p410 raid 5 slow sequential write

[Malecoda]

I am running a HP p410 in a dl180g6 l5639/8g on server 2008 with the latest drivers/firmware. The drives are 4 samsung f4eg 2tb in raid 5, 128K stripe, with updated firmware. read speeds are good at 322MB/s while writes are terrible at 44.6MB/s. The other raid 5 array on the same controller with 3 segate 1tb drives also shows similarly poor write performance. I was previously running these arrays on a highpoint card in raid 5 with writes around 140 MB/s.

Is there any way to improve write performance?

Internal Controller 
Controller Status OK 
Controller Smart Array P410 
Slot 1 Bus Interface PCI 
Hardware Revision C 
Firmware Version 6.40 
RAID 6 (ADG) Status Enabled 
Number of Ports 2 (Internal only) 
Number of Arrays 4 
Number of Logical Drives 4 
Number of Physical Drives 9 
 Controller Settings 
Transformation Priority Medium 
Rebuild Priority High 
Surface Scan Analysis Priority Idle 
Surface Scan Delay 15 sec 
Physical Drive Write Cache State Enabled 
 Advanced Controller Settings 
RAID 5/6/50/60 Degraded Mode Performance Optimization Disabled 
Physical Drive Request Elevator Sort Enabled 
RAID 6/60 Alternate Inconsistency Repair Policy Disabled 
Maximum Drive Request Queue Depth Automatic 
Monitor and Performance Analysis Delay 60 min 
 Caching 
Cache Module Present Yes 
Cache Status OK 
Cache Ratio 0% Read / 100% Write 
Total Cache Memory Available 400 MB 
Total Cache Size 512 MB 
Cache Backup Power Source Batteries 
Battery/Capacitor Pack Count  1 
Battery/Capacitor Status OK 
Enable Write Cache When Battery/Capacitor Not Present or Not Completely Charged Disabled 
 Arrays 
 SATA Array A - 1 Logical Drive(s) 
 SATA Array B - 1 Logical Drive(s) 
 SATA Array C - 1 Logical Drive(s) 
 SATA Array D - 1 Logical Drive(s) 
 Logical Drive(s) / Local OS Access Name 
 Logical Drive 1 (1.8 TB, RAID 0) \\.\PhysicalDrive0 
 Logical Drive 2 (2.7 TB, RAID 0) \\.\PhysicalDrive1 
 Logical Drive 3 (1.8 TB, RAID 5) \\.\PhysicalDrive2 
 Logical Drive 4 (5.5 TB, RAID 5) \\.\PhysicalDrive3 
 Assigned Drives 
 1 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 1 
 1 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 2 
 1 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 3 
 3 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 4 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 5 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 6 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 7 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 8 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 13

Logical Drive 
Status OK 
Drive Number 4 
Drive Type Data 
Drive Unique ID 600508B1001CC9FFF3E4D5B739842FBD 
Size 5723091 MB 
Fault Tolerance RAID 5 
Heads 255 
Sectors/Track 32 
Cylinders 65535 
Strip Size 128 KB 
Full Stripe Size 384 KB 
Parity Initialization Status Initialization Completed 
Disk Name \\.\PhysicalDrive3 (Disk 3) (Bus: 0, Target: 7, LUN: 0) 
Disk Partition Information Partition Number: 1, Size: 5.5 TB, Mount Point: G:\ 
 Logical Drive Acceleration Method 
Acceleration Method Controller Cache 
Caching Enabled 
 Array 
Status OK 
Array D 
Drive Type SATA 
Used Space 7.2 TB (100%) 
Total Usable Space 7.2 TB 
 Physical Drives 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 5 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 6 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 7 
 2 TB SATA Drive at Port 1I : Box 1 : Bay 8 
 Spare Drives 
 None 
 Failed Drives 
 None 
  Device Path 
 Smart Array P410 in Slot 1 
 SATA Array D - 1 Logical Drive(s)

 

[mwroobel]

You are running the latest firmware and have the battery backed cache, so from a hardware standpoint you are ok. The 410 is not a particularly great controller for R5, personally if I were just using 4 disks on that array I would run them as R10 instead of R5. It would give you significantly higher write performance and still give you 1 failure uptime (in fact, it could survive 2 drive failures if the right 2 drives were the ones that failed). The only con to you vs R5 in a 4 drive array would be a 1/3 loss in available space.

 

[xx0m3gaxx]

I have a p400 and have around the same write speeds with 512 mb ddr2 cache and BBU and good read speeds I find its more a limitation in the on board raid chip even with raid 0 it still only hits about 50-70MB/s.

I have found that the P400/P410/P411 all seem to do this. But they are low cost cards ranging from 40-80 for the 400/410 but the 411 is around 240-300 and still not much better writes with raid 5 from what I have noticed.

I just went with a LSI 888elp its a very flexible card allowing you to choose internal or external ports
Newegg link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118089

ebay link for the card/bbu/512 ram/and cables, I ordered my card from this seller and worked fine
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-RAID-CA...=US_Disk_Array_Components&hash=item233456f85b

This card I was able to get 350MB/s read and about 300MB/s write using and external jbod and some random hard drives ranging 500G/750G/1T seagate/WD/samsung all drives were sata2 at least.

The software for the card was very nice also and easy to use, the bios for the card is hell though from what I have noticed its best to set the connectors to auto in the bios and then never use it again lol 99% of everything else can be set from the software, also the software acts as a server allowing you to connect to the server from other computers to monitor the raid/card.

Not trying to push you away from the P4XX cards cause when I first got one I loved it, but they are very limited when it comes to write speeds it seems.
hope this helps