Poor RAID0 Performance 2 x ForceGT-60GB

Hi everyone,

 

I've been struggling to get my SSD array to boast out the expected speeds.

I'm running 2 ForceGT 60GB in a RAID0 array on a Highpoint Rocketraid 2720 and from what i have read, these HBA controllers can get the most out of SSD's.

 

I have tested it in ATTO with the SSD flashed to 1.3.3 and my highpoint flashed to latest firmware as wel and drivers are up to date.

Ran atto on Windows 7 enterprise 64bit.

 

Please review my attachment and tell me what u think.

Greetings,

Capitaõ

The speeds might be limited by the Marvell Controller. Have you tried a different SATA III data cable?

The speeds might be limited by the Marvell Controller.

Have you tried a different SATA III data cable?

 

Thanks for the reply "Toasted".

My SSD's are connected to a "Highpoint Rocketraid 2720sgl" 6gb/s sas/sata

RAID controller and i don't think these cards use a Marvell Controller.

 

As for the SATA III data cable, i use 3ware's "CBL-SFF8087OCF-06M"

cable to connect the SSD's sata interface with the SAS-mini connector on the

"RR 2720sgl". I have no idea if it's a SATA III cable, they never specify these

things with SATA/SAS cables.

 

Could u maybe point me out which SFF8087 cable to use for 6gb/s ?

 

 

Thanks,

Capitaõ

 

EDIT: It seems u are right, the RR2720 uses the Marvell 88SE9485 chip.

Does this cause for the bottleneck ? because i saw reviews with much higher results then i'm getting..

The controller is probably the bottleneck.

 

Try a different PCI port, see if it changes anything.

U be guru toasted!

 

I switched the card to the other PCI-e x8 slot and ATTO displayed a 33%

increase in write speed and 12% read speed increase (check attachment).

 

I though that the PCIe slot where the card originaly resided was the x8 link,

turned out that it was the other way around :).

 

 

But i was hoping for better performance, something like this guy's setup (Last post).

Also tested it with HDtune and it didn't give good results (see attachment)

compaired to

results (@ 4:10 minutes).

 

So seeing that the dude in the clip got better results with the same raid card i can presume it's not a Marvell bottleneck ?

 

Thanks for pointing out the pci-e change!

Capitaõ

Just to mention,

 

Have you paid some attention on alignment and other things like that?

I don't know how it could affect raid performance. But, it's all about not waste time to handle with tasks that mainly the drive not even need to.

 

Hope it helps

Just to mention,

 

Have you paid some attention on alignment and other things like that?

I don't know how it could affect raid performance. But, it's all about not waste time to handle with tasks that mainly the drive not even need to.

 

Hope it helps

 

Is alignment also important when u don't boot from the ssd('s)?

I'm booting from an old SATA drive into windows 7 and from there i added the

array of the ssd's.

 

The reason why i want a array of ssd's is to run VM's on it (store the Virtual Hard Drives on it).

That way i can run multiple systems without IO bottlenecks.

But i was hoping for better performance of these drives + 2720 raid card.

 

Greetz,

Capitaõ

If you want to check the alignment

 

Start Menu>Type msinfo32>Components>Storage>Disks>Partition Starting Offset

 

The number shown in the partition starting offset is has to be divisible 4096, If not, the partition is not aligned.

 

 

Not sure if you can still get better speeds, If you have time, You can secure erase the SSDs, run a ATTO benchmark with them in a RAID0 Array but empty to see the max speed. You will need a OS on another HD to do this. Or you can just install Windows and run a ATTO benchmark, If the results turn out the same, Then that may be the max speed.

Alignment is critical in any SSD for best performance, being an OS drive or not makes no difference.

 

Two 60GB SSDs in RAID 0 will have limited write speed performance, they are just to small. Anyone telling you that a pair of 60 GB SSDs will perform the same as two 120GB SSDs is wrong.

 

RAID cards like yours tend to have great sequential speed performance, but the other areas like 4K and other small file sizes are not the greatest.

If you need to align your drives you can use diskpart, which is already installed.

 

If you do this you need to break your raid array and do each drive separately

 

Run diskpart.exe

 

1 list disk

 

2 select disk x with x being the number given for your ssd

 

3 clean (this destroys all partition/volume data on the disk)

 

4 create partition primary align=1024

 

5 active

 

6 format fs=ntfs quick

 

7 exit

Anyone claiming that a SATA cable can be rated for SATA III is most likely bs. All SATA cables are the same other than length. There might be minuscule differences in quality but to say those actually have an effect on performance might be going a bit fat unless somebody can show me some numbers backing that up.

Thanks for the input guys,

 

@Toasted:

I did a secure erase on both drives with the build in tool of parted magic,

buildup the array and reinitialized/formated the drive in windows (with a 32K

allocation unit size). This resulted in a small write increase in atto (Check attachment).

 

Also i checked the "Partition Starting Offset" which showed "1.048.576 bytes".

Since this number is divisible with 4096, tells me it is correctly aligned ?

 

@Parsec:

Could u take a look at the attachment and tell me what u think ?

 

@Richard & Synbios:

Thanks for the info!

 

Greetings,

Capitao

Hi capitao

 

A got The same controller u ave

The Highpoint Rocketraid 2720sgl

but i use the highpoint original cable (HighPoint Int-MS-1M4S SFF-8087 to 4 SATA) The cable u use is the same ting as SFF 8087 conector to 4 sata conector.

 

Did you check on highpoint website for 1.5 firmware update and last update drive 1.2.12.424

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/CS-series_rr272x.htm

 

Update firmware and drive make a big diferance for me

 

i ave test with 1, 2, 3 and 4 corsair Force GT 120gb

1 ssd 536870 write 573852 read

2 ssd 938585 write 1034931 read

3 ssd 1388459 write 1516957 read

4 ssd 1556585 write 1901586 read

 

Just update your firware and driver u chould see a big diferance of speed.

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/CS-series_rr272x.htm

 

 

hope this help

Sincerly yours

Hey Turboner,

 

Very nice speed ! are they from ATTO ?

 

The first thing i did was update both the 2720sgl and ForceGT to the newest firmware/driver versions,

so i think i'm kinda stuck on speeds :(.

 

I'm beginning to think it's my chipset that can't dedicated the speed to the card + ssd's.

The 2 pci-e 1.0 x8 on the motherboard gets it's juice from an Intel® 6321ESB southbridge.

 

Greetings,

Capitao

Also i checked the "Partition Starting Offset" which showed "1.048.576 bytes".

Since this number is divisible with 4096, tells me it is correctly aligned ?

 

Yes the partition is aligned.

If you download AS SSD, as soon as you start, in the upper left corner, it will give you a good or bad alignment indication for your drive. You do not actually have to run the benchmark to see it.

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/AS-SSD-Benchmark.shtml

hi all

 

I just check specification ove Asus DSBV-DX

 

1 * PCI-E x8 slot (x8 link)

1 * PCI-E x8 slot (x4 link)

1 * PCI

2 * PCI-X 133/100 MHz

 

so ure board like u said is pcie 1.0 8x

The 2720sgl was desing for a pcie 2.0 8x

me i use a pcie 2.0 16x, maybe it why i get that mutch speed

I read that the 2720sgl as a maximum speed ove 2800mb\s

so 6 sata 3 ssd is the maximum it could andle

as for runing 2720sgl on pcie 1.0, teoricely it should worck

because pcie 1.0 ave a maximumspeed ove 2500mb/s

like u said, it probaly the Intel® 6321ESB southbridge thath not fast enough

Me it the northbridge that run my pcie 2.0 16x

I ave even test 2720sgl on my badax 2 D975xdx2 motherboard

It use a DG i975x chipset and the pcie 1.0 16x is controlle by the northbridge and a get 1433mb/s read with 3 ssd

So maybe your problem come from the fact that your pcie is controle be the southbridge instead ove the northbridge

 

Hope this help

sincerly your

ho and yes me test is perfome with ATTO

Thanks for the input Turboner.

Seeing as your DG i975x chipset can handle the speed tells me that my

speed is limited due to the fact it has to be processed and passed on by 2 chips

before reaching CPU/memory.

 

Theoretically the data stream is never bottleneck by lack of bandwidth but in practic the data stream suffers from overhead.

 

If anyone has some thoughs on that, please post them :)

 

 

Capitaõ