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]

tingshen,

the price goes from around $3000,00 for the cheapest version of 80 gb, unless price changed.

Anyway i don't think the Fusion-io drive is what you are looking for:

not bootable and soon not longer the fastest.

In my opinion you can equal the performance with 8 X25e's.

Jeff

[idata]

jeff_rys, that's quite an old info...80GB for USD3K.Yup, can't boot......very sickening....

Why aren't you guys looking at X25-M? the read speed is the same, only the writing speed is cut by half compare to X25-E. For 200GB, I have to buy 7 X25-E but I only need to buy 3 X25-M....for the price of 7 X25-E, I can probably buy 14 X25-M.....

[idata]

maybe thingshen, but it is my personal opinion.

I know some time ago the prices where on the DVn....website. Right now probably between $3000, maybe $4000....

Well i consider 70mb write not half of 170mb.

Also you can with SLC let Perfectdisk run all the time.

You can write as many times as you like.

Your speed will go down with SLC but maybe with 10%.

MLC speed will probably drop with 30%.

Your reads or writes of small files will be faster, faster and faster.

Tingshen, since you ask about the Fusion drives.....you must be interested in speed.

True you can buy 14 M's for 7 X's and even have more GB, but for the price of the Fusion you can buy 10 X25-e's.

The problem one has with PCIE disks:

most give 1 year of warranty. If broken, well your troubles begin.

Some companies give 5 year warranty, Intel 3 years.

So if having 7-8 Intels and one dies after your warranty, you replace that one or go further with what is left.

But with PCIE you do not need to buy a controller.

jeff

[idata]

Hi jeff_rys, actually something that always holds me back about using PCIe cards is always the recycle and breakdown issues.....we can't recycle the PCIe card to many end users PCs after warranty (and usually it comes with 1 yr warranty only) and if the card break down, the turn around time will be a big headache, unless you buy 1 more for redundancy.

I am looking for performance, or you called "speed". However, it's the READ performance (especially in RANDOM, but I'm not sure about virtual machine as it's a big block of files) that matter to me, write performance on the other hand, it's no big deal even if MLC dropped 30%, it's still very fast....bare in mind that this ratio is only at the sequential write, when it comes to random write, the gap gets closer.....

Now look back at your data & applications, whatever benchmark programmes out there are just general simulation which doesn't reflect actual usage at all. You shall use your very own application to benchmark whatever set up instead of taking everything what general benchmark programmes give you. Let's take business intelligence as an example, if it's SQL2008 based, users will only execute write during cube write back. This is extremely tiny small data and you won't be expecting hundreds of users doing such activity at the same time. The key is still READ where both X25-M & X25-E are having the same 250MB/s specs.

If you look at HR/Payroll system, it's still very READ heavy and adhoc light write operation. So why is WRITE performance so important to you? and to everybody out there? I am keen to know....perhaps there are some applications that's write heavy and it's so crucial that you always have to get the "best"....

By the way, any idea what is the maximum bandwidth of PCIe x8? 4000MB/s or 8000MB/s? Adaptec (Intel IOP348 1200Mhz) 's capability is at 250,000 I/Os 1.2GBs based on the info given from their website. Does that mean it will be saturated by 5 Intel SSD in terms of READ & 17pcs X-25M in terms of WRITE?

[idata]

Hi Tingshen,

well as said, SLC drives live longer (10 times).

Maybe MLC drives are ok, but i have a Raid0 with 6 128 GB drives (MLC).

Right now i am not interested in buying other MLC's.

On the other hand, end of the year some big changes can be released.

Look at Intel/Micron with their 34 nm technologie.

I guess, i will wait further.

True, PCI-E cards with only 1 year warranty is not so good.

I think even if MLC reads are fast, SLC will still perform better, specially in the smaller file size.

Many GB is not needed for me, so it's nice to have some 80GB Intel, but each drive cost almost as much as a 32GB SLC.

Jeff