What's the best RAID controller that's validated with X25-E & X25-M?

[idata]

I hope those who are currently using either X25-M or X25-E with any of the validated RAID controller could share your experience here.

So far I only saw some products from Adaptec with official validation of both X25-M & X25-E. Please update this thread and I will try my best to maintain the list for the benefit of everybody. I personally need some help on this for my virtualization project, therefore I can't segregating the optimum use of SSD or set up hybrid combi for whatever purpose. All the Virtual Machines are just a bunch of files so that they are very easy to maintain/migrate around should the host fail. So, everything must run on the SSDs! *except the backups

List of validated RAID cards with X25-M & X25-E:

1.Adaptec RAID 51245

2.Adaptec RAID 516453.Adaptec RAID 52445

4.Adaptec RAID 5405

5.Adaptec RAID 54456.Adaptec RAID 58057.Adaptec RAID 5085

Just curious, is Intel IOP 348 @ 1200 the best RAID processor in the market? Is adaptec also using this? If not, is Adaptec processors better than the Intel's?

[idata]

tinshen,

Sorry, I cannot contribute much here in the way of 'validation' of hardware. I did notice you mention virtualization, so I thought I'd just mention the FusionIO products. They offer extremely high-speed PCI-e based I/O with redundancy built-in, specifically engineered to make virtualization super-fast. The cost associated with multiple SSDs and the appropriate RAID controller might be more than getting one, or even two, FusionIO cards. Take a look at their product, too, if you haven't already.

Also, if you haven't already, do some research on the fastest RAID *chipsets* instead of the whole device. That might point you in new directions. For example, what did they use in the "Battleship MTRON" tests? (http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/ http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/)

Hope this helps you, and thanks for listing the products you did find on Adaptec!

William

[idata]

Hi William,

I can't find any validation from Areca website. Areca is cheaper than Adaptec. I am not keen to look at non-Intel SSDs as they doesn't have full 3 years warranty at affordable price. It is also not nice to talk about rival products in the Intel support community. Do let me know if you can find the validation document from Areca for both X25-E & X25-M.

I did notice the fusionIO product. The problem is, I am at Singapore, I have no clue who is selling them. We are constantly talking to Texas Memory System, they also have very reliable PCIe based SSD products but it cost as much as USD18K.

It cost me about USD300 odd for a X25-M 80GB. Having 10 of them gives me 700GB of effective storage through RAID 0 at USD3000 with potentially more than 2GB/s read speed and 700GB/s. May I know how much does an ioDrive Duo 640GB cost? Can it be made as a primary boot drive? If the cost is way cheaper than USD3000 + Adaptec RAID card, I think I have to seriously consider using FusionIO.

PCIe SSD may be faster, but bare in mind about the following concerns:

1.PCIe cannot be made available easily to multiple end users' desktop after 3 years of service in the server environment.

2.PCIe may not be able to scale up by small amount accordingly. Adding 1-2 X25-M simply increase the capacity and performance easily, this kind of flexibility can't be found in PCIe SSD like ioDrive Duo

[idata]

well you can find the Fusion-io in the States. I wanted to sent a private message, but no go....

Do not know if one can post it here, so i wait

Jeff

[HERBERT_H_Intel]

SRCSASJV Rules All!!!! (remember to purchase the battery backup to enable write back)

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/srcsasjv/sb/srcsasjv_thol_7_0.pdf# page=17

OJ