SSD Wild Flucation In Speed

R

ReD-DaWg-OnE

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Jul 23, 2009
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I just replaced my RAID 0 Raptors with 4 64GB SSDs in a RAID 5 ( Link )

I also picked up a backplane for them to sit in.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816119006

Now the reason why i replaced the Raptors to start was one was starting to fail, at first i just used Ghost to image over to the new Array, but i was getting really slow transfers.

So then i reinstalled Windows Vista x64 as it had been a while and i had changed the board since i had last reinstalled.

Then i get this;

HDTach.jpg


And this...

HDTune.jpg


I had rememberd a few days before i starting having this issue i had turned up the clock speed on the ram to DDR3 1600. So as i was looking around i noticed the IOH was at like 80deg cel. I clocked the RAM back down and the temp droped about 10degs and it seemed to run better.... but not perfect, any suggestions?



System:

MSI X58 Eclipse SLI
Intel Core i7 920
6GB DDR3 1600
4 x 64GB SSD RAID 5
5 x SATA Storage Drives
2 x Nvidia 9800GT
3 x 24" Samsung SyncMaster 2433bw
 
we're looking at your primary system volumes, aren't we? this is your windows drive, right?
 
And its FakeRAID5.

I would say that looks about right.
 
i run my 2 in raid 0, and its almost a flat line across, i wonder if the soft raid 5 with the additional parity is killing you

something to keep in mind these are the older slower 100mb/sec read models too i think
 
Are those the JMF602 controller drives? If so, you're probably getting issues when they stutter.
 
What can i do to get rid of the stutter?

This is a reply someone posted on Newegg about the controler...

"Kingston's SSD V Series uses the J-Micron controller. Kingston's engineers have worked closely with Toshiba and J-Micron counterparts over the past 6 months to ensure the drive is stable and ready to bring to market. The controller has gone through several firmware changes and exhaustive testing. We have resolved the lag and stuttering issues that occurred with earlier solid-state drives using this particular controller. Our tests show that Kingston's SSD V Series is stable and has the quality that our customers continue to expect from our products. "
 
thats what they say but from reading the issues still exist on the jmicron stuff, not as bad as it did at one point but i imagine in a raid 5 the issue will be alot worse, every time one drive stutters even slightly the others are waiting to catch up, probably throws everything out of whack, and to add to it its software raid

think of a raid 5 of 3 drives with a 4200 rpm drive, 7200 and 15k, speeds could be all over the map
 
I was just reading something about secure erase, would that help at all?

Also should i check with Kingston on the newest firmware for these drives? Will i have to break the RAID to flash them?

I was looking at a RocketRAID 16 Port controler, would the hardware RAID resolve the issue?

Thanks for you help guys.
 
The raid controller is fine or you wouldnt see such pronounced plateaus and valleys. That seems to be the fault of the JMicron controllers.
 
this is mine if it helps you any, usually ssd's are pretty consistent, mines raid 0 on the intel on board controller, cpu usage is up a bit moving some files around on the nas but you get the idea

hdtunebenchmarkintelraip.png
 
@ Red Dawg

Ok d00d do this:
1) You have Jmicron Drives, that have stutter issues, so while this will help alleviate it it wont be like the other SSD's. Still better than most HDD's tho so I think you will still be pleased.

2)So you need to flash them to the latest firmware they have. This will break the RAID, and will destroy any data that is on the drives currently.

3) Use a RAID 10 or 0+1 something like that no parity but still redundant. If your willing to take on some more risk you can run RAID0 but if a single drive dies everything is gone. If you have a backup system I would run Raid0 otherwise Raid10.

4) You need to align the partition.....not sure what to tell you as far as what offset cause that will depend on your RAID selection. You should read around the OCZ forums on the Core or Solid Series Drives for offset information.
Some people will try to convince you that you do not need to do an offset for Vista or Windows 7, they are wrong you still should do it.

5) Install windows.....DO NOT create a new partition during the install. That will destroy your offset partition.

6) Install the chipset drivers, and then the Intel Matrix Storage manager.

7) open the Intel storage manager and enable the onboard cache.

Try it out and just see how it feels.
If you are not satisfied you can do three things:
1) Get better....more expensive drives.
2) Get a copy of SuperSpeeds SuperCache...this will allocate part of your systems RAM as HDD cache.
3) Get a real hardware raid controller that has a lot of cache... you could prob grab a Perc6 with 2gb cache for around $200.
 
BTW ALL Un-used system ram is used as disk cache by default, and windows 7/vista create partitions properly aligned for most cases.
 
extide said:
BTW ALL Un-used system ram is used as disk cache by default, and windows 7/vista create partitions properly aligned for most cases.
Click to expand...

Not quite its slightly different. This method directly allocates RAM for Disk IO only, whereas by default windows will use the majority for application paging.
You know how some HDD have 16mb cache or 32mb cache? This is essentially that except you allocating your actual RAM.

Win Vista/7 still does not do the offset correctly....its much better than XP for sure. But is still not dead on, and is definately wrong when you have more than one drive in a RAID array.
If were using an Indilix Barefoot controller I wouldnt worry about it, but every little bit will help when using these Jmicron's...individually insignificant, but together when everything is done correctly it will perform great.
 
Just in case you guys were wondering the performance diffrence with the various RAID setups i have included the screenshots below.

I was really not happy with the drives at all, i am sending them back and am going back to my Raptors as my replacment drive is here from WDC.


Single Drive

singlessd.jpg



Raid 0 - 4 Drives
RAID0SSD.jpg



RAID 5 - 4 Drives
raid5ssd.jpg



RAID 10
raid10ssd.jpg
 
A pair of 80GB intel drives will give you much better overall performance than those JM drives. 96GB less space, but better performance.
 
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