Upgrade path: Sandforce SSD's in RAID?

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AuxNuke

Gawd
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I'm looking to replace my C drive, an aging 300GB (150GB x 2) Raptor X RAID 0 array, with a SSD array.

I'm looking to save some cash buy purchasing some cheaper 120GB drives and RAID'ing them for the added space + extra performance.

Questions:
1) Does anyone have experience RAID'ing Sandforce drives? From the reviews I've been reading Sandforce drives seem to be the best at background garbage collection when TRIM is not supported due to the RAID.

2) I know the next gen Sandforce 2500 series drives will be coming out shortly. These will probably be SATA 6 Gb/s drives. I'm currently using an older X58 board with 3 Gb/s SATA ports on the ICH10R southbridge. I don't plan on changing my motherboard until the new LGA2011 boards are released. Knowing my situation, would these new SSD's be worth it to wait for?

3) Is the Intel ICH10R controller sufficient for the RAID array or should I invest in a standalone PCI-E controller card? If so, any recommendations here?

Thanks in advance.
 
I plan on RAIDing some Sandforce drives soon (have 2 OCZ Vertex 2s sitting on a shelf). I have a X25-M G2 RAID 0 that performs very well, but the sequential write speed won't compare with a Sandforce. In every other number, it looks good. I've used the Intel for about a year in heavy-duty use (development workstation, development-use SQL Server, VMs, etc.) and the write performance has only trailed off a little. I expect I will eventually have to backup the raid set, break the raid, use the Intel toolkit to restore performance and then restore my OS. It hasn't become necessary yet.
 
1. I haven't put my Vertex 2 in a RAID aray yet, but if single driver performance in any indicator you're in for a treat. But...
2. I would wait until the new Sandforce and Intel come out. They will bring more than just SATA 6Gb/s support, with better random read/write performance. Not to mention that current drives will fall in price.
3. The onborard Intel controller will be just fine.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
1. I haven't put my Vertex 2 in a RAID aray yet, but if single driver performance in any indicator you're in for a treat. But...
2. I would wait until the new Sandforce and Intel come out. They will bring more than just SATA 6Gb/s support, with better random read/write performance. Not to mention that current drives will fall in price.
3. The onborard Intel controller will be just fine.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. I did some more digging on the next gen Sandforce SF-2000 series 6.0 Gb/s controller and yeah, looks like I'll wait. Obviously sequential transfer rates will be lower but, do you think random performance will suffer on an older 3.0 Gb/s controller?
 
I JUST (as in within the last 24 hours) did an ICH10R install with two Agility 2 drives.

Your SSD of choice shouldn't be any different.

One thing to note, the ICH10R does NOT currently support TRIM on drives in an array. If you have single drives not in an array, TRIM works fine.

First thing: Make sure your motherboard BIOS is on the latest available version. Older version might not allow you to install/boot from an SSD.

Then:

  1. Go into the BIOS.
  2. On the MAIN page, go into Storage Configuration.
  3. Change "Configure SATA as" to RAID.
  4. Save and Reboot
  5. When the RAID config comes up, hit CTRL+I (The letter i, not the number 1)
  6. Create a new array however the heck you want to.
  7. Exit and Reboot
  8. Go into the BIOS.
  9. On the BOOT page, go into Boot Settings configuration.
  10. Shuffle the hard drives until the array "device" is first.
  11. Save and Reboot.
  12. Go into the BIOS.
  13. On the Boot page, go into Boot Device Priority.
  14. Put the array first, and the optical second.
  15. Save and Reboot.
  16. Install.

Now, some people will try to tell you just make all the changes at once. This may or may not work for you. Some of the settings and identifiers for the drives/devices change between IDE/AHCI/RAID mode. I've found it much more sure to simply do them one at a time. Yeah, it takes longer. But my array is WORKING. No problems.

Also, before hand, download the latest version of the Matrix/Rapid Storage driver from Intel HERE.



As to whether or not your performance will suffer.

You tell me!

AttoRaid-0.png
 
Your benchmark does not tell anything about performance. I mean you will generally not be using the SSD raid for large sequential reads and writes will you? Also a 4 to 5 hard drive array will easily have the same STR numbers and cost less than 1/2 what you paid for the SSDs.
 
Last edited:
drescherjm said:
Your benchmark does not tell anything about performance. I mean you will generally not be using the SSD raid for large sequential reads and writes will you? Also a 4 to 5 hard drive array will easily have the same STR numbers and cost less than 1/2 what you paid for the SSDs.
Click to expand...

  1. From BIOS handoff to signon in less than 10 seconds.
  2. Any app resident on the SSD pretty much instant-on.
  3. In games requiring local levels/maps to be loaded, sees drastic reductions in load times.

And yes, a 4-5 HDD array would likely give similar throughput numbers. At the cost of additional noise and 5x the power utilization. As well as consuming SATA ports I could put to better use elsewhere.
 
I just put a couple of Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 120GB drives in my laptop RAID0 on an Intel ICH9 mobile chipset and have been running them for about a week. My ATTO scores are similar to the post above. In real world usage they are quite a bit faster than the pair of WD Scorpios they replaced. I'm not yet sure how the garbage collection will work long term. Even if they lost half of their write speed they would still be waaay faster than the mechanical drives. Overall I think I'll be happy with them until the Newegg account bill comes.
 
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