BarboneNet Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 The 2640x4 came in this morning. I am currently Initializing the RAID 5 array, but here is the Xbench in RAID 0. RAID 0: 4 x 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4: This is more in line with what I was expecting performance wise. Ideally, I need a solution that will sequentially write as fast as the Intel SSD can read. In RAID0, the 2640x4 provides that. RAID 5: 4 x 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4: I am little concerned about the random read/write performance as this drive is only data. I love how fast the RAID0 was, but with 4 drives I am a bit concerned about a disk failure. I would have to make periodic backups to my Drobo either way. I will stick with the 5 now and see how it works for my workload. The RAID5 array nearly writes as fast as the Intel SSD (280MB/s) can read: I have had two kernel panics though. One while running XBench on the drive and the other while attempting to copy a 120GB Aperture Library to the drive. I will continue to monitor the set up for stability. But as far as speed is concerned, the RocketRAID 2640x4 is obviously much better than the RocketRAID 2300 yeah....now raid works fine;) how much cost this controller??? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1421233 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 2, 2010 Author Share Posted March 2, 2010 I am not so sure everything works fine. I have been unable to successfully copy the 117GB Aperture library directly from my Drobo (which only reads at a paltry 30MB/s) to my RAID volume. I get KPs in OS X and when I tried in Win7 (via MacDrive) I came back where chameleon was asking me to select my boot partition (I assume BSOD). I bought the card for $130 I think, but it was an open-box item. A few hours after they shipped my order, Newegg dropped the price of the new cards to $130 with free shipping! I don't know if I have a software incompatibility (card firmware, driver, and OS), hardware incompat. (USB to PCIE), or if the card was just broken in the first place... I will keep on playing with it (and transfer the aperture library to my Barracuda and back to the RAID array much more quickly). Why is this so hard! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1421324 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Both RocketRAIDs go back tomorrow and I have to decide between the similarly priced Areca ARC-1210 and a 3Ware 9650SE-4LPML. According to Tom's Hardware, the 3Ware is faster. Any recommendations? EDIT: I was able to pick up an open-box ARC-1210 for only $250...so we will see how it works There is a 1220 available on ebay right now for $320 (tempting!) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1422033 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yachan Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Hmm, I was planning on getting a raid card as well but wasn't sure which would work best. Tell me how it goes with the Areca card. Btw, which intel ssd do you have? x25-m? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1422519 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 4, 2010 Author Share Posted March 4, 2010 Hmm, I was planning on getting a raid card as well but wasn't sure which would work best. Tell me how it goes with the Areca card. Btw, which intel ssd do you have? x25-m? I should get the card in tomorrow. I am anxious to finally resolve this and get some work done. I have g2 X25M, yachan. (Welcome, btw). EDIT: I should probably find a better benchmarking utility. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1422606 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 try AJA System Test.....the disk benchmark works very fine!! did you buy an Areca Arc-1210 or 1220??? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1423336 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 5, 2010 Author Share Posted March 5, 2010 I bought the 1210. I'll give AJA a try, but first I need to get OrCAD installed and do some work. Aperture runs nicely off the RAID volume. My new scans will reside on the RAID volume before being imported...which will be much nicer than the Drobo (which freaks out when trying to preview large tifs). EDIT: If only I bought the Areca and used AJA when you first suggested, BarboneNet, I would have saved myself time. The sequential transfer rates top out at a bit less than 225MB/s for read and writes...which is a bit lower This might be a bit slower than the RocketRAID 2640x4 (which was able to get 20-30MB/s more on reads transferring a large h264 file). The <64K block size performance is light years ahead of the RocketRAID, though, and the performance is pretty flat over block/file size. And unlike the RR, this card works beautifully in both OS X and Win 7. I wish I built a RAID0 and played around with it for a while...maybe another day. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1423339 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 aja system test is a good benchmark for hdd;) Areca for ever Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1424094 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yachan Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Hey Narayana, Seems like Areca was a good choice to make ;]. I'll probably try out the Areca 1220. Did you follow any specific guide, to setup the RAID? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1425020 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 Did you follow any specific guide, to setup the RAID? Not really, no. I probably had the manual when I was setting up the RAID, but I don't remember the BIOS utility being any more/less complicated than RocketRAID's solution. Initialization took about 45min in the foreground. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1425043 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yachan Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Kool. I have another question, is it possible to use the RAID card for both windows and mac. I'd like to try having 2 HDD in RAID-0 for mac, and 2 HDD in RAID-0 for windows, and probably have dual booting. You think it'll be tricky/impossible to do this? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1425182 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Kool. I have another question, is it possible to use the RAID card for both windows and mac. I'd like to try having 2 HDD in RAID-0 for mac, and 2 HDD in RAID-0 for windows, and probably have dual booting. You think it'll be tricky/impossible to do this? it's possible;) i will use areca for mac, and ich10r for windows;) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1425391 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 9, 2010 Author Share Posted March 9, 2010 If you want want a RAID0 volume for both mac and win, individually, then Barbone is right: Use the mobo raid for win, instead of buying the ARECA (which is pretty costly), maybe run a software RAID in OS X? Do you need to boot off either RAID volume? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1425553 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yachan Posted March 9, 2010 Share Posted March 9, 2010 Hmm, I was thinking of having them both RAID'd through the Areca (if thats possible). If not, I could do the windows on ich10r and mac on Areca 1210 (probably not the 1220, if I can't RAID both on a single card). Is there any performance difference from using ich10r with windows vs using Areca with windows? I wanted to be able to boot off either Windows or Mac (have Chameleon bring up the menu, allowing me to choose between OSs). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1425863 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 10, 2010 Author Share Posted March 10, 2010 You could set up 2 2-drive raid0 on the areca ARC-1210, it should work well. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1426340 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Hmm, I was thinking of having them both RAID'd through the Areca (if thats possible). If not, I could do the windows on ich10r and mac on Areca 1210 (probably not the 1220, if I can't RAID both on a single card). Is there any performance difference from using ich10r with windows vs using Areca with windows? I wanted to be able to boot off either Windows or Mac (have Chameleon bring up the menu, allowing me to choose between OSs). yes, you can use 2 RaidSet with different OS. For me, it is possible mod ARC-1210 to ARC-1220 ....the pcb is the same! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/page/2/#findComment-1426400 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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