-3-10 Timings |
| System Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB120 GB, 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, UltraATA/100 |
| Test Hard Drives | Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD4x 150 GB, 10,000 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/300 |
| Mass Storage Controller(s) | Intel 82801EB UltraATA/100 Controller (ICH5)Silicon Image Sil3124, PCI-X |
| Networking | Broadcom BCM5721 On-Board Gigabit Ethernet NIC |
| Graphics Card | On-Board GraphicsATI RageXL, 8 MB |
| System Hardware | |
| I/O Performance | IOMeter 2003.05.10Fileserver-BenchmarkWebserver-BenchmarkDatabase-BenchmarkWorkstation-Benchmark |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| OS | Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Service Pack 1 |
| Platform Driver | Intel Chipset Installation Utility 7.0.0.1025 |
| Graphics Driver | Windows Default Graphics Driver |
Test Methodology
We used four Western Digital WD1500 Raptor hard drives to test the controllers with four different I/O workload profiles : File server, web server, database and workstation. All drives were used to setup a RAID 0, RAID 0+1 and lastly a RAID 5 array. At the end of our testing we removed one hard drive from the RAID 5 and repeated the benchmark runs to see how the controllers would perform when the RAID 5 arrays runs degraded.
