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Spreading RAID 0 across SATA 3 controllers

Xyzzy_Frobozz
Level 7
Hi!

I have a RIVE motherboard which includes four SATA3 ports across two controllers (Intel and Marvell).

Previously I had a RAID 0 array of two SSDs plugged into my Intel controller. When I ran out of room on that array I added another SSD of the same brand and size to the array (Corsair Force 3 GS 240GB).

I now get much lower benchmark results than previously, with Sequential Read/Write performance in the in he 500MB/s region, where previously performance was around 1000MB/s.

Is this as a result of spreading the array across two SATA3 controllers? Is there anything I can do to improve performance to meet or exceed my old results with the SSDs I already own, or am I stuck with the limitations of the X79 platform?

This being the case, is a PCIe RAID Controller an option? If so, any suggestions?

Any help would be hugely appreciated!
- Rampage IV Extreme - i7 3820 - 16Gb Corsair Dominator GT - Asus RAIDR 240Gb - 4 x Corsair Force 3 240Gb - Corsair HX1050 - 2x Western Digital Caviar Black 1Tb - 2 x Asus GTX 780ti - Asus Xonar Phoebus - Corsair H100 - Corsair Carbide 400t -
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5 REPLIES 5

HiVizMan
Level 40
You can not cross controllers.

Their are heaps of quality RAID controllers and they are not that expensive at all. LSI are top, HighPoint RocketRAID are good to.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

HiVizMan wrote:
You can not cross controllers.

Their are heaps of quality RAID controllers and they are not that expensive at all. LSI are top, HighPoint RocketRAID are good to.


Thanks HVM.

The world of RAID controllers is both new and confusing to me. At the moment I have abandoned RAID 0 for an extended volume across the three drives, although I would like to have them in RAID 0.

The limited amount of review material of various controllers on the net leads me to believe that there are a number of compromises one makes when installing a RAID controller, the main one being an extended boot time.

To be clear, I have a separate SSD for my OS.

There seem to be very few four port SATA3 controllers available. I am also lead to believe that to achieve best performance I will need a controller with PCIe x4 compatibility. What I don't want is to buy a controller only toi find that the speed advantage is marginal. Given that most RAID controllers seem to use Marvell controller chips, and that these seem to tap out at around 650MB/s, I'm wondering whether it is worthwhile.

Many of my assumptions may be incorrect given that they arise from only a few hours research, so if anyone has more info to share it would be really appreciated.
- Rampage IV Extreme - i7 3820 - 16Gb Corsair Dominator GT - Asus RAIDR 240Gb - 4 x Corsair Force 3 240Gb - Corsair HX1050 - 2x Western Digital Caviar Black 1Tb - 2 x Asus GTX 780ti - Asus Xonar Phoebus - Corsair H100 - Corsair Carbide 400t -

Xyzzy Frobozz wrote:
Thanks HVM.

The world of RAID controllers is both new and confusing to me. At the moment I have abandoned RAID 0 for an extended volume across the three drives, although I would like to have them in RAID 0.

The limited amount of review material of various controllers on the net leads me to believe that there are a number of compromises one makes when installing a RAID controller, the main one being an extended boot time.

To be clear, I have a separate SSD for my OS.

There seem to be very few four port SATA3 controllers available. I am also lead to believe that to achieve best performance I will need a controller with PCIe x4 compatibility. What I don't want is to buy a controller only toi find that the speed advantage is marginal. Given that most RAID controllers seem to use Marvell controller chips, and that these seem to tap out at around 650MB/s, I'm wondering whether it is worthwhile.

Many of my assumptions may be incorrect given that they arise from only a few hours research, so if anyone has more info to share it would be really appreciated.

Be careful, choose one that is compatible W/RIVE. There is one top model that is not compatible (search this forum for the model to find out).
i7-3930K; Asus RIVE; G.SKILL Ripjaws Z 4x4GB DDR3 1866; MSI 7870 2GD5/OC; Crucial M4 SSD 256GB;
Corsair 1000HX; Corsair H100, 4x Excalibur 120mm PWM CPU Fan p-p, AS5; SB X-Fi Titanium Fata1ity Pro;
Dell U2412m IPS 1920x1200; Cooler Master HAF 932 case; Tripp-Lite OMNIVS1500 UPS fully Line-interactive.
(EVGA site: ) And I have a second (wife's) computer, Eve.

Overclocking is useless to me if it is not rock stable.

Praz
Level 13
RAID across multiple controllers needs to be done from within the operating system. The resultant array will not be bootable however.

Thanks, I'd already worked that much out.
- Rampage IV Extreme - i7 3820 - 16Gb Corsair Dominator GT - Asus RAIDR 240Gb - 4 x Corsair Force 3 240Gb - Corsair HX1050 - 2x Western Digital Caviar Black 1Tb - 2 x Asus GTX 780ti - Asus Xonar Phoebus - Corsair H100 - Corsair Carbide 400t -