Adobe Community: Areca 1882IX PCIE 3.0 Raid Controller

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Areca 1882IX PCIE 3.0 Raid Controller - Need help

Aug 19, 2012 10:08 PM

I'm extremely frustrated! I installed my new Areca Raid Card and can't get it to work!

First was the issue of creating a driver disk. After hassling with tools for two hours I finally found an old diskette drive and installed it on my system. That finally worked.

Then when I tried to install the driver, first it didn't seem to install. I clicked Tab + F6 during boot-up and apparently that did nothing. However it looked like it installed something. Windows 7/64 blue-screened constantly until I restored it to an earlier version. I went through this install to blue-screen process twice!

Anybody know any tricks to making this raid card work? Remember that this PCIE V3.0, not 2.0. Is this card ready for prime time?

If this thing won't work, are there any other quality controllers that WILL work?

Thanks,

Dan.

3010 Views 33 Replies Latest reply: Dan Clark, Sep 8, 2012 7:29 PM

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1. JEShort01,

Aug 20, 2012 3:56 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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Dan,

I'm guessing your hassles are largely caused by the motherboard bios not being set just right. With hardware controller cards (all of them, not just Areca) your boot order is very important.

If you will be setting up your boot drive or array on the Areca you must change the bios to boot from the controller, not from a motherboard SATA port (the default).

Or, if you will be using a boot drive attached to one of the motherboard SATA ports, leave the controller card out of the PC until Win7 is installed and just add it afterwards. All the F6 special boot stuff is only required if you need to boot from the controller card.

Finally, regarding future Areca bios (firmware) updates, they work fine using the web browser tool when I use Mozilla Firefox; they do not seem to work when I use Internet Expolorer.

Good luck!

Jim

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2. Dan Clark,

Aug 20, 2012 8:07 AM in reply to JEShort01

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Jim,

My apologies for not being clear. (I was totally PO'd by my experience with that board.)   Additional details:

- The OS was installed and running on a Samsung 830 SSD. That will not change.

- The system was running fine prior to installation of this raid controller.

- During boot, it displays two error messages:

F/W Detected: ** SDRAM Speed Not Enough** !!!!!
No Bios Detected Disk found. RAID Controller BIOS not installed!

Then...

Some volumes/raid controllers failed! Press <Tab> / <F6> to enter setup menu.

Hitting <Tab> or <F6> or <Tab> + <F6> does nothing.

In Windows Device Manager, "Raid Controller" appears as an unknown device. When the driver is installed from the freshly created floppy, the system blue screens. It constantly blue screens until I restore it from a previous restore point.

In the 196 page LONG-WINDED manual, there is NO information on the errors I'm seeing. None! They prattle on about all the neat things you can do with the controller assuming the thing works.

How can I get this thing running?

Thanks,

Dan.

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3. Harm Millaard,

Aug 20, 2012 9:06 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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Dan,

Since I live in a backward country, I'm still awaiting the availability of the PCIe-3.0 version. The consequence is that I have no experience with this specific card, but the message:
F/W Detected: ** SDRAM Speed Not Enough** !!!!!

is irregular enough to suspect that the cache RAM is not properly installed or is faulty. Can you check the module is properly seated? Otherwise I would contact Areca support. In general they respond quickly and are very helpful.

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4. JEShort01,

Aug 20, 2012 11:29 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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Is the RAM stick in your Areca from Areca or 3rd party?

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5. cpachris_1969,

Aug 20, 2012 1:57 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Dan,
I have this same card, and it installed without issue. When the "detecting firmware" screen comes up during boot...if I hit <Tab>, then after it finishes loading the firmware, it brings me into the bios of the card. It doesn't do this right away....it still takes about 30 seconds for the firmware to finish loading before it lets me into the bios. I was able to setup a volume fairly easy in the bios tool, and once I had booted on into windows....I could add the volume there and it seems to be working well. However, I'm still struggling with setting up the windows management tool.

If there is something I can do from a screenshot perspective...or answering questions...I'd glad to help.

I'm getting pretty impressive seqential read/write speeds with 10 SSD's attached. 3,600 MB and 3,800 MB/s, respectively.

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6. Dan Clark,

Aug 20, 2012 6:36 PM in reply to Harm Millaard

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Harm,

I think that would be beautiful, "backward" country. Given my issues, I'm not sure "backward" is appropriate. I wonder if the PCIE V3.0 version is ready for prime time.

The memory stick looked seated, but I reseated it anyway. No change.

I'll contact Areca about it.

Thanks,

Dan.

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7. Dan Clark,

Aug 20, 2012 6:43 PM in reply to JEShort01

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Jim,

The ram stick is Areca - dead, stock standard.

Thanks,

Dan.

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8. Dan Clark,

Aug 20, 2012 6:48 PM in reply to cpachris_1969

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Chris,

My goal is to achieve your results. One question - Do you have the PCIE V2.0 or V3.0 version?

Thanks,

Dan.

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9. cpachris_1969,

Aug 20, 2012 6:50 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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3.0 version. According to Wayne, mine was the first shipped.

I would post a screenshot of my disk benchmarks....but I've been getting just a grey box when I click 'Insert Image' for the last couple of weeks. Don't know if it's just me or if it is impacting everyone.

You can see pictures of the card and benchmarks in this post on my build log thread.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1266202/build-log-the-big-budget-boomer-box -aka-the-bbbb/1350#post_17981042

Let me know how I can help.

Chris

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10. Dan Clark,

Aug 20, 2012 7:22 PM in reply to cpachris_1969

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Chris,

Thanks. Good info.

I'm think that there are three possibilities:

1) The board or memory module is defective. I'll contact Areca support.

2) The system bios is old and needs to be updated. Updating the bios should be simple. I'll try that.

3) There is something inherently incompatible between my motherboard and the Areaca board. My board is 30 months old, which shouldn't be an issue. But I wonder.

One option I'm considering is to upgrade my MOBO, CPU, and memory. I want to that anyway in the next few months. Given that your 1882ix V3.0 works perfectly on a newer MOBO, maybe now is the time.

Thanks,

Dan.

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11. cpachris_1969,

Aug 20, 2012 7:29 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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I hope Areca is responsive when you call them. I would guess it would be unlikely to be #2, but #1 and #3 are possbilities. Have you pulled the memory out to see if it looks damaged on the connection part of the PCB?

If your Board is 30 months old...it clearly isn't PCI-e 3.0.....so I would root for you to get a new board....even if that is not the culprit. Take advantage of those fantastic new speeds! Joe Biden would say that you are "puttin' it back in chains" by using this card in a PCI-e 2.0 socket.

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12. Dan Clark,

Aug 20, 2012 8:16 PM in reply to cpachris_1969

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Chris,

Chains? Hmmm... Y'all don't think I should doin' that, do 'ya?!? :-) I guess I'll be buyin' a new MOBO.

Thanks,

Dan.

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13. Dan Clark,

Aug 26, 2012 1:39 PM in reply to JEShort01

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Quick update. I bought and installed a “P9X79 WS LGA 2011” MOBO , with 32GB of memory using an Intel Core I7/3930 CPU.   Good news - the system is VERY (blindingly?) fast!   Bad news - there is NO change with the Areca raid card.   None.   Same error.

And hitting <tab>, <F6>, or <tab> + <F6> does nothing.

I've contacted Benjamin Jiang with Areca who is listed as the USA-Areca tech support guy on this page: http://www.areca.com.tw/company/worldwideoffice.htm. For reference, his email address is: benjamin.jiang@areca.com.tw.

For now, I'd strongly suggest you not buy this raid card.   While it may simply be that I got a bad card and that Areca moves quickly to deal with this issue, there may be something more fundamental going on.

I'll keep you up to date with progress.

Regards,

Dan.

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14. cpachris_1969,

Aug 26, 2012 1:58 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Sorry to hear that. You must have a bad card if you're getting the same error on two separate motherboards. As mentioned previosly, my card installed without issue and has been running smoothly. I've changed it from a Raid 0 to a Raid 5 and I'm getting amazing read/write speeds both ways.

Does the card show up in your device manager once you've booted into Windows?

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15. Dan Clark,

Aug 26, 2012 2:11 PM in reply to cpachris_1969

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Chris,

The card shows up, but none of the drives show up (there are 6 SAS drives attached to the card).

I've tried multiple things to get it to work, including disconnecting the drive cables. Nothing changes.

Regards,

Dan.

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16. Dan Clark,

Aug 27, 2012 7:58 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Status Update - The first round of Areca Tech Support was NOT good!

Benjamin Jiang told me that I need to contact their distributor - Areca Direct - for tech support.

So I contacted Calvin Chen at Kaleidonet. (Apparently some relationship to Areca Direct.)
Calvin was very couteous and helpful. He sent me a new version of the card bios to install.   However, ALL of the Areca documentation for installing the Bios directed me to methods that don't work!

Since I can't get access to McRaid, I can't use it that way. It also mentions the nFlash utility in the \Firmware folder. The only problem is that there is NO nFlash utility in the \Firmware folder!

I tried the CLI method on page 160 of the manual.   The Cli documentation is virtually unreadable, but I tried serveral options. All failed.

In frustration, I went to the Areca support link. On a hunch, I downloaed "DosFlash". Inside was "nflash"!!!   Lovely.

I'm going to try "nflash". Since I have to reboot my system, I'll end on this sour note - since everything else has failed with this product, I doubt if the nflash method will work.

Dan.

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17. JEShort01,

Aug 27, 2012 8:19 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Dan,

I'd give updating the firmware a 1 in 100 chance of solving the problem and would suggest you RMA the card. Their hardware support is glacially slow, but the did a fine job on only bad card I've ever had from Areca.

While Areca controller cards may not seem like a budget card since they cost more than normal PCs, they are actually a pretty affordable card in the uber-performance catagory and cost less than ACCO solutions; I understand ACCO makes really excellent hardware and have extremely responsive support to go with it, but I consider them out of my price range.

Regards,

Jim

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18. Dan Clark,

Aug 27, 2012 9:17 PM in reply to JEShort01

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Jim,

I'm not arguing that they aren't affordable. Unfortunately mine doesn't work. I looked for ACCO and could find nothing like that.

Regards,

Dan.

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19. Bill Gehrke,

Aug 28, 2012 6:14 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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Dan, try this contact and see if it helps. I have not used it for a few years but you should be able to get someone at the the factory

"Areca Support [support@areca.com.tw]" My last contact was with a very knowledgeable Kevin Wang or you could even call Taiwan at this info.

Areca Technology Tech-support Division
Tel : 886-2-87974060 Ext. 223
Fax : 886-2-87975970 H
ttp://www.areca.com.tw

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20. Dan Clark,

Aug 28, 2012 7:58 AM in reply to Bill Gehrke

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Bill,

Good morning.   On the Areca "Contact Page" page (http://www.areca.com.tw/company/worldwideoffice.htm), it's separated into two areas - Areca Taiwan headquarters and USA Areca Tech Support.   Benjamin Jiang is listed as USA contact.

When I contacted Benjamin, he asked who I bought the card from.   After writing back and telling him it was Areca Direct, he said that I needed to contact them because they provide support.   Apparently when you buy from an Areca distributor (like Areca Direct), the distributor provides support.

At this point, neither the hardware nor software work.   Two people from Areca Direct have contacted me with suggestions, but none have worked.

What's worse is that the software installation documentation is so confusing, that it's almost useless.   It assumes that the install will work peachy-keen and doesn't tell you what to do when the installation fails.   Most technical documentation is poor, but this stuff is extremely bad. The "usage" documentation may be OK, but since the product doesn't work, I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Having written thousands of pages of technical documentation in the last 30+ years as a software developer, I have a decent idea of what's good and bad.   These install docs are poor.

To be clear on one point - I want this to work.   I do NOT want to return it and buy another card.

Regards,

Dan.

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21. Dan Clark,

Aug 28, 2012 9:29 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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I just got an email for Ray at Areca Direct requesting that I fill out a long-winded form re-asking for info already provided and/or info that's not available because the card is dead! Now I'm becoming frustrated.

Dan.

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22. Dan Clark,

Aug 28, 2012 9:54 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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I'm concerned that Areca Direct is giving me the run-around. If Areca Direct does not provide adequate support, I'm going to return the card and file a complaint against them with Areca Corporate. I don't have time for this foolishness.

Are there any other reputable US vendors that sells 1882IX cards?

Thanks,

Dan.

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23. cpachris_1969,

Aug 28, 2012 10:01 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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http://tekram.com/store/

This is where I got mine. Also a domain under arecaraid.com.....but it is the same as above.

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24. Bill Gehrke,

Aug 28, 2012 12:11 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Tekram is highly qualified, also see my PM

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25. Dan Clark,

Aug 28, 2012 3:44 PM in reply to Bill Gehrke

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Gentlemen,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll let Areca Direct work the issue. If they don't come through, I'll contact tekram.

Regards,

Dan.

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26. ECBowen,

Aug 29, 2012 7:27 AM in reply to Dan Clark

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The Intel SAS raid controllers should be moving over to Gen 3 soon. If you can't resolve the Areca issues then I would suggest looking at those.

Eric
ADK

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27. Dan Clark,

Aug 29, 2012 2:51 PM in reply to ECBowen

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Eric,

Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at them.

That said, it looks like Areca Direct is coming through with support. We're working on the issue. I'll keep the group updated.

Regards,

Dan.

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28. Dan Clark,

Aug 31, 2012 4:10 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Great news - I got a new memory card from Areca Direct and it works! They sent it to me priority mail. Although it was a bit confused at first, they came through.

Now I have to add the drives and set up the raids (0 and 3). I'll give you an update this weekend.

Regards,

Dan.

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29. Dan Clark,

Sep 8, 2012 1:50 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Hi. Just a quick wrapup.   As I mentioned above, it was a defective memory card.   The Areca UI is a bit confusing at first but it took only an hour or so to set up my Raid 0 and Raid 3 arrays.   The Raid 0 was ready in few seconds, but the Raid 3 took about 2.5 hours to go through it's configuration and formatting.

Overall it's very fast and the Segate drives in the array are almost completely silent. I still need run a perf test to get specific metrics, but I'm very satisfied with the performance.

About Areca Direct, initially there was a couple of rough spots, but they shifted gears quickly and I'm quite happy with their support.

Regards,

Dan.

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30. cpachris_1969,

Sep 8, 2012 5:57 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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Dan,
Would love to compare some benchmarks with you since you are the only other person on the forum who had confessed to getting the PCI-e 3.0 version. Maybe CrystalDiskMark? Other?
I'd be glad to rebuild mine into a Raid 3 array to keep that part comparable...since I don't have mine really placed into production mode yet. I have 10 SSD's attached to mine, and there are so many forum members that talk about the poor write performance with SSD's, that I think it would be interesting and eye opening to run some comparative benchmarks.

I still get a black box when I click insert image though. Is this just me or is anyone else getting it also? Started a couple of months ago. Before that, I could upload pictures fine.

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31. Dan Clark,

Sep 8, 2012 6:34 PM in reply to cpachris_1969

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Chris,

As the biblical saying goes... "Ask and ye shall receive." Results below...

The first set are the Raid 3 disk set - five Seagate Disks in Raid 3 (with one additional disk as a hot spare).   The file perf of large files seem quite brisk to me. The performance with small files looks poor by comparison.

The second set are the Raid 0 disk set - two WD 10K Velociraptors in Raid 0.   The file perf of large files seem quite good too. The performance with small files looks poor by comparison, but better than Raid 0.

Of course I've never run this test, so I have nothing for comparison.   How do these compare with your system?

Regards,

Dan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- -
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
---------------------------------------------------------------------- -
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read :   495.624 MB/s
Sequential Write :   567.949 MB/s
Random Read 512KB :   871.340 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   103.259 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    13.506 MB/s [ 3297.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     3.242 MB/s [   791.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     1.409 MB/s [   343.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     3.760 MB/s [   917.9 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [D: 32.4% (1206.8/3725.2 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/09/08 18:19:37
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- -
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
---------------------------------------------------------------------- -
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read :   227.531 MB/s
Sequential Write :   262.406 MB/s
Random Read 512KB :   819.881 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   171.112 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    14.679 MB/s [ 3583.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    20.717 MB/s [ 5057.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     2.397 MB/s [   585.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    14.802 MB/s [ 3613.8 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [H: 5.7% (32.1/558.7 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/09/08 18:28:43
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

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32. cpachris_1969,

Sep 8, 2012 7:04 PM in reply to Dan Clark

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First off, I'll say that it seems very strange to me that your sequential read is lower than your random 512KB read. Doesn't make sense to me.

Here are some immediate results...with a caveat. These results are 10 disk in Raid 0. All Vertex 4's.   My results are much better...across the board. But that should be expected with twice the number of disks.   But I will say that they are more than twice a fast..so I'm hopeful that more comparable benchmarks will still favor the V4's.   So....what I'll do tonight is let the Areca card rebuild a 5 disk Raid 3 array and a 2 disk Raid 0 array, so that we have more comparable results. Then, the comparisons will be more meaningful. I'll try and post them tomorrow. Do you have the same issues I do when trying to post a picture? Because screenshots of the results would be much easier to show.   But for now....here are comparisons of my 10 disk Raid 0 array with your 5 disk Raid 3 array. I'm doing these from a saved screenshot, and I didn' save the IOPS screen...so this is just the MB/s

Sequential Read :   Me:   2,575 MB/s    You:   496 MB/s
Sequential Write :   Me:   2,703 MB/s    You:   568 MB/s
Random Read 512KB :   Me: 2,358 MB/s   You: 871 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   Me   2,428 MB/s   You: 103 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    Me: 191 MB/s You: 14 MB/s
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     Me: 181 MB/s   You: 3 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     Me: 459 MB/s    You: 1 MB/s
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     Me: 410 MB/s    You: 4 MB/s

I'll gladly admit that one of my goals here is to repudiate the idea that SSD's have horrible write performance. It used to be true. And still is true today for some SSD's. But the Vertex 4's do not use the Sandforce controllers that are common in the industry. I think they are absolutely amazing, and would encourage forum members who are looking to setup a Raid array to do some online research on the V4 performance results.   I would especially encourage everyone to look at the difference in speeds at high queue depth.

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33. Dan Clark,

Sep 8, 2012 7:29 PM in reply to cpachris_1969

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I'm not opposed to SSDs. I have a Samsung 830 256GB system disk which I think works great. Again I have little to base this on, but I'm very happy with the perf upgrade.

I have two primary concerns with SSDs - degradation over time due to constant writes and cost per GB.   Also, I have 10 disks in my full tower case now.   If I used SSDs, I'd have to get an external case to stuff them in.   I hope that, over time, these issues can be resolved and I can switch to an all-SSD, and then forget about hard disks forever.

Just for grins, I ran CrystalDiskMark on my Samsung 830 system disk (connected to a 6GB/s MOBO controller). Results below.

I'm a professional software developer and can wander around hardware kinda/sorta OK. But the fine art of tweaking raid subsystems is beyond me.   If you (or anyone else) has suggestions for increasing performance, I'd love to hear them.

Regards,

Dan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- -
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
---------------------------------------------------------------------- -
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read :   359.347 MB/s
Sequential Write :   173.004 MB/s
Random Read 512KB :   273.966 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   167.758 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    18.653 MB/s [ 4553.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    38.729 MB/s [ 9455.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   176.882 MB/s [ 43184.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   118.508 MB/s [ 28932.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 33.6% (80.1/238.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/09/08 19:18:18
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

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