X-25M (X-18M) in RAID 0 not as fast as expected

[Spektre99]

I thought I'd try here and see if any gurus could lend me a hand or point me in the right direction.

I just built up a system with 2 X-25Ms in RAID0. Actually they are X-18Ms, but same specs right? These are G1 drives without TRIM from the
recent DANE ELEC Newegg sale. They are not performing as well as the benchmarks I see posted all over the boards and was hoping someone would help me troubleshoot or give ideas. The main problem I am trying to
troubleshot right now is READ performance (specifically smaller file READ performance). I know there are other optimizations I need to do
for WRITE performance and I am not worried about it yet.

DRIVE PREP
1. Used the Intel tool to update to the latest firmware (v.8820 i believe)
2. Used KNOPPIX and hdparm to secure erase the drive to reset it to clean.
3. BIOS - Set to RAID (not much in the way of options here.
4. RAID Array built with BIOS menu - I used a stripe size of 128. I have seen 64 and 256 talked about but 128 was what the other system's
I had seen benched were at.
5. Clean install of Windows 7 64bit.
6. Intel IMSM drivers loaded.

Benchmarks used
1. HD Tune Pro 4.01 (trial)
2. CrystalDiskMark
3. ATTO

You can see, especially in ATTO, how it picks up greatly for large reads but the small ones are so much slower than other benchmarkes systems I have seem. A few of which are at this link:


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=225654

Any help greatly appreciated.


Results:

 

[Emulex]

good numbers. i bet a caching controller would work out nicer

 

[Spektre99]

good numbers. i bet a caching controller would work out nicer

Good numbers? Look at the link I provided. I am getting killed by all those folks with a similar set up.

Spektre

 

[mooseracing]

I have been using the same drive in my x200 laptop with a C2D CPU and I could get about 180MB/s reads on HD tune. Going to Crystal Disk, I could reach ~225 Reads, and 56MB writes. No tuning.

What is the rest of your system doing when running these benches, since you are using onboard raid? You may be limited by something there.

 

[allthatisman]

Well I can't see what your numbers look like (Red X's), but I have the same drive, just one... anyway here is a post from another site where a couple people have the same setup as you... compare notes if you wish:

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/687221-intel-x18m-vs-x18m-raid0-benchmarks.html

I was thinking about adding another one of these drives in order to get more space, not so much the speed, since it is not really noticable with what I use my computer for. I am still on the fence, since there is no TRIM for these drives...

 

[Spektre99]

I have been using the same drive in my x200 laptop with a C2D CPU and I could get about 180MB/s reads on HD tune. Going to Crystal Disk, I could reach ~225 Reads, and 56MB writes. No tuning.

What is the rest of your system doing when running these benches, since you are using onboard raid? You may be limited by something there.

Its a clean install of Windows 7 so there should not be too much going on. Its a Core 2 Quad system and it is not showing much CPU usage during these benchmarks.

Crystal Disk shows pretty decent numbers. The main difference i see is in HDTune (which I'll assume is reading small pakcets of data) and ATTO at the small file sizes. Large file sequential reads seems to be VERY fast.

Spektre

Here is another exampkle (about half way down the thread) of a guy with two X-25Ms in RAID 0. Look at his ATTO benches and his HDTune. MUCH faster than my setup at all but large file reads.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034987223

 

[Spektre99]

Well I can't see what your numbers look like (Red X's), but I have the same drive, just one... anyway here is a post from another site where a couple people have the same setup as you... compare notes if you wish:

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/687221-intel-x18m-vs-x18m-raid0-benchmarks.html

I was thinking about adding another one of these drives in order to get more space, not so much the speed, since it is not really noticable with what I use my computer for. I am still on the fence, since there is no TRIM for these drives...

Hmm, yes there is another example of my setup getting blown away by an identical RAIDed set of drives.

Mine "catch up" in speed, but not until the file size gets very large. My 0.5 and 1 file size speeds are only 1/10 of those listed here! Somethign is wrong. (He noted his are the Dane Elec kit drives as well)

HELP

 

[allthatisman]

Although I have only had my drive for less than 3 weeks... I can throw up a few benches that I have done over that span, just so you can see what one drive does. Doubt it will help you much, but you never know. Maybe the RAID controller is the issue, how do they do individually?

 

[Zap]

Hmm, yes there is another example of my setup getting blown away by an identical RAIDed set of drives.

(referring to overclock.net forum link)
However, your setup blew his away in the large writes. I don't see where he mentioned stripe size, so his peaking early and dropping off may be a symptom of using smaller stripe sizes while your peaking late but sustaining performance as size increases may be a symptom of using larger stripe sizes.

(referring to xtremesystems.org forum link)
This one has a strange "hitch" in the middle and almost levels off before peaking. Also does not mention stripe size, but maybe a medium setting?

 

[Spektre99]

Hello all and thnaks for the help on this issue.

Turns out to be user error again (although they should warn you :hmm

I downloaded the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application/driver. In it is an option to turn on write caching. I did not expect write caching to make a big difference in read performance, but when I turned it on, all the benchmarks jumped up to the published levels shown from the other online tests.:thumbsup:

Spektre

 

[allthatisman]

Hello all and thnaks for the help on this issue.

Turns out to be user error again (although they should warn you :hmm

I downloaded the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application/driver. In it is an option to turn on write caching. I did not expect write caching to make a big difference in read performance, but when I turned it on, all the benchmarks jumped up to the published levels shown from the other online tests.:thumbsup:

Spektre

I will have to remember this! Supposedly Newegg is going to be getting more of the Dane-Elec X-18m's in today... if they still offer the $40 off coupon, I think I might grab another one and do the same thing and RAID them... I am still considering getting a TRIM enabled drive though... but there are enough people that claim that RAID isn't as necessary as everyone thinks it is, especially if you re-install Windows every 6-8 months...