LSI SAS 9300-8e & HGST Ultrastar SSD800MM: 12 Gb/s SAS, Tested

[stuckintexas]

With the announcement of LSI's SAS 9300-8e and HGST's Ultrastar SSD800MM earlier this year, the world was officially introduced to 12 Gb/s SAS. Today we get our first look at how two times the interface bandwidth translates to real-world performance.

LSI SAS 9300-8e & HGST Ultrastar SSD800MM: 12 Gb/s SAS, Tested : Read more

 

[slomo4sho]

Now only if this technology was viable for home builds. Maybe in a couple years?

 

[major-error]

The performance and relative maturity of this prototype drive certainly is impressive, but this is what the enterprise space demands.
At the consumer level though, the article takes on a completely different tone--I would be very surprised if we don't start seeing mention of PCIe4 at/before the top of the next CPU cycle (so, in 24-36 months at most.)

 

[raidtarded]

Actually, Adaptec already saturated PCIe 3.0 with 6GB/s. The chart is incorrect, it doesn't take 12Gb/s to saturate the PCIe bus. Well, not for Adaptec.

 

[falcompsx]

Remember when mechanical hard drives struggled to saturate their interfaces? Times sure have changed with SSD tech.

 

[CaedenV]

The performance and relative maturity of this prototype drive certainly is impressive, but this is what the enterprise space demands.
At the consumer level though, the article takes on a completely different tone--I would be very surprised if we don't start seeing mention of PCIe4 at/before the top of the next CPU cycle (so, in 24-36 months at most.)

Ya, my bet is that we will not start to see SATA4 or PCIe4 until Skymont at the earliest. Considering it is looking like Broadwell may be pushed back due to 14nm die shrink issues I would bet that Skymont will have similar issues when moving to 10nm. But at least for home users you can cram 2 SSDs in RAID0 with a proper RAID card and get a little performance boost until then. I guess the only problem is that most people are going to use the onboard Intel RAID for RAID0, which will get you a killer synthetic benchmark, but in practical reality it is really just expanding your volume with very little speed benefit.

 

[kj3639]

Go HGST! WOO!!!!

 

[bit_user]

* wipes drool off floor *

That's a quality review of some quality products. I like the insights shared, throughout. I especially appreciated the link to the SATA-Express paper. Thanks!

MORE REVIEWS LIKE THIS!!

 

[bit_user]

Actually, Adaptec already saturated PCIe 3.0 with 6GB/s. The chart is incorrect, it doesn't take 12Gb/s to saturate the PCIe bus. Well, not for Adaptec.

How many ports and how many lanes, though? If it's just a 8-port card, the math doesn't support that, as 6x8 = 48 Gbps, which is less than the 8 x 8 = 64 Gbps that a x8 PCIe 3.0 slot should carry.

 

[raidtarded]

It is the equivalent of a nuke bomb compared to the LSI products. It has 24 Native ports.

Actually, Adaptec already saturated PCIe 3.0 with 6GB/s. The chart is incorrect, it doesn't take 12Gb/s to saturate the PCIe bus. Well, not for Adaptec.

How many ports and how many lanes, though? If it's just a 8-port card, the math doesn't support that, as 6x8 = 48 Gbps, which is less than the 8 x 8 = 64 Gbps that a x8 PCIe 3.0 slot should carry.

 

[raidtarded]

It is a 24 port native raid controller. smokes the 4 ports.

 

[drewriley]

Actually, Adaptec already saturated PCIe 3.0 with 6GB/s. The chart is incorrect, it doesn't take 12Gb/s to saturate the PCIe bus. Well, not for Adaptec.

How many ports and how many lanes, though? If it's just a 8-port card, the math doesn't support that, as 6x8 = 48 Gbps, which is less than the 8 x 8 = 64 Gbps that a x8 PCIe 3.0 slot should carry.

The graph is slightly misleading because it includes some assumptions. I mentioned the x8 assumption, and you found the other major one, which limits it to 8 port cards. Also, they list the SAS throughput with 8b/10b taken into account.

 

[drewriley]

It is a 24 port native raid controller. smokes the 4 ports.

I personally love the Adaptec 72405, it is amazing that they can provide 24 native ports and absolutely amazing sequential performance. But, when you look at external connectivity, there isn't a ton of difference. Adaptec has a version with 16 external ports, or 16x6Gbps, which is 96Gbps. LSI has an 8 port version, which gives you 8x12Gbps, or 96Gbps. While Adaptec allows you to connect more drives without the use of expanders, LSI allows you to get better performance per drive. I really like the fact that we have two companies catering to high-end RAID that offer different solutions, which gives us, the customer, the most flexibility.

 

[drewriley]

* wipes drool off floor *

That's a quality review of some quality products. I like the insights shared, throughout. I especially appreciated the link to the SATA-Express paper. Thanks!

MORE REVIEWS LIKE THIS!!

Thank you, I appreciate the feedback!