Hardrive performance with 8x PCI-Express RAID card?

[Guest djt01]

Is anyone here using a PCI Express 8x card vs. the 4x 3ware 9650se 4L? I asked over at Sim Forums.com but the only RAID card anyone has any experience with is the 4x PCI Express 9650se 4L that NickN recommended. I

[Guest Nick_N]

There is no difference in performance.. its the same card as the one I specified except its 8 lane instead of 4The card is for RAID or non-RAID, either way

[Guest djt01]

There is no difference in performance.. its the same card as the one I specified except its 8 lane instead of 4The card is for RAID or non-RAID, either way

Thanks for the response. I was wondering if the added bandwidth from the 8 lane PCI-Express connectivity would possibly help performance.

[Guest Nick_N]

Thanks for the response. I was wondering if the added bandwidth from the 8 lane PCI-Express connectivity would possibly help performance.

The use of the PCIe 8x system allows for completely uninhibited data IO in RAID which is not possible on motherboard ports. Be it 4 or 8 lane matters not as both cards use the PCIe system which far exceeds the bandwidth of the SATAII system on a motherboard. If the user has a need for more drives than the 4L card will address the 8L card becomes the option.

[Guest djt01]

The use of the PCIe 8x system allows for completely uninhibited data IO in RAID which is not possible on motherboard ports. Be it 4 or 8 lane matters not as both cards use the PCIe system which far exceeds the bandwidth of the SATAII system on a motherboard. If the user has a need for more drives than the 4L card will address the 8L card becomes the option.

That answered my question, thanks again.You haven

[Guest Nick_N]

That answered my question, thanks again.You haven

[TechguyMaxC 516]

SSD vs SAS vs SATA RAID - via Adaptec 5805/Areca 1680 PCI-e host controllersInteresting non-sequential performance results in particular. Would be nice to see some FSX testing.

[Guest Nick_N]

SSD vs SAS vs SATA RAID - via Adaptec 5805/Areca 1680 PCI-e host controllersInteresting non-sequential performance results in particular. Would be nice to see some FSX testing.

The thing is.. the only advantage they 'may' offer is reduced CPU cycles. Right now a (looking at perf/storage size -vs- cost) Vrap will feed the system files at nearly the same rate the system can process and render them to the screen.. move to RAID on a controller and it exceeds the systems ability. So these SSD drives in reality do not add much to a MSFS system other than reduced resources to process. They are also volatile. I can store a HDD and hook it up years later to find my data in tact.. with SSD thats not trueI think they are heading in the right direction but I also think its going to be a few more years before that platform is really ready for prime time

[TechguyMaxC 516]

What of access times? I wouldn't be so quick to overlook a difference in performance of orders of magnitude for any performance metric, least of all latency, particularly when discussing a real-time application.

[Guest Nick_N]

What of access times? I wouldn't be so quick to overlook a difference in performance of orders of magnitude for any performance metric, least of all latency, particularly when discussing a real-time application.

I am not discounting anything. We used SSD units in all military aircraft designs at McD/and Boeing, primary for security and remote destruction and I am well aware of the downfalls and the benefits. The tech goes back about 20 years. I also have a set of 5 year old military spec SSD in SCSI RAID here. The truth is they will not provide anything more than what a WD Velociraptor will provide simply because the bottleneck is not the drives at that point.The only advantage they can provide in todays home systems (high perf or not) is less CPU overhead. The access and delivery is well above what any system can process in real time rendering to the screenAdd in the fact they are volatile and the bottom line is they are not for game systems .. scientific research and AV editing, yes.. gaming, no.Not worth the costIt will be at least another year+ before such drives have merit for game applicationThe biggest setback is motherboards simply do not have the bandwidth available for multi SSD till SATAIII launchesThe problems they have been dealing with are directly tied to the interface. SSD works fine on a specifically designed controller system as I mentioned they have been in use for many, many years. They were introduced for use in the late 80's and were used for the space shuttle as well as military. They have been dealing with trying to mainstream the platform which is where the issues come up as the platform was never meant for the current system protocolsEDIT: As a side note, in 1995 a 10GB SSD solution was about 62 thousand dollars if purchased in bulk. :(

[TechguyMaxC 516]

I'm not talking about game performance, at least not in terms of FPS. Application loading times and file loading while the application is running (i.e. less stuttering) are the entire scope of my reference to performance, WRT this discussion. Higher minimum FPS whilst IO-bound (i.e. paging operations) would be the only direct correlation between fast SSDs and FPS. Given the large dataset and sheer amount of files which MSFS (any recent version) utilizes, I'd say an SSD with a decent controller and performance-oriented firmware (read: Intel X25) would be a great drive to use. Also, the SATA 3G interface only limits peak data transfer rate, not the average.