eva2000

4x 32GB OCZ SSD Core series 2.5" drives from http://pcmaniacs.com.au




OCZ has some information stickies in their support forums regarding these OCZ SSD core disks:

• Configuration & Setup PDF guide
• Troubleshooting - Installing and configuring your new OCZ SSD
• OCZ Core SSD - Tested boards

System:

• E8500 Q740A479T 2L7 / 1313
• CPU Cooling: Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme rev 1.0 F6c bios
• 128MB Gainward FX5200 PCI
• 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 dual channel kit
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 74GB Western Digital Raptor OS drive
• 4x 32GB OCZ Core SSD 2.5" solid state disks
• Pioneer 215 DVD-RW
• 1200W Silverstone OP1200
• WinXP Pro SP2 Nlite Fully Updated.

Single 32MB OCZ Core SSD / ICH10R controller

First up in non-raid ICH10R controller results of which all 4x 32GB OCZ Core SSDs were pretty consistent in showing same numbers. Different benchmarks tested the SSDs differently so results were a bit all over the place.

HDtach 32MB Long test


HDTune 2.55 freeware


HDTune Pro trial read and write tests


Everest Read Suite and Write tests






AttoBench v2.34

eva2000

4x32GB OCZ SSD Core Raid Preparation

I plan to try out raid for both WinXP Pro 32bit and Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit with on board motherboard raid controller as well as use 3rd party hardware raid controllers eventually as well.

To prepare for the on board motherboard raid controller usage, I had tried to integrate the drivers into a new nLite unattended OS build from WinXP Pro SP3 disk. But that failed to install properly, so will be rebuilding a new nLite OS build from WinXP Pro SP3 disk but not make it unattended so I can use F6 method to load the raid drivers if the integrated driver method doesn't work.

I will follow Fernado_1's guide http://www.msfn.org/board/Integratio...e-t107504.html to try integrating the Intel Storage Manager v8.5.0.1032 dated 08/03/2008 package.

EP45 Extreme
4x 32GB OCZ Core SSD raid 0 - 128K Stripe on ICH10R controller

The EP45 Extreme F6c bios came with Intel Storage Manger ROM version 8.0.0.1039 which i used to created 4x32GB OCZ Core SSD raid 0 array with recommended 128K stripe size. Here's what you see at boot up prior to windows loading. AHCI bios installed is also displayed - does this mean AHCI is enabled by default ?



Then I did a fresh WinXP Pro SP3 install (technet SP3 cd no-slipstream) which had integrated Intel Storage Manager 8.5.0.1032 raid drivers. The 128GB raid 0 array was partitioned as illustrated below:



Intel Storage Manger 8.5.0.1039 nLite integrated driver



Benchmark Apps used:

• Attobench v2.34
• Everest Ultimate 4.50.1469 Read Test Suite
• HDtach 3.0.4.0
• HDtune 2.55
• PCmark05 HDD Tests - DEP disabled only

Notes straight from OCZ config/setup PDF guide:

• HDTune uses fixed strides across the array to measure small block sizes. If these blocks fall on page or chip boundaries, the time delays result in atypically low “calculated” performance spot data that are not representative of the drive’s real performance but an artifact stemming from inadequate testing methodology.
• HDTach’s fixed strides between sample points causes similar issues as those outlined in HDTune, in this case, the periodicities of the stride pattern and the flash memory address space cause some wave-like interference patterns of the benchmark results that are also measuring artifacts rather than being indicative of performance.
• AHCI: the Advanced Host Controller Interface allows Hot-Plugging and Native Commands Queuing as well as multithreaded access of the drive by applications. Enabling AHCI results in conflicts between the controller and the drive that are apparent as sluggish overall system performance.
• Benchmarks that actually work are those that are not geared towards quick and dirty assessment of a HDDs performance based on optimization of the test algorithms to meet the typical HDD architecture. Examples are PCMark Vantage, Winbench 99 2.0 “Drive Inspection Test” or ATTO.
• Differences in Addressing Compared to HDD: Conventional hard disk drives utilize rotating platters that are divided into cylinders (tracks), where each track contains a certain number of sectors. Each sector is 512 Bytes long. In addition, HDD platters contain servo bursts that are reserved areas for track information etc. Most HDD benchmarks are configured such that the benchmark effectively tests the data area, if a test block is given that spans across a servo burst or else from one track to the next, then the benchmark usually generates inconsistent benchmark results.
• SSDs use a completely different address system, which is based on “chips,” “planes,” “blocks,” and “pages.” Each page contains 4 Kbytes of data, however, because of the parallelism at the back end of the controller, every access includes simultaneous opening of 16 pages for a total accessible data contingent of 64 Kbytes. Each block contains 128 pages and the number of blocks per chip defines the total density of the chip.
• PCmark Vantage - The HDD test is intended to mirror real life applications and is recommended as a key comparator versus other SSDs and HDD. This is currently the benchmark of Choice for SSDS or HDDs.
• Standard HDD benchmarking software - The industry standard benchmarks for the last decade have been Winbench99, especially “Drive Inspection Test,” IOMeter, and ATTO. For general media performance WB99 2.0 is still the test of choice since instead of spot checking, the entire storage media is tested. This causes the test to run longer than HDTach or HDTune but the results are accurate representations of the media performance across the drive instead of extrapolations of spot data.
• ATTO is the preferred Standard benchmarking software as while it runs spot data is has several advantages over other HDD benchmarks including the fact that It shows the specific speed of each file size transfer and shows a true average , this benchmarking product also doesn’t seem to favor SRAM over DRAM caches .

System:

• E8500 Q740A479T 2L7 / 1313
• CPU Cooling: Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme rev 1.0 F6c bios
• 128MB Gainward FX5200 PCI
• 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 dual channel kit
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 4x 32GB OCZ Core SSD 2.5" solid state disks raid 0 - 128K stripe
• Pioneer 215 DVD-RW
• 1200W Silverstone OP1200
• WinXP Pro SP3 Nlite with integrated Intel Storage Manger 8.5.0.1032 raid drivers

Results:
As mentioned by OCZ, each app resulted in varying results due to the way the app tested the SSD array. Attobench (which OCZ recommends as the app to use to test OCZ SSD Core series) and Everest probably showed a more accurate result. HDtach and HDtune showed 4x32GB OCZ Core SSD raid 0 results similar to that of a single non-raid 32GB OCZ Core SSD though which I'm sure is definitely wrong ?

I ran each app in 2 configurations:

Config 1: with DEP enabled by default with Performance Option set to default Programs
Config 2: with DEP disabled and Performance Option set to System cache.



Write back Hard drive data cache on raid 0 array was set to enabled



Results will be displayed with Config 1 (left), Config 2 (right).

Attobench v2.34

C drive - OS partition


E drive


F drive

Everest Ultimate 4.50.1469 Read Test Suite

425-493MB/s speeds with DEP disabled with System cache priority giving slightly faster performance.

HDtach 3.0.4.0

Virtually identical performance although results closer to non-raid single 32GB OCZ Core SSD and no where near what 4x32GB raid 0 config should be. Probably, hdtach needs an update for ICH10R / 4x32GB SSD raid 0 ?

HDtune 2.55

Similar to HDtach - showing non-raid single SSD like performance.



Update: Seems I might not have write back caching enabled for the raid volume itself which could explain weird results ? Only have hard drive data cache enabled for the array.

hard drive data cache enabled on array


Volume Write back cache disabled


After some reading, seems Volume Write back cache is an option for Raid 5 configs only.

PCmark05 HDD Tests - DEP disabled only

Installed Pcmark05 on the SSD raid 0 array - which took 17 seconds to install

I only did the PCmark05 HDD tests and since I have the Advance paid version I ran 3 tests to test each partition on the SSD raid 0 array - C, E and F drives. Highest score again was on the partition with the most free disk space - Drive F with a score of 12,667.



I plugged in my original non-raid single 74GB Western Digital Raptor 8MB drive which is full of data and OS etc, and chose the most free disk space partition - Drive J to run a PCmark05 HDD test for comparison.



Tabulated results:


Update: Oct, 2008 Wolf-tech has some interesting info posted in this thread 4x 32GB OCZ SSD Core 2.5" SATAII solid state disks tests about a known issue where setting up raid in non-consecutively plugged in SATA ports like I did above will result in lower performance similar to single disk performance. I didn't have a chance to test this theory out as the system has been broken down to make way for new boards to test. But you folks are free to test this out and report your findings here

eva2000

Single 32GB OCZ Core SSD NTFS 4K, 16K, 32K, 64K
Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit

Swapped over to Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit for some single non-OS 32GB OCZ Core SSD tests of different NTFS cluster sizes between 4K, 16K, 32K and 64K.

• E8600 Q820A599 **0464
• CPU Cooling: Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme rev 1.0 F6k bios
• 512MB Inno3D 8800GT OC Edition @700/1732/2000
• 2x1GB Team PC2-10400 C6 dual channel kit
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATAII OS disk
• 4x 32GB OCZ Core SSD 2.5" solid state disks single disk mode
• Pioneer 216 DVD-RW
• 1200W Silverstone OP1200
• Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit - vLite + post SP1 hotfix/updates

Notes:

• Remember my results are on Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit with latest hotfix/updates integrated via vLite
• I setup OCZ SSD Core as non-OS disks as i wanted to try write testings but Everest Ultimate 4.50.1494 beta write tests throws an error so below only read test suite tested. I previously set these OCZ SSD Core disks to raid mode on ICH10R and it seems I forgot to reset them to non-raid via Intel Storage Manager so not sure if that was the problem. Will retest later.
• Seems for this motherboard + Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit, 4k NTFS clusters was best for OCZ SSD Cores compared to 16K, 32K, 64K NTFS cluster size.

Settings:

• Indexing disabled
• Superfetch enabled
• System Restore disabled
• Enabled advance performance

ATTO Bench v2.34

4K default cluster on Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit had an even faster result than my Windows XP Pro SP2 Atto Bench but the 16K-64K Vista results were similar to my Windows XP Pro SP2.

320GB Seagate 7200.10 OS disk


OCZ SSD Core NTFS 4K vs 16K cluster


OCZ SSD Core NTFS 32K vs 64K cluster

HDTune 2.55

4K vs 16K (right)


32K vs 64K (right)

Everest Ultimate 4.50.1494 Beta

Read suite tests
4K cluster had highest random read (132.1MB/s), while 16K cluster clearly had a higher buffered read (163.9MB/s). 16K, 32K, 64K all had slight faster Average read access of 0.42ns versus 4K at 0.43ns.

4K followed by 16K (left) and 32K followed by 64K (right)

PCmark05 HDD Test

16K cluster just slightly won our due to higher XP Startup speed, followed by 32K, 64K and then 4K cluster although they're fairly close when you look at the break down individual HDD test suite sub tests.

320GB Seagate 7200.10 OS


4K vs 16K NTFS cluster


32K vs 64K NTFS cluster

eva2000

IOMETER 64bit 4K Random Write (100%) / Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit
Single 32GB OCZ Core SSD tests

I don't have much experience with iometer so will just post both newkleer's outlined config results and Tony's config results and let the experts chew on the results

• E8600 Q820A599 **0464
• CPU Cooling: Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme rev 1.0 F6k bios
• 512MB Inno3D 8800GT OC Edition @700/1732/2000
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 32GB OCZ Core SSD OS disk
• 3x 32GB OCZ Core SSD 2.5" solid state disks single disk mode (bios set with RAID)
• 640GB Samsung HD642JJ
• Pioneer 216 DVD-RW
• 1200W Silverstone OP1200
• Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit

• Newkleer config tests on SSD2
• Tony config tests on SSD3

Newkleer 4k random write 100% config
vs
Tony 4k random write 100%
Only diff is maxdisk size on Tony's config is = 0



iobw.tst file sizes

• newkleer config = 10GB if you leave iometer to prepare then bench drive
• tony config = 1.24GB if you abort preparation of drive after 10 seconds

Newkleer config result on SSD2
vs
Tony config result on SSD3



Managed to get Everest Ultinmate 4.60 Write tests to run if the SSD disk is not formatted at all.



Atto Bench v2.34
- both 32MB and 256MB length tests



Regardless, to this day, i haven't experienced any stuttering or freezing or problems installing WinXP Pro SP2/SP3 and Vista Ultimate SP1 32bit or 64bit in single drive or raid 0 for my 4x32GB OCZ SSD Core.

eva2000

IOMETER 64bit 4K Random Write (100%) Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit 2x32GB OCZ Core Raid 0

This time converted SSD2 & SSD3 drives into a raid 0 128K stripe volume using Intel Storage Manger within windows and redid the Iometer 64bit 4K random write (100%) tests along with some Everest Utlimate 4.6, HDtune and Atto Bench 2.34 benchmarks. Will be using newkleer's outlined config

• E8600 Q820A599 **0464
• CPU Cooling: Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme rev 1.0 F6k bios
• 512MB Inno3D 8800GT OC Edition @700/1732/2000
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 32GB OCZ Core SSD OS disk
• 2x 32GB OCZ Core SSD 2.5" solid state disks Raid 0 on ICH10R 128K Stripe
• 32GB OCZ Core SSD data disk
• 640GB Samsung HD642JJ
• Pioneer 216 DVD-RW
• 1200W Silverstone OP1200
• Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit

Default volume write back cache is disabled, so enabled it by checking the 'enable advance performance box' in volume's properties tab or via right clicking the Raid 0 volume in Intel Storage Manager application.



Iometer 64bit - 4K random writes (100%)
2x32GB OCZ Core SSD raid 0 doubled the random 4k writes I/O per second and halved the average I/O response time but increased maximum I/O response time by ~50%.



Atto Bench 2.34 - 32M and 256MB length


HDtune 2.55
Weird how write cache is reported as unchecked here.



Everest Ultimate 4.60 Read suite & Random Write & Average Write Access
Looks like 2x32GB OCZ SSD Core raid 0 improved random write averages three fold from single 32GB OCZ SSD Core disk from ~25MB/s single to ~76MB/s in raid 0 and improved average write access times by just over 36%.

eva2000

Update: Full results have been posted in a new thread > OCZ Core SSD 2.5" solid state disk Raid - Highpoint RocketRaid 3520LF PCI-E x8 Raid controller



Preview of what I have planned for next stage for these OCZ SSD Core 2.5" drives

Click thumbnail to view larger photo, and use left and right arrow keys to cycle through the photos.


What a difference a real hardware raid controller with 256MB cache makes compared to onboard ICH9R/10R raid controllers! Highpoint RocketRaid 3520LF + 4x32GB OCZ SSD Core V1 raid 0 = ATTO 500+MB read/300+ MB writes, pcmark05 hdd test = 38,000+ and Everest Random Write ~179MB/s average

Compiling numbers/results now, so keep an eye out or even better yet, subcribe to this thread to get email notification for updates

Update: Had to get some of the awesome numbers out there, so here's a preview for ATTO Bench 256MB length and HDTach 32MB with 4x32GB OCZ SSD Core V1 raid 0 in various controller block size configurations.

ATTO Bench 256MB
256K Block size saw ATTO pull out well over 500+ MB/s read and 300+ MB/s write

16K Block size vs 64K Block size


128K Block size vs 256K Block size


HDTach 32MB
Again 256K Block size led the way with 482.8MB/s average read speed and 1002MB/s burst speeds

16K Block size vs 64K Block size


128K Block size vs 256K Block size

JAFFA

Interesting results so far George, very curious that HDTach and HDTune seem to have issues with a 4 disk array. Did you set writeback cache to enabled?

eva2000

thanks for reminding me about that - write back cache is enabled on array - forgot to include the screenshot so updated 2nd post

I'll reinstall other apps like pcmark05 and some video encoding stuff so can do further tests. Part of the reason I got these SSDs is to see how it would improve video encoding times over regular disks