dancane Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Ok team, I've been using the first gen OCZ (ack!) SSD's for a few months with some success, but after much research on the matter settled on my "real" upgrade to 4x Corsair P128's in RAID 0 running on an Adaptec 5805. At first I built it as a secondary array off of a windows 7 install and ran some initial benchmarks. Everything looked peachy. So, I took the plunge and attempted to make it my primary OS target. Install went smooth. It's only been 24 hours and I'm already seeing tremendous signs of stuttering. I'm sure its a configuration issue (me hopes), but I'm 12 hours into my 2nd reinstall and I can't get rid of the stutter. Where I am now, is a clean Win 7 install. Updated the drivers on the Adaptec to the latest. I've disabled indexing. When it runs - it runs GREAT ~1000Mb/sec when looking at 512k blocks. But as you can see I hit < 1Mb/sec and the whole system seems to hang. h e l p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted August 5, 2009 Author Share Posted August 5, 2009 So, just in case it's relevant. here is a little more information on the RAID configuration: All Drives showing up as 3 Gb/s transfer speed Stripe Size: 512k Read-cache mode: enabled Write-cache mode: enabled (write-back) ROM: 5.2 16343 Device Driver: 5.2 17380 Also attaching the 256k block size test.. same outcome... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaPony Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 I thought I had read in some of the tests/reviews posted online, it was better to keep the stripe size at 128k, others have said 64k. I just got the Adaptec 5445, so I'm hoping you find the best solution and post it here. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted August 5, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted August 5, 2009 We did some testing with 128K Block size but I cant post the results yet, we don't have all of the results yet. But I think 128K would be best with 4 drives and 64K Block Size with two but like I said don't hold me to that till all the tests are in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 That would change the overall throughput, but not the drop to 1 Mb/sec. My understanding is block size selection should be based on anticipated file sizes, but I could be wrong. I less concerned about maximizing the performance at this point and just want a nice steady throughput with sudden lags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaPony Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 I've done a little testing with my 3 P128's on an Adaptec 5445 controller and found that a stripe size of 128 offers the best performance overall. Using the 256k block size in HD Tune, I got the attached results. I've also attached the CrystalDiskMark and HD Tach (which I don't really consider accurate) I formatted with the default (4k?) allocation. I hope you find this useful... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted August 7, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted August 7, 2009 Thanks GaPony for taking the time to post that and by chance did you happen to run those tests with different block sizes set? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Thanks for the update. I'll retool the array with 128 stripe size and the default OS block size. Do you have any stuttering? Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaPony Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 I've them all with different stripe sizes and different block sizes. A stripe size of 128 seems to be the sweet spot for the RAID controller, and using different block sizes in the tests 256k, 512k, and 1025k seem to provide pretty decent results in everything except ATTO, which gets a little wierd and results are far outside the averages of the other benchmarks. I'm working on that. I'd love to hear any suggestions you may have on that.. I have to say that I'm beginning to reach a conclusion that these SSD drives are much better performing, on a regular user level, as single drives than they are in RAID. As single drives they perform flawlessly and absolutely smoke anything else out there. While they present excellant benchmark numbers in a RAID configuration, they're a little finicky. Manufacturers of RAID cards have had decades to perfect their cards operations with HDDs, I don't think they quite have a handle on SSDs yet. If the user just want's a larger disk, then a spanned volume actually provides very good performance, compared to HHDs in RAID 0, without the quirks associated with RAID 0. I'm not a professional tester, but these are my observations at the moment, from a perspective of 30+ years experience in IT and as an enthusiast. As RAID cards and onboard controllers become more SSD aware, I'm sure my views will evolve. Like anything else that goes fast, there's always more to the overall considerations than speed alone. Here are the ATTO results... and they're virtually identical using a 128k or 256k strip size with the Adaptec controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaPony Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Thanks for the update. I'll retool the array with 128 stripe size and the default OS block size. Do you have any stuttering? Dan I often get one stutter at the very beginning of a test, but that holds true for HDDs also. I figure the benchmark gods just hate me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leexgx Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 check the cpu usage and turn on Kernel times (task manager performance > View> Show kernel times) you may find that your system is been maxed out under kernel use (under norm use there should be little kernel use) nor related to an driver or system bottle neck (that could happen if there is a lot of SSDs is an system)you norm see it when the disks are been maxed out or some times even Light load (had to reload an acer system as the system was stuttering like mad and that was an HDD i blame the speedtouch modem in that case) maxed out kernel times are dual core its 50% red or more for quad core its 25% Red or more (i7 with HT on around 12% or more) if any one has tools that they can link me to to diagnose that type of problem with kernel times that be useful save me having to reload windows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted August 25, 2009 Author Share Posted August 25, 2009 We did some testing with 128K Block size but I cant post the results yet, we don't have all of the results yet. But I think 128K would be best with 4 drives and 64K Block Size with two but like I said don't hold me to that till all the tests are in. Are you now able to post the results? I'm going to have to rebuild the array anyway, so nows the time :) Anyone else have any results to share? IRL these drives are SCREAMING fast with this RAID card. There is NO visible stuttering at all -so I take it "back" -- no headache, just inconsistent artificial test results. Real world testing is in, and these bad boys rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted August 25, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted August 25, 2009 What raid card will you be using? And normally the default size will be about the best; but 128K cluster size with 32K for the format was about the best for two M-64 drives in a RAID but there was almost no difference with P-64 drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted August 26, 2009 Author Share Posted August 26, 2009 What raid card will you be using? And normally the default size will be about the best; but 128K cluster size with 32K for the format was about the best for two M-64 drives in a RAID but there was almost no difference with P-64 drives. Adaptec 5805 -- it's quite nice. I just flashed it with the latest firmware and will be rebuilding it tonight. Will keep you all posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted August 26, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted August 26, 2009 We posted Raid Configuration and Performance last night; which you may find useful when you set up your raid array. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 18, 2009 Author Share Posted September 18, 2009 Team, I;ve spent a few HOURS with Adaptec Sr. Support. They are **awesome** by the way. They want to see this work. Their most senior tech looked at a serious amount of logging I generated and came to the conclusion that the logs were the "cleanest" he has ever seen. Great, but that doesnt solve the performance problem. I'm not upset at all - the drives are amazing, but I'd like to work with someone to figure out why performance drops off at larger sizes. I'm uploading ATTO benchmarks and the complete logs for my system. RAMGUY *(or whomever) what's the next step to work on this? it's in everyones best interest to see what we need to do to make Win 7 - Adaptecs Blazing Fast 5805 - and 4 of your studly P128's sizzle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 Links to ATTO Benchmarks: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AaUfT2cNDg5sZGhzYmRuMmdfNmY1azN0cWc5&hl=en http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AaUfT2cNDg5sZGhzYmRuMmdfOGNwZ3F0cGZk&hl=en Detailed System Specs: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6UfT2cNDg5sZWQ4MWFjMTUtZThhNy00NzU5LTkyZTItNGFhZTU0MGJlMzFi&hl=en Link to support logs: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 Logs Files (again, the Adaptec Support said these were the cleanest logs she'd ever seen)Support.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted September 19, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted September 19, 2009 What was the cluster size for the raid and what did you set the allocation size to on the format? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 After a TON of reading I settled on 128k stripe and default allocation size. I have tried stripe sizes of 256 and 512 (see earlier in the thread). I can't remember what the default Win7 allocation size is since I've been horsing around with things for a month. :) Logical device..................0 Logical device name.............PHOTON2 RAID level......................0 Data space......................476.549 GB Parity space....................0 MB Date created....................08/25/2009 Stripe size.....................128K Interface type..................Serial ATA State...........................Optimal Read-cache mode.................Enabled Write-cache mode................Enabled (write-back) Write-cache setting.............Enabled (write-back) Partitioned.....................Yes Protected by hot spare..........No Bootable........................Yes Bad stripes.....................No Power Status....................Disabled Power State.....................Active Reduce RPM timer................Never Power off timer.................Never Verify timer....................Never Segment 0.......................Present: controller 1, connector 0, device 0, S/N 09300579-9810366 Segment 1.......................Present: controller 1, connector 0, device 1, S/N 09300579-9810395 Segment 2.......................Present: controller 1, connector 0, device 2, S/N 09300579-9810397 Segment 3.......................Present: controller 1, connector 1, device 0, S/N 09300579-9810386 .... Type............................Disk drive Vendor..........................Unknown Model...........................CORSAIR CMFSSD-1 Serial Number...................09300579-9810366 Firmware level..................VBM18C1Q Reported channel................0 Reported SCSI device ID.........0 Interface type..................Serial ATA Size............................119.242 GB Negotiated transfer speed.......3.00 Gb/s State...........................Optimal S.M.A.R.T. error................No Write-cache mode................Write back Hardware errors.................0 Medium errors...................0 Parity errors...................0 Link failures...................0 Aborted commands................0 S.M.A.R.T. warnings.............0 Phy 0...........................3.00 Gb/s Power State.....................Full rpm Supported power states..........Full rpm, Powered off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 I hit a good patch and got sick (in a good way) benchmarks.. now do to get rid of the large file stutter... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted September 21, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted September 21, 2009 I have not ever seen a problem with the Samsung based drives with shuddering or stutters, I would suspect there is some other issue from what you have posted. What controller are you using and do you have all four drives setup as one Raid array? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 21, 2009 Author Share Posted September 21, 2009 I have not ever seen a problem with the Samsung based drives with shuddering or stutters, I would suspect there is some other issue from what you have posted. What controller are you using and do you have all four drives setup as one Raid array? The setup is the same as described above (I know you are busy, so I'll repost it here) Adaptec 5805 (Most current BIOS) 4 P128 in a RAID 0 Stripe 128k Stripe Size Windows 7 RTM - Formatted allocation as "Default" Again, if you can take a look at the earlier screen shots in the thread. Performance SIZZLES up to larger block sizes, then peters out. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted September 21, 2009 Corsair Employees Share Posted September 21, 2009 Just to test the drives can you set up the drives one at a time on the MB S-ATA controller and you will need to delete the Raid array in the Adaptec controller and then Quick format the drives and run ATTO on them one at a time, lets make sure one of the drives is not causing this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancane Posted September 21, 2009 Author Share Posted September 21, 2009 Ok team, I've been using the first gen ******** (ack!) SSD's for a few months with some success, but after much research on the matter settled on my "real" upgrade to 4x Corsair P128's in RAID 0 running on an Adaptec 5805. At first I built it as a secondary array off of a windows 7 install and ran some initial benchmarks. Everything looked peachy. So, I took the plunge and attempted to make it my primary OS target. Install went smooth. It's only been 24 hours and I'm already seeing tremendous signs of stuttering. I'm sure its a configuration issue (me hopes), but I'm 12 hours into my 2nd reinstall and I can't get rid of the stutter. Where I am now, is a clean Win 7 install. Updated the drivers on the Adaptec to the latest. I've disabled indexing. When it runs - it runs GREAT ~1000Mb/sec when looking at 512k blocks. But as you can see I hit < 1Mb/sec and the whole system seems to hang. h e l p RG - I already did before I had the problems. When it was NOT the system disk all was well. When I rebuilt it as the system drive It went to pot. Some other changes - When i first built the array (same RAID 0, Adaptec,) it was Win7Beta not Win7RTM. It was also an earlier BIOS (I upgraded it to see if that resolved the problem.) Besides that, the only difference was adding a "slow" 1.5 TB media drive to the adaptec controller on it's own channel. I'll TRY removing that. Any other thoughts? Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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