RAID cards for Atom machines?

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djBon2112

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Hello everyone. I'm looking to upgrade (well, technically, downgrade :p) my fileserver from the power-sucking Xeon 2.8 I have now to a more reasonable Atom, and I'm looking at getting a RAID card. I have a PERC 5/i, but I have no way to mount it in the case I'm using, so I'm looking at getting a new one.

It needs 4-8 SATA ports, PCI or PCIe, low-profile (short) and must do RAID5 on an Atom, which brings me to my next question...

How is "software RAID" (i.e. Highpoint RocketRAID's) on an Atom? It'll probably be a newer dual-core version (510) but I don't want all my CPU dedicated to just the RAID ;) The array totals 4.1TB, but that may grow in the future (currently have 4 drives in RAID 5, but I want to move to a 6 or 8 drive RAID 10 in the future).

Drives are all WD GP 1.5TBs.
 
I'm headed about the same direction. I wish somebody would make a D510 full ATX board!
 
Have you tried software RAID on an Atom already? Are you comfortable running something like Linux? It has great software RAID5 support, should work fine even on an atom; you'll be capped by gigabit likely anyway.

Do avoid encryption or compression; that would slow down you I/O considerably with a low power CPU.
 
If you're going to do an Atom server, look at the SuperMicro boards. Some of them have IPMI (remote admin). Any low profile RAID card will work properly on on of their boards. I had an Areca 1680ix-12 running for quite a long time.
 
+1 for supermicro board.
I have a atom330 board from supermicro, the board has 2 PCIe x8 slots but one is actually x4 and an additional PCI slot. The board is flex atx.
I have a hardware raid in the machine, so not sure how well the machine will run through software raid under load.
 
czhao: link of that board? I presume the PCI-express is capped? Like x8 physical but x2 electrical, for example?
 
I haven't done software RAID on an Atom myself, but I'm comfortable doing it in both Linux and Windows; I just have nothing to benchmark. I'll give Supermicro a look.
 
The H7SPA-HF is a pretty solid board with the D510, Dual Intel LAN, IPMI/ KVM over IP, ICH9R (for 6 SATA ports) and an expansion slot... all in a Micro ITX form factor.

I sent a note into my two Supermicro contacts inquiring about a D525 variant.
 
Are they available yet? I don't see them anywhere on Newegg/NCIX.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
sub.mesa said:
czhao: link of that board? I presume the PCI-express is capped? Like x8 physical but x2 electrical, for example?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was busy with a client earlier this week. Here is the link from newegg

It's the X7SLA-H-O

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=supermicro_atom-_-13-182-205-_-Product


For X7SPA-HF, it's a very nice board, but I always feel it's lacking some expansion slots comparing to X7SLA-H-O (2 physical x8 slots with one being x4, and 1 pci slot)
 
Alright, so I did some reading and discovered that server 2k8 can do software RAID, which I did not know. So, the question now becomes: how good is Windows Software RAID on an ATOM in terms of processing power? I'll probably just get a board with 4 or 6 SATA ports if the performance is OK.
 
I haven't see anything anywhere on how the atoms do under software RAID but I would think they should be fine, especially the dual core versions. Even on say a P4 I think we are talking about 2% CPU utilization??
 
For RAID0/1 or combinations of those, yes. But RAID5 and other complex organisations that employ write-back would require more CPU power. A dualcore atom is highly recommended to have some headroom.
 
sub.mesa said:
For RAID0/1 or combinations of those, yes. But RAID5 and other complex organisations that employ write-back would require more CPU power. A dualcore atom is highly recommended to have some headroom.
Click to expand...

yeah, a 510 can push >100 MB/s writes to a 6 drive raid 5 which is likely limited by the disks themselves (WD greens).
 
sub.mesa said:
For RAID0/1 or combinations of those, yes. But RAID5 and other complex organisations that employ write-back would require more CPU power. A dualcore atom is highly recommended to have some headroom.
Click to expand...

aaronspink said:
yeah, a 510 can push >100 MB/s writes to a 6 drive raid 5 which is likely limited by the disks themselves (WD greens).
Click to expand...

Awesome, that's what I like to hear ;)
 
Just FYI: the Z510 does not support 64-bit and is single core, while D510 does support 64-bit and is dualcore, kind of confusing really. So be sure it's the D510. ;-)
 
Go D510 and if you get a SM board, get a F at the end for KVM-over-IP and IPMI 2.0. It is awesome. Plus, SM boards tend to have Dual onboard Intel NICs often saving you a PCIe slot.

Honestly don't bother with single core Atom. They are so slow and you are talking like a 10w TDP v 13w TDP. 30% more TDP for 100% more raw computing power (ok I know there isn't linear scaling, but you do get double the CPU cores).
 
Well, I just ordered the X7SLA-H-O from Newegg. Can't wait for it! Thanks for the help guys.
 
I'm also looking at running software raid5 on the new dual core atom so i'd be interested to see performance stats on these cpu's.
 
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