A Sexy Storage Spree: The 3 GB/s Project, Revisted

Features
By Manuel Masiero, Achim Roos
published

We repeat our extreme SSD RAID project for the third time and arrange 16 Samsung 470-series SSDs based on MLC NAND in a RAID 0 array to reach new levels of performance. We weren't as fortunate this time, but not for the reasons you might suspect.

RAID Creation In Windows

We set up two RAID 0 arrays with eight SSDs on each of the two LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i controllers first. Then Windows' RAID abilities came into play: through Disk Management, we configured a RAID 0 software array that consists of the two LSI RAID arrays.

Windows recognizes each of the RAID arrays as an independent volume.

Using the context menu, we created a new stripe set…

…and selected the two volumes.

The completely configured stripe set is now ready to be tested.

Test Configuration

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System Hardware
HardwareDetails
CPUIntel Core i7-920 (45 nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L2 Cache)
MotherboardSupermicro X8SAX Revision: 1.0, Chipset Intel X58 + ICH10R, BIOS: 1.0B
ControllerLSI MegaRAID 9280-24i4e, Firmware: v12.12.0-0037, Driver: v4.32.0.64LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i
RAM3x 1 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX
HDDSeagate NL35 400 GB, ST3400832NS, 7200 RPM, SATA 1.5 Gb/s, 8 MB Cache
PSUOCZ EliteXstream 800 W, OCZ800EXS-EU
Benchmarks
Performance MeasurementsCrystalDiskMark 3
I/O-PerformanceIOMeter 2008.08.18 Fileserver-Benchmark Webserver-Benchmark Database-Benchmark Workstation-Benchmark Streaming Reads Streaming Writes 4k Random Reads 4k Random Writes
System Software & Drivers
Operating SystemWindows 7 Ultimate
Manuel Masiero
40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jeff77789
    I want one of those...
    Reply
  • user 18
    jeff77789I want one of those...
    Why stop at one? I want two!
    Reply
  • burnley14
    Wow, throughput in GB/s. Makes my paltry single SSD look shameful. How fast did Windows boot up out of curiosity?
    Reply
  • the associate
    Overkill benches like this are awesome, I can't wait to see the crazy shit were gona have in 10 years from now.

    burnley14How fast did Windows boot up out of curiosity?
    I'd also like to know =D
    Reply
  • abhinav_mall
    How many organs I will have to sell to get such a setup?
    My 3 year old Vista takes 40 painful seconds to boot.
    Reply
  • knowom
    You can use super cache/super volume on SSD's or even USB thumb drives to dramatically improve the I/O and bandwidth at the expense of using up a bit of your system ram still the results are impressive and works on HD's as well, but they suffer from access times no matter what.

    I don't even think I'd bother getting a SSD anymore after using super volume on a USB thumb drive and SSD the results are nearly identical regardless of which is used and thumb drives are portable and cheaper for the density you get for some messed up reason.
    Reply
  • knowom
    I'd be really interested to see super cache/super volume used on this raid array actually it can probably boost it further or should be able to in theory.
    Reply
  • x3style
    abhinav_mallHow many organs I will have to sell to get such a setup?My 3 year old Vista takes 40 painful seconds to boot.Wow people still use vista? Was that even an OS? It felt like some beta test thing.
    Reply
  • nitrium
    I suspect you'll all be VERY disappointed at how long Windows takes to boot (but I'd also like to know). Unfortunately, most operations in Windows (such as loading apps, games, booting, etc) occur at QD 1 (average is about QD 1.04, QD > 4 are rare). As you can see on Page 7, at QD1 it only gets about 19 MB/sec - the SAME speed as basically any decent single SSD manufactured in the last 3 years.
    Reply
  • kkiddu
    mayankleoboy1holy shit! thats fast. how about giving them as a contest prize?
    I WANT 16 OF THOSE !

    For God's sake, that's $7000 worth of hardware, not including the PC. DAMN DAMN DAMN !! 3 gigabytes per second. And to think, that while on dial-up 4 years back, I downloaded at 3 kilobytes per second (Actually it was more like 2.5 KB/s).
    Reply