Some interesting RAID benchmarks with two 256GB C300's

[adamantinepiggy]

Note: I originally meant RAID 0, but wrote RAID 1 for everything when I actually ended up posting it (was getting pretty tired/wonky). Changed now! If I missed any, it's meant to be say RAID 0, not RAID 1.. And as someone mentioned, when I wrote "hardware" raid, it's not that I mean this cheap hardware to actually do any real assistance, it's just to distinguish that you have to jump through BIOS hardware and software drivers hoops to get the disks into the RAID. The hardware aspect doesn't mean it's really doing anything to help/speed the array.



So tonight I was bored and ran some 2 x 256G C300 SSD in RAID0 benchmarks. Some very interesting results.

First off let me say, I only used 2 benchmarks, CrystalDisk and ATTO. Why them and not maybe other, perhaps better ones? Because they were already on my PC and I was lazy. I'm not going to argue the merits of them versus other benchmarks. Take the numbers as they are.. Benchmarking is boring.

So my system is as follows: Intel 980X, ASRock Extreme MB, 12G RAM, NVidia 295GTX, Win7-64.

For RAID0 testing of the two SSD's I used the MB's Intel ICH10R in both Intel hardware mode, a Highpoint Rocket 620A SATA PCIe card, and Win7's built-in Software RAID capabilities. I'm not sure the Rocket 620A is really a RAID card or not (I bought mainly to add some SATA ports), but when it posts, it gives you the option to configure a RAID through it's BIOS.

Another note would be that while doing all these benches, I was also browsing the Internet, downloading bittorrents, and playing MP3's at the same time the benches were run, simply because I need something to do while waiting for numbers to show..

First is having set up the Highpoint's BIOS to make a RAID0 (striped) with the two SSD's. It uses the Marvell 88SE921 Chip. It's not a real hardware RAID, even though the card's BIOS makes it look like it is

Now here is using this card "without" having set up it's BIOS to use the two SSD's in RAID. Instead, I used Win7's Disk Management Util to set up a striped 2 disk RAID, but both drives were connected to the this controller. Main difference is Win7 doesn't load up Highpoints RAID drivers.

Looks like Win7's software RAID does little better to me. Kinda expected that with this crappy card though.

So here is RAID0 bench result with the Big Dog (at least in my system) Intel hardware RAID. Looks pretty good to me. Especially compared to the craptastic Highpoint numbers for a RAID0 setup.

Well surprise surprise, check out using Win7's software RAID (setup with Disk Managerment just as with the Highpoint). WTF??!! Intels's "hardware RAID" is getting the crap stomped out of it by Win7's "Sotfware RAID"!!

Though it was a fluke, and ran both again. Same results...Every number in CrystalBench is significantly better with Win7's software RAID compared to the CrystalBench Intel hardware RAID numbers. In ATTO, Win7's software RAID1 numbers are also significantly better than Intel's hardware RAID..

Hmm. Well maybe the Intel "hardware" RAID would shine better if the CPU's got loaded since it's the CPU doing the RAID work.. So for the next I loaded Prime95 to fully load the CPU's while I benched the software RAID at the same time..

Again WTF? Crystal Disk still shows WIn7's software RAID to be significantly better than Intel's hardware RAID. ATTO shows Intel a bit better at the smaller transfer sizes, but the software RAID still catches up quickly and betters the Intel hardware RAID at the higher transfer numbers in this worst case CPU loading situation..

Too bad Windows wont let the boot drive be part of the software RAID, because assuming these particular benchmarks aren't lying/wrong, the Win7 software RAID is looking to be a good way to go. It might even support RAID trim since it's not using any special hardware or drivers (just guessing, but it would be cool if it is supporting trim in a Microsoft Win7 software RAID). I truly did not suspect the built-in Win7 software RAID would show numbers better than the Intel hardware when I started..

I suppose I should show a few P300's (enterprise drives) benches now since Micron has openly announced them finally. They are fast little buggers in the writing department. damn expensive though..

Also, here is a single 256GB C300 to show how much better the RAID0 is comparing that above results.

 

[tcsenter]

Its all software RAID.

 

[sub.mesa]

CrystalBench Intel hardware RAID numbers

Hardware RAID? I think you misunderstand how onboard RAID works; but generally you should consider it Software and not Hardware that is doing the work. The real Hardware is just a SATA controller that does not 'accelerate' the RAID part by a bit.

So all are Software RAIDs, and that's a good thing, since generally Software RAID is superior in processing power and theoretical abilities that it should be faster than hardware RAID in a wide variety of circumstances. Sadly, the general level of Software RAID on Windows is low; you can't even boot from RAIDs in Windows.

However, while you got high speeds, you really should see double the STR and IOps when using a good RAID0 driver. If you get 330MB/s with one SSD, you should get 660MB/s with two; if not there's something limiting your stripe width from achieving the full theoretical performance output. On Linux/BSD generally you will see much more consistent scores. Getting to 1GB/s for reads should only take you 3 or 4 SSDs.

Also, may i point out that RAID1 is mirroring and you likely are talking about RAID (striping).

 

[Emulex]

need a faster raid controller. try a p812 or p411 with 1gb fwbc. altering the stripe size and read/write cache will make a huge difference.

remember even the slowest 40bit ecc ddr2-533 is faster than that by a mile;one you get into the big boy caches where they are double/triple/quadruple wide ecc bit bandwidth you can use more drives.

just curious i wish i had some of that gear to try out

 

[RebateMonger]

Sadly, the general level of Software RAID on Windows is low; you can't even boot from RAIDs in Windows.

Windows Software RAID 1 has always supported booting from the RAID 1 array. It's been a popular option for folks with low-end servers who don't want to buy a hardware RAID card. But until Windows 7, Software RAID 1 was only available on Windows Server OSes. Now it's available on Win7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise.

 

[mutz]

I'm not sure the Rocket 620A is really a RAID card or not

seems like it is only a SATA3 adapter, you probably won't find any decent RAID card or even an HBA at these prices,
the RocketRAID 620 is a RAID card though (so rocket alone = no RAID).

need a faster raid controller.

the ICH10R supports up to ~700MBps of bandwidth, maybe softRAIDing it with a nice HBA or even with that rocket620 would allow for higher bandwidth,
you'll need more SSD's if that's your goal, but would you see any noticeable difference?
probably not.

the LSI9211-8I is a great HBA for any speeding purposes, it costs around 300$ and can sustain speeds of up to 1.8-2.0GBps with 200K+ IOP's,
it supports RAID 0,1,1E and 10 too.

the ICH10R can sustain up to ~150K 512B IOP's, softRAIDing the two with sufficient drives, can and might break some PCMV world record,
though as for usage, it is unnecessary,
like buying dual westmere to watch movies and browse the web.

 

[Mark R]

Again WTF? Crystal Disk still shows WIn7's software RAID to be significantly better than Intel's hardware RAID. ATTO shows Intel a bit better at the smaller transfer sizes, but the software RAID still catches up quickly and betters the Intel hardware RAID at the higher transfer numbers in this worst case CPU loading situation..

It's all software RAID - most RAID cards don't provide hardware RAID. It's virtually only top-end cards, like adaptec, LSI, Areca and OEM cards like Dell and HP that provide hardware RAID. The thing about RAID is that performance is highly dependent on the algorithms used to schedule and cache reads/writes. A bad RAID implementation can be horribly slow.

Windows, despite what people say, actually has quite a good RAID engine built in. It's deliberately crippled on non-server editions, but the features available do work well. The other issue is that many 'fake raid' drivers (e.g. ICH10R) aren't very good, and can form a significant bottleneck - especially with very fast drives (or in RAID 5, which is often unusably slow).

CPU utilisation with RAID and modern CPUs is negligible - especially with RAID 0 or RAID 1. Even RAID 5 or RAID 6 in software are an irrelevance to CPU load.

However, optimal performance requires a good quality card with FBWC module. One thing that is somewhat curious though, is that even on the latest cards, the RAID calculations (on RAID 6) may be a bottleneck for the card. Several people have reported using a high-end card like a P812 and just using it as a SATA card, and running software RAID outperforms using the same card and same drives in hardware RAID mode.

 

[RebateMonger]

Also, may i point out that RAID1 is mirroring and you likely are talking about RAID (striping).

Yeah, I'm confused. Those performance numbers look like RAID 0 (striping) and not RAID 1 (mirroring), but I don't know much about SSD performance.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Whoops all!!! I actually meant RAID 0 STRIPING NOT RAID 1.. It was real late by the time I actually got to editting the pics and writing the post.. was getting a bit wonky!.. APOLOGIES!. Gonna go back and edit now (note: how it's about 8 hours of sleep past the time I posted Hehe!

As for when I say hardware versus software. I only use the two to differentiate that the Intel has actual complicated hardware BIOS and drivers setup involved when compared to Win7's pure software setup.

Compared to higher end HBA's the ICH10 (not gonna even count the Highpoint really) is nothing, however when most people setup a simple RAID0 like this for an easy and cheap speed increase, the first thought is that Intel's solution is better/faster than Win7's built-in software solution. In fact, I thought so myself, however from this simple test, that might not be the case.

The fact that Win7's version of the setting up a RAID set is so much easier and more portable than Intel's version has me left wondering why I bothered with Intel's version. People are always asking about which Intel driver to use, do, complain about trim not working with Intel drivers, etc, etc. Seems that some of the problems with Intel's RAID solution could be bypassed by just using the software solution and getting equivilent if not better performance.

Unfortunately though, as far as I know, with Win7's RAID"0" (not RAID1 like I wrote when I was sleep-deprived drunk , you can't have the boot drive in the software striped array. I know you can boot to a RAID1 mirror, but I don't think you can with RAID0 software setup.

So this does have me wondering if trim continues to work with the software RAID. We know SSD's in an Intel RAID doesn't support trim to the RAID....

 

[RebateMonger]

I know you can boot to a RAID1 mirror, but I don't think you can with RAID0 software setup.

Correct. You can't boot to a Windows Software RAID 0 or RAID 5 array. That's because, without a RAID BIOS, there's no way for Windows to read the disk controller or RAID drivers from the boot array because those files are striped across multiple disks.

That's one thing that "hardware RAID" (whether it's a simple onboard RAID chip or a full-bore 3Ware RAID card) does. The RAID controller controls the hard drives and emulates a single disk so that Windows knows how to read the drivers and boot the system.