Best controller for 4 Intel X25-M SSDs?

thebeephaha

2[H]4U
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
2,054
I'm thinking:

4x 80GB X25-Ms (V2 if possible) in RAID0 on maybe an Adaptec 5805?

Goal? I want fast as hell.

Any other controller options?

I'd keep my Perc 5 but it maxes out with two SSDs.
 
Cheap option: get another perc 5.

Other option:
pci-e 2.0 slot (research the capabilities of the pci-e controller on the mb too).
pci-e 2.0, sas-2 raid controller, that can/will also support sata 6g.

Should provide some room for bandwidth growth. If not now, with firmware and driver updates.
 
Yeah, I second Areca controllers- Adaptec has still not gotten upto speed on SSD optimized drivers for their cards. You'll get much better results, from what I have seen with an Areca. I had a 31605 and my X25-M's didn't perform very well at all. Onboard ICH10R works much better than the Adaptec 31605.
 
Areca 1212 or 1680?

Any particular 1680? There are like 5 variants on newegg.

Though the 1212 looks closer to what I'd need since I don't need oodles of ports though only having 256MB cache seems limiting. I mean my Perc 5 has 512MB and I know it is nowhere near as good.

The reason I was looking at the Adaptec 5805 is because of its dual core chip and 512MB cache. On paper looks like a performer. Also it has a nice price point to it.

Anyone know of any reviews putting some of the high end controllers up against each other?
 
Any particular 1680? There are like 5 variants on newegg.

Though the 1212 looks closer to what I'd need since I don't need oodles of ports though only having 256MB cache seems limiting. I mean my Perc 5 has 512MB and I know it is nowhere near as good.
A Pentium D 9xx chip has 4MB of L2 cache ... is it as good as a Core2 E6xx0 with the same 4MB of L2 cache?

Didn't think so.

Seriously, the Areca is a great RAID controller.
 
I was just making sure, I have no idea how the chips on these controllers compare.

That's why I was so curious about the Adaptec. Dual core in a raid controller seems pretty sweet, but so far the majority say get an Areca.

Biggest thing is, I still have no idea which model.

There are so many different variants within a series.
 
You might actually want to consider the new LSI controllers that just came out. There should still be a thread about them on the first page of the storage subforum.
 
Has anyone ever seen benchmarks that show a real benefit of using a dedicated HBA over an onboard solution for RAID 0? Because I haven't, every test I've seen, performance is a wash.
 
Has anyone ever seen benchmarks that show a real benefit of using a dedicated HBA over an onboard solution for RAID 0? Because I haven't, every test I've seen, performance is a wash.
Synthetic benchmarks != desktop application performance. Also, the RAID controllers built into southbridges are garbage when it comes to array integrity. One slight glitch will trash your array in no time.
 
I'm not just talking about synthetic benchmarks, I'm also talking about actual application performance that involves heavy disk use (Photoshop, Premier Pro, ect). I've never seen any benchmarks that shot any difference at all for RAID 0.

That, and can you back up your second claim? RAID 0 is exceedingly simply. I'm sure that an nVidia chipset could probably screw it up, but I've never heard of people having too many problems with intel's onboard setups. I've never heard of anyone having major issues with intel soutbridges and RAID 0.

I think buying an HBA for simple RAID 0 is a waste of money.
 
I'm not just talking about synthetic benchmarks, I'm also talking about actual application performance that involves heavy disk use (Photoshop, Premier Pro, ect). I've never seen any benchmarks that shot any difference at all for RAID 0.

That, and can you back up your second claim? RAID 0 is exceedingly simply. I'm sure that an nVidia chipset could probably screw it up, but I've never heard of people having too many problems with intel's onboard setups. I've never heard of anyone having major issues with intel soutbridges and RAID 0.

I think buying an HBA for simple RAID 0 is a waste of money.
I have not been impressed with Southbridge built in RAID, even from Intel. I had a RAID-1 array on ICH9R that reported it needed verification, "fixed 60000 errors" - then trashed it all, had to run chkdsk to repair it. We had another RAID-1 array, on an nvidia 500 series southbridge, that had a Seagate drive fail, and trashed the other member of a RAID-1 array. It took over a week to recover a QuickBooks file from that disaster.

RAID-1 is simple, right? You write the same thing to identical drives, right?
 
Back
Top