Greetings all - post #1.

I've been posting some questions re. my P8Z77-V with Corsair Force 3 SSD RAID 0 on the Corsair forums, would be interested in thoughts from people here (and hopefully my experience might be helpful).

Built the machine in late 2012 and it's run flawlessly since.

Before commencing the Win7 Pro 64 install, I flashed the SSD's (2 x Force 3 90GB) to the then current firmware, the P8Z77 BIOS to 1805 (SATA OROM 11.0.0.1339), and then installed Intel Rapid Storage Drivers (IRST) v.11.1.0.1006

No changes to the system since, apart from 2 changes of GFX cards, and the machine has worked absolutely flawlessly in the past 2+ years, day-in day-out..

However, I benchmarked the SSD RAID for the first time a few days a ago, and found a large drop-out in read-speeds at small-size blocks was revealed , so I updated IRST to v.12.8.0.1016 and saw a huge increase in them (2-3x), but also a drop in write-speeds at these block sizes (3 steps forward and 2 back, as they say).

Nonetheless I Immediately noticed the improvement in responsiveness - MUCH faster program loading, and slightly faster boot.

Here are the ATTO benches compared;



All of which brings me to the simple question;

would a later SATA OROM (i.e. flashing with an UBU modified BIOS) be likely to improve performance still further?

!!! Many thanks for the quick reply, Fernando!.

Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #2

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@ MRAScott:
Welcome at WinRAID Forum and thanks for your interesting report.

Zitat von MRAScott im Beitrag #1

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All of which brings me to the simple question;
would a later SATA OROM (i.e. flashing with an UBU modified BIOS) be likely to improve performance still further?

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According to my own experiences the Intel RAID ROM version has not a big impact on the performance, but maybe on the stability of a RAID system.

I am wondering about your detected performance boost after having updated the Intel RAID driver to a v12 series one, because I have done some benchmark comparison tests today using the same mainboard as you, but with an extremely different result (look >here<.

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Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #2

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By the way:
The ATTO benchmark test results do not show the real performance of the system during the user's daily work (look >here<). Do you have a done some benchmark tests by using AS_SSD or Anvil's Utilities?

Regards
Fernando

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These are the first runs with Anvil and AS SSD (very different numbers to ATTO, as expected, but quite similar to CrystalDiskMark benches as I recall - unfortunately I never recorded/screen-capped any of those though);




I haven't compared them with others yet (I almost daren't look).

Hi F.,

trim has always worked well. It was one of the things I made sure of when I was building the machine (hence the v. 11.xxxx OROM and drivers).

I didn't know what trim was when I ordered the parts, but quickly educated myself, and luckily found that it's supported in RAID on the Z77.

All by chance, BTW.

I didn't intend to use a RAID system drive - I bought a 90GB Force 3 and then realised it wasn't big enough, so bought another one and took a chance that they'd work reliably in RAID, which they have, thankfully (spectacularly well). (ETA >> and knock on wood!).

ETA 2 >> some of you might remember how cheap SSD's and RAM were in late 2012 and just into 2013 - we won't see that again, I'll wager.


ciao.

Ok - checking against a lot of other benchmarks, this is what I'm getting;

compared with a single Force 3, read speeds for incompressible data at all block-sizes (Crystaldiskmark, AS SSD and Anvil) are better across the board , starting at about 20% at 4KB and almost double from 32KB up (and for large sequential reads).

Writes are another matter. With the v12.xxxx IRST driver they've dropped off with small blocks/incompressible data to the point that my RAID is slower than a single drive until about 32KB, only then finally matching and then eventually reaching c. twice the speed.

With small-block compressible data (ATTO) they've taken less of a hit, but still behind what I'd expect ( and much slower than reads, which I haven't seen in any other benches, whether single drives or RAID), and well down on what was previously achieved with the v11.xxxx IRST driver.

Like I said - 3 steps forward and 2 back!

At some point I might try the later Intel SATA RAID OROM (I already have the modded BIOS files ready to go) - I'll be a happy bunny if I can get the best of both worlds.

BTW, a single Force GT or similar synchronous NAND SSD would be much faster everywhere except large sequential transfers (which is of almost zero relevance for a OS/system drive. The only time it might be of use is if 'scratch disk'/ temp files for applications such as audio editors were located on it))

just back from the usual heart-in-mouth BIOS flash.

Stayed with 1805 (2 versions old, but I vaguely recall having problems with the next newest way back in early 2013) UBU'd with the v12.xxxx RAID OROM. IRS driver is now 12.9.4.1000.

No radical changes in benches, still rather low small-block write speeds.

Only thing left to try is OS re-install, which I guess is looming after well over 2 years anyway.

Latest benches with Anvil and AS SSD.

I went back to the 12.8.13.1000 RST drivers for these.

RAID OROM 12.XX (as edited into P8Z77 BIOS rev. 1805 by UBU)

I think they're the best I've seen, or will ever see overall, barring a fresh Win7 install.

Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #10

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@ MRAScott:
Thanks for the benches.

Zitat von MRAScott im Beitrag #9

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I went back to the 12.8.13.1000 RST drivers for these.
RAID OROM 12.XX (as edited into P8Z77 BIOS rev. 1805 by UBU)
I think they're the best I've seen, or will ever see overall, barring a fresh Win7 install.

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I am not sure about that. Have you ever tried the Intel RAID driver/ROM combo v11.2.0.1006/v11.2.0.1527?

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Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #10

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....... Have you ever tried the Intel RAID driver/ROM combo v11.2.0.1006/v11.2.0.1527?

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Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #13

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With ATTO you can not see the real performance of the system.

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Just a reminder - the change from IRS v11.xx to v12.xx seemed to completely reverse the asymmetry in compressible small-block read vs. write speeds;



-Would be great if I could get the write-speeds on the left (IRS 11.xx) combined with the read-speeds on the right (IRS v12.xx).

(probably get another slap on the wrist from Fernando for paying heed to ATTO benches again!)