SSD Shopper's Assist

[Kal-EL]

Hey Gang,

I think its time to get with the times and go the way of the SSD. I already have an Areca-1220 raid card with 8 sata slots. So now I need 8 SSD's to fill them.

I wanna go the cheap but fast route so was considering 8 of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609330

Any input or comments or suggestions are more than welcome.

[DrNip]

8!!! Oh only 16GB. I personally think you would be better off with 2-3 Intel X25-M's. They are the best right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167005


If not then look into the Vertex's by OCZ. They are a lil cheaper and sell a 30GB unlike Intel lowest being 80GB. Get 5-6 of them.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009849

I've been saying it for awhile and am going SSD this summer or at least on my O/S. I will be goin with one or the other I have listed. Prolly two of the Intel's.

[Buckeye]

Intels are the best :)

I still like my MTRONs tho <hungs>
But it takes like 2 of my MTRONs to = 1 Intel SSD in bandwidth.

I keep trying to get Francios to alow me to step up my MTRONs to Intels. He laughs at me and says... sorry we do not take inferior SSD's LOL !!!

[Kal-EL]

Reading material: http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fastest.html

[Buckeye]

Yup, my next toy :confused3:

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-23.html

[Kal-EL]

I double dog dare u!

[GFDuke]

You know about my SSD;s so i will say this. OCZ drives rock. Yes they are expensive and i have no regrets. Their support forums are awesome. But if i could do it again i would go with these. They are slc drives and are super fast. The 60gb and under are usually mlc drives. I think 2 of these would come very close to my 4 60gb drives. Do you plan on using your onboard RAID? With any luck you have a ICH10 controller onboard.

OCZ 120gb SSD's (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4364405&CatId=4147)

[Neuromancer]

Double check the specs on your card, IIRC the areca 1220 basically makes out at 3 or 4 SSDs.

More SSDs will give you more storage space but no more speed.

I will try and find the link.

Click me! (http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/)

Found it, it is from Dominick32's website.

[DrNip]

The 120GB Vertex's are better than the 30GB I listed.

[Kal-EL]

You know about my SSD;s so i will say this. OCZ drives rock. Yes they are expensive and i have no regrets. Their support forums are awesome. But if i could do it again i would go with these. They are slc drives and are super fast. The 60gb and under are usually mlc drives. I think 2 of these would come very close to my 4 60gb drives. Do you plan on using your onboard RAID? With any luck you have a ICH10 controller onboard.

OCZ 120gb SSD's (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4364405&CatId=4147)

Nope to onboard, I have an Areca-1220 8 sata port raid card to use. Which SSD's are u suggesting?

[hellcamino]

Nope to onboard, I have an Areca-1220 8 sata port raid card to use. Which SSD's are u suggesting?

It appears from what Neuromancer is saying that you will end up capped at about 400 mb/s with your Areca, if you use the ICH10R that is onboard for any modern intel board you will do significantly better.

That said I use a pair of the 30gb vertex drives for my os on an ICH10R sb.
3x74gb raptors up top and my 2 ssd's below both running on a 128k stripe.
http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq138/thehellcamino/raptorssds.png

[GFDuke]

If ya have the cash to spend i'd suggest the OCZ 120gb Vertex drives and use the ICH10R. If ya cant afford the 120's go with the 60's.

[Neuromancer]

It appears from what Neuromancer is saying that you will end up capped at about 400 mb/s with your Areca, if you use the ICH10R that is onboard for any modern intel board you will do significantly better.

That said I use a pair of the 30gb vertex drives for my os on an ICH10R sb.
3x74gb raptors up top and my 2 ssd's below both running on a 128k stripe.
http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq138/thehellcamino/raptorssds.png

Yah the MTRONs Dom was raiding have significantly, lower read writes than the vertex. 2 will max out the aerca and 4-5 will max out hte 800MHz IOPS controller (Areca 1232?)

EDIT: wow very nice

[hellcamino]

ICH10R is pretty amazing really, after using many different RAID controllers it's the best I've ever used.

[spfoam1]

2 Intel SSDs / Intel RAID 0

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm107/spfoam1/Rampage%20795/LinearReadTest.jpg

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm107/spfoam1/Rampage%20795/ReadTestSuite.jpg

[Kal-EL]

485

486

quick test with apps, didn't wanna wait for it to finish :blush:

[DrNip]

What SSD's are those supes? The ones you orginally listed and how many? Still tryin to figure out how you guys are adding attachments like that.

[spfoam1]

What SSD's are those supes? The ones you orginally listed and how many? Still tryin to figure out how you guys are adding attachments like that.

photobucket

[Kal-EL]

Those ones I submitted were on the areca 1230 raid card w/6 150gb Raptors (4 raptor x's and 2 o.g. raptor vanila's) No SSD's and done with apps running all over the place, just wanted to see how 6 raptors get owned by 2 ssds

[2chesapeakes]

4 x 30GB VErtex Raid 0 128K Stripe
501
502

[spfoam1]

Looks like I need at least 4 SSDs.

I hate spending money on this stuff over and over and over and over.....:blink:

[spfoam1]

Here's 3 Intel SSDs. Intel Raid 0 - 128k stripe

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm107/spfoam1/Rampage%20795/readtestsuite3.jpg

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm107/spfoam1/Rampage%20795/linearreadtest3.jpg

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm107/spfoam1/Rampage%20795/randomread3.jpg

[Chuchnit]

Still on the ICH10R Steve?

[spfoam1]

Still on the ICH10R Steve?

Yes.....

I'm not sure if it will be worth getting another SSD. The performance increase from adding another one will show on a HDD test, but probably won't result in better 3D benchmarks.

[Chuchnit]

Probably so. Do you actually see an increase in say 06 with faster hdd's? I know K|P and the greeks for sure still bench IDE for higher pcie freq.

[spfoam1]

Probably so. Do you actually see an increase in say 06 with faster hdd's? I know K|P and the greeks for sure still bench IDE for higher pcie freq.

I haven't done a comparison where I only changed the HDDs and left everything else the same. I did get a surprisingly high 3D06 score with a 2 drive RAID 0 of the new SSDs, but I also used new drivers and CPU and RAM so I am not sure where the gain actually came from.

[Chuchnit]

Nice. BTW, are those X25-M or E series intel SSD's?

[spfoam1]

Nice. BTW, are those X25-M or E series intel SSD's?

E series.

The tests were run without shutting down any processes, so I imagine I could do better.

[Neuromancer]

4 x 30GB VErtex Raid 0 128K Stripe
501
502

Is that on an Areca? I ask because it looks like you are hitting a cieling of 400MB/s.

Get those 4 on a ICH10R.

[Chuchnit]

2chesapeakes is still rockin with ICH10R. Don't give him any ideas or he will be ordering a 1232ML or better just for pcmark runs, lol.

[Chuchnit]

E series.

The tests were run without shutting down any processes, so I imagine I could do better.

Honestly I don't know why I asked. Kinda obvious coming from you. You thinkin' about a raid card?

[spfoam1]

No RAID card in the plans. I'm not sure what is in the plans.
My i7 975 is pretty mediocre. Getting a really competitive chip is the roll of the dice. Maybe a Xeon????????
4870 GPUs are old news....4870 X2 isn't enough of a jump up.
4890s aren't enough of a jump up.
The SS is old news so I probably need to think about a new cooling technology.
Rampage II Extreme boards are old news....I think I can use them to make two really nice email rigs. :Dizzy:

[Chuchnit]

No RAID card in the plans. I'm not sure what is in the plans.
My i7 975 is pretty mediocre. Getting a really competitive chip is the roll of the dice. Maybe a Xeon????????
4870 GPUs are old news....4870 X2 isn't enough of a jump up.
4890s aren't enough of a jump up.
The SS is old news so I probably need to think about a new cooling technology.
Rampage II Extreme boards are old news....I think I can use them to make two really nice email rigs. :Dizzy:


Your main problem is that you need lower temps :D. Either get off your arse and order a cascade, or suck it up and get a set of pots and a dewar. :blink: Plus I know you love to here that you need to spend more money, but you should probably get you a classified to see if that 975 is really just "ok". Plus if you do buy another, the xeons seem to be clocking like mad. W3540 + Classified seems to do the trick just right.

I see you are at a crossroads. You are at the level of benching now to where it's either stay the course, or start spending alot more money. For some benches a set of 295's are gonna be best. For others 4890's are, and maybe 285's for another. Plus you are probably to the point of needing to start vmodding your vga's and think about makin them cold too. Either way, this is what I think. I kinda saw this coming. You are now to the point of not being satisfied and its time to move up again to the next level. I bet you just love spending more money :D

[2chesapeakes]

No RAID card in the plans. I'm not sure what is in the plans.
My i7 975 is pretty mediocre. Getting a really competitive chip is the roll of the dice. Maybe a Xeon????????
4870 GPUs are old news....4870 X2 isn't enough of a jump up.
4890s aren't enough of a jump up.
The SS is old news so I probably need to think about a new cooling technology.
Rampage II Extreme boards are old news....I think I can use them to make two really nice email rigs. :Dizzy:
I know the feeling Steve. Dice or LN2 may get another 100Mhz or so from your CPU. I beleive this CPU is just average OCer that I have. I have not had it under cold as much as the 965 R2E combo but from the initial testing I beleive I would have been better off with a 3540 than the 975. I am hoping to get the 965 on the Classified this upcaomingw weekend to test with Ln2 this will surely tell me if the classified is that much better than the R2E or if I am just CPU limited.

[Kal-EL]

I know the feeling Steve. Dice or LN2 may get another 100Mhz or so from your CPU. I beleive this CPU is just average OCer that I have. I have not had it under cold as much as the 965 R2E combo but from the initial testing I beleive I would have been better off with a 3540 than the 975. I am hoping to get the 965 on the Classified this upcaomingw weekend to test with Ln2 this will surely tell me if the classified is that much better than the R2E or if I am just CPU limited.

I'm glad we have some variety hardware on the forum, it makes for excellent comparisons between vendors. So? fight12 u slip the wife some chocolates yet so you can bench?