Raid

[mystikmedia]

I read somewhere on the site that Mtron drives don't work with 3ware RAID controllers. Is that still true? The actual card being used is the 3Ware 9650SE-4LPML 4-port PCI-E SATA2 RAID Controller. I am hoping that is old information. Thanks.

[webmaster]

Actually, the new MTRON PRO series WORKS AWESOME in RAID! They solved the RAID controller compatibility problem with the PROs (now in stock). We have tested them successfully on RAID cards that did not work with the older MSD series. Check out our new benchmarks of the PRO series showing over 800MB/s SUSTAINED READ with over 1100MB/s burst on an Areca 1231ML RAID card with 256MB Cache RAM at http://www.dvnation.com/benchmarks.html . So I'm sure the PRO series will work great on your 3Ware.

[mystikmedia]

Actually, the new MTRON PRO series WORKS AWESOME in RAID! They solved the RAID controller compatibility problem with the PROs (now in stock). We have tested them successfully on RAID cards that did not work with the older MSD series. Check out our new benchmarks of the PRO series showing over 800MB/s SUSTAINED READ with over 1100MB/s burst on an Areca 1231ML RAID card with 256MB Cache RAM at http://www.dvnation.com/benchmarks.html . So I'm sure the PRO series will work great on your 3Ware.

Thanks much for the reply. The actual error being received is "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation". This is with 4 7000 PRO drives. Any suggestions? Thanks again in advance for any help.

[Turas]

I am curious to what the incompatibilty was with these? If these are seen as just hard drives then there should not be a problem. I have raided many different hard drives including sandisk ssd's and never had a problem. In my case I was only doing 2 ssd's though. I am looking to increase perfromance and storage and am thinking about getting 8 of the mtron ones for the size and performance. I hate to dish out the money for the 7000 series though when then 6000 is cheaper and give me the performance I am looking for. This is for my home workstation and will be hooked up to a Adaptec 31605 sas controller.

[mystikmedia]

I think the problem is with this specific RAID card. Once I got everything working, I am getting very bad performance (less tha what one drive should get). So, I am thinking about getting a different RAID card. I was considering a purchase of the Areca ARC-1210 since DV Nation seemed to have such good results from a card from that same family.

[k270kmh]

Actually, the new MTRON PRO series WORKS AWESOME in RAID! They solved the RAID controller compatibility problem with the PROs (now in stock). We have tested them successfully on RAID cards that did not work with the older MSD series. Check out our new benchmarks of the PRO series showing over 800MB/s SUSTAINED READ with over 1100MB/s burst on an Areca 1231ML RAID card with 256MB Cache RAM at http://www.dvnation.com/benchmarks.html . So I'm sure the PRO series will work great on your 3Ware.

By the way,

Does the MOBI3000 series have issues when in RAID-0? ? ?

[martinb]

I'm not sure if all the RAID Problems are solved with the PRO's.

We have some PRO's for testing here running them against an ATTO R380 SAS-RAID Controller card and we get very poor access time (1.2ms) and very inconsistent transfer rates, dropping from 400 MB/S to 15 MB/S randomly etc. etc.

Any ideas ?

[webmaster]

Well..The fact that your Atto RAID controller is "seeing" the MTRON PRO and "RAIDing them up" means they are compatible. Now performance is another issue. RAID performance will vary a great deal based on the controller you use. We have found that Areca Cards are very very fast wtih MTRON PRO. These same Areca cards would not even mount the first generation of MTRON SSDs. Completely incompatible! But the PROs run super fast! You can see the benchmarks we did at http://www.dvnation.com/benchmarks.html .

Another example is Intel Matrix RAID. It will not work well with first generation MTRONs. The controller takes about 5 minutes to identify the old MTRON SSDs! But the new PROs are recognized INSTANTLY! Performance is another issue. 2X MTRONs in RAID0 on the Intel Matrix RAID show a good performance boost (not as much as on an Areca card, but good nontheless). When we added a third SSD in RAID0 to simulate a maximum configuration in a Clevo D901C or D900C notebook, performance actually remained the SAME! No additional performance boost from going from 2 to 3 SSDs. It was still better than one SSD, but a better controller would have given an additional performance boost.

Another issue is one we have written about. STRIPE SIZE. The Areca cards are so powerful that it really doesn't matter what stripe size you choose. But lesser controllers should be set for a stripe size of 16K or 32K. Advice for standard hard disks is usuall 128K. If you do not see s straight line for reads and writes using HD Tach, then adjust your stripe size, and chances are the that bar will also rise to a higher sustained read and write!

[martinb]

Thanks for explaining and helping.

Yes, the ATTO does see the MTRON's and I can setup a Raid 0 array with all 6 disks, no problem.

But HDTach shows only around 100 MB Sustained rate, and 1.2ms access time. I'm wondering if there is a general problem with this Atto R380 controller and the MTRON's ?

The Atto Benchmark Tool shows all kind of numbers, with random drops, peeks etc. The numbers go from realistic (700 MB/S read) to unrealistic (1100 MB/s read) and then suddently drop to 15 MB for read which is pointless for a SSD drive, while in the same moment, the write rate stays at an unrealistic level of 900 MB/s.

PS: I have an ARECA 1120 ML around, but correct cables are missing. I cannot get hold of an ARECA 1231 ML here in europe, they are not in stock anywhere.

Any ideas ? Do you think the cabeling or the computer hosting the controller (dual-proc opteron ws) could be the problem ?