Running 5x WoWs on a capped server using the latest intel X25 SSD

[Evilseed]

Hey all,

I just upgraded my monster gaming rig to include some new fun stuff. A few days ago I got my hands on the fastest commercial SSD (solid state drive) around. The Intel x25e http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/extreme/index.htm are extraordinarily fast.

For example, my prior system setup with 5 wows on 1 PC across 2x30" monitors would yield me a total sum of about 68 combined FPS in an extremely busy dalaran. I tossed in one of those intel x25e 64GB drives and my combined FPS increased to about 140 combined FPS in an extremely busy dalaran. The performance increase is extremely huge.

Today I bought 4 more of the intel x25e 64gig SSD drives on a sata3 raid0/1 controller and now I can obtain 60fps on EACH of my 5 multiboxing wow windows on my 2 30" monitors. My graphical settings are pretty much maxed on each wow window. I have 4x ati 4870 overclocked GPUs and dual skulltrail intel CPUs oc'd as well.

I did some digging into why these intel SSDs provide such a massive performance gain and it is all about the IOPS and seek times. The real strain on a PC is that running multiple wows, symlinked or not, requires a ton of random reads from random files. The more reads that exist, the lower your throughput will be. For example, while 1 read constant may yield you 100mbs, 10 reads will NOT yield you 10mbps per read. Rather, it'll do maybe 1.5mbps per read. The reason for the througput cut is the seek time latency. With my raid0/1 array using 4x x25e SSDs, I'm able to hit over 1000mb/s read *and* write, and can have 10,000 open file handlers reading/writing and still obtain over 400mbs. My wow multiboxing is now insane.

Anyway, for those of you who want to increase your multiboxing framerate and experience on 1 PC, I extremely highly recommend getting an intel x25 SSD. You don't need the E versions, you can get the cheaper 80gig x25 units for $500 from newegg.com. These are the fastest commercial SSD units around.

EDIT: I was succesfully able to 20box on 1 PC using these drives. The framerate was very good, around 560 combined FPS in the starting area of taurens.

My hardware is:
2x intel skulltrail qx9775 cpus overclocked to ~4.98ghz. Liquid nitrogen ftw.
4x ati 4870 overclocked ~840mhz 2gig gfx cards (these things have more horsepower than my cpus lol)
16gb ocz -ee custom ram running in ~3s
4x WD 15krpm SATA3 500g in RAID10
2x WD 15krpm SATA3 1TB (custom drives)
1x Intel x25 80gb SSD
4x Intel x25e 64gb SSD in raid1 (and tried 0)
A big ass power supply which has more mods in it then I care to list :p

EDIT#2 Hmm I can't remember why I'm running my gfx cards at such a low frequency. I think I could run them at 1.3ghz each. Oooh more funs to be had!

[Hachoo]

Oh lord I can see Sam getting his credit card out right now...

[Evilseed]

Oh lord I can see Sam getting his credit card out right now...Who is Sam? He had better have a big limit card, I think my rig is approaching $30k lol.

[Starbuck_Jones]

What raid controller are you using? Is it a true hardware controller or a driver based raid controller? I have 3 boxes two of them have 2 disk raid 0's and the third has a 3disk raid 0, all driver based on-board raid provided by the motherboards. Im tempted to just break the raid and have each HDD run a copy of wow. The 3disk raid 0 (my main box) actually takes about twice as long to load screens than the 2 slave boxes running 2 copies each. But once its loaded it never slows down like the slaves do eventualy.

[Wilbur]

Sam is the forums chief egomaniac/douche.

[Multibocks]

Holy crap that is a freakin dream machine! Why have you spent so much on it? Is it a business write off? To each his own, lol. I thought I spent a lot at 4500, but damn 30k is unreal.


P.S. get back to work on your program mister /crackswhip

[Creazil]

2x intel skulltrail qx9775 cpus overclocked to ~4.98ghz. Liquid nitrogen ftw. Do you run with liquid nitrogen standard? 8|

[Lyonheart]

I get those frame rates on my rig. I play Crysis on very high settings ( original Crysis ) an average of 45 fps. I use 2 24' screens for wow, 5 acnts. all for just under 2200.00. my rig can be found by searching my posts 8) And yes i run through Dal on high settings ( if i want to.. why when im only looking at the main screen? ) with next to zero lag.

[Evilseed]

What raid controller are you using? Is it a true hardware controller or a driver based raid controller? I have 3 boxes two of them have 2 disk raid 0's and the third has a 3disk raid 0, all driver based on-board raid provided by the motherboards. Im tempted to just break the raid and have each HDD run a copy of wow. The 3disk raid 0 (my main box) actually takes about twice as long to load screens than the 2 slave boxes running 2 copies each. But once its loaded it never slows down like the slaves do eventualy.It is a hardware raid controller with 512M ram and dual lion battery backups. To be honest I don't recall 100% as I don't have the software stuff installed (the card beeps when a raid has an error). I'm pretty sure it is an adaptec I just don't remember which one. It has a bazillion SATA ports on it heh.

EDIT: Its like this one but with twice the memory and an external battery supplies. It doesn't have as many ports tho, so I think it may be a little cheaper. http://www.avadirect.com/product_details_parts.asp?PRID=9419

[Evilseed]

2x intel skulltrail qx9775 cpus overclocked to ~4.98ghz. Liquid nitrogen ftw. Do you run with liquid nitrogen standard? 8|Yup it is almost a fanless system. The CPU, GFX and bridges are all cored with unique thermals to an external assembly which handles the pumping, reservoir, and extra storage. It vents to the outside and I fill it up every 2 weeks or so. The unit is completely custom made by some high tech fab company so theres no real names I can give out. It leaked a few times though due to compression seals wearing away in the extreme temperatures. Luckily those were on the external unit not on the thermal conductors or I woulda shit my pants and then cried.

[Evilseed]

I get those frame rates on my rig. I play Crysis on very high settings ( original Crysis ) an average of 45 fps. I use 2 24' screens for wow, 5 acnts. all for just under 2200.00. my rig can be found by searching my posts 8) And yes i run through Dal on high settings ( if i want to.. why when im only looking at the main screen? ) with next to zero lag.I said 560 combined frames per second not 45. No, it wasn't a typo :)

[Starbuck_Jones]

Sounds like a Cerc SATA 6 or something. Good to know its a HW controler.

[Evilseed]

Sounds like a Cerc SATA 6 or something. Good to know its a HW controler.Yea the key is to not get something dependent upon the OS. For example, if you are rebuilding a critical raid array and your windows OS crashes and you have a software raid... well that is super risky and you have a very super high chance of total failure. With a hardware controller if you are rebuilding a critical raid and your PC freezes, guess what? The raid continues to rebuild cuz the controller has its own cpu/memory/etc.

[Bovidae]

First, pics or it didn't happen. I would love to see the plumbing on an every day liquid nitrogen cooling system.

Second, is condensation a problem? If not, how do you keep your rig from becoming encased in ice and the subsequent water damage when it thaws?

[puppychow]

That has to be the craziest hardware setup I've ever heard of, insane props to you :) Very interesting that your performance went up going from 1 SSD to 5 SSDs, I guess it really does prove that file I/O is the bottleneck for WoW. Since my wife will kill me and divorce me (not in that order) if I spent $2500 on 5 SSDs, I will have to live vicarously through your rig :(

[Hachoo]

The only thing that seems weird to me is the whole 5x SSD for dalaran thing... When I first fly to Dalaran, my HD obviously goes nuts. After about 30 seconds my HD hardly gets used. Very rarely as I'm running through the city will I get a few flashes as new players or whatnot load up but for the most part my HD isn't used after it initially caches everything.

[Moorea]

Is this same vaporware as the software you were releasing "soon" ?
("My uber awesome program I've spoken about (dubbed MC) will be officially released this Monday, January 11th.")

Using symlinks and OS cache (ie more memory) is a much cheaper way to achieve good performance; but as said above: picture or it didn't happen...

[Evilseed]

Since my wife will kill me and divorce me (not in that order) if I spent $2500 on 5 SSDs, I will have to live vicarously through your rig :(Actually the raid is 4 drives not 5 (I have a 5th to test the non E SSD). However, the cost was about $1100ish per drive, making it $4400 not $2500 hehe.

[Evilseed]

Is this same vaporware as the software you were releasing "soon" ?
("My uber awesome program I've spoken about (dubbed MC) will be officially released this Monday, January 11th.")

Using symlinks and OS cache (ie more memory) is a much cheaper way to achieve good performance; but as said above: picture or it didn't happen...Well the pics will fall into the same category of my so called vaporware (the website is built now, absolutely gorgeous, but my lawyer said I need to tag along a little EULA to the software so ppl don't sue me when they program the mouse to click their PC's self destruct button, so it'll be 1-2 more days lol). By that category I mean that I'm extremely lazy and prolly won't post picture.

Oh, I think I posted my current rig or prior rig on the DB site a long while ago with $100,000 in cash scattered around it. Search and show me the link yo!

[Sajuuk]

Is it okay if kill you and take your computer?

Edit: And your job?

:p

[Moorea]

I'll believe it when (if ever) I see it - for now you lost all credibility and maybe should consider working a bit if you care about restoring it.

Let see if you can find which word this defines

"A compulsion to embroider the truth, engage in exaggeration, or tell lies."

Didn't see any picture; but found this interesting post of yours from Feb 2008:

Mobile WoW officially being considered ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=36059&highlight=#post36059')
Heya guys!

I'm glad you think a mobile WoW would be really cool. Why? Because I am about to release a Mobile WoW Player very soon!

Basically
it lets you play WoW on your Windows Mobile cell phones, full video and
sound. Very slick. I have it on my cell phone now and it is neat as
hell.

I'm working out some final bugs but I intend to have this done ASAP.

Anybody interested in beta testing?Seems like maybe the way you make money is scamming people into giving you their personal contact info ? what do you do with it; sell it ? spread viruses ?

How many more lies you posted ?

[Evilseed]

Is it okay if kill you and take your computer?

Edit: And your job?

:pJust don't ask my GF that same question of me :)

[Evilseed]

I'll believe it when (if ever) I see it - for now you lost all credibility and maybe should consider working a bit if you care about restoring it.

Let see if you can find which word this defines

"A compulsion to embroider the truth, engage in exaggeration, or tell lies."

Didn't see any picture; but found this interesting post of yours from Feb 2008:

Mobile WoW officially being considered ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=36059&highlight=#post36059')

Heya guys!

I'm glad you think a mobile WoW would be really cool. Why? Because I am about to release a Mobile WoW Player very soon!

Basically
it lets you play WoW on your Windows Mobile cell phones, full video and
sound. Very slick. I have it on my cell phone now and it is neat as
hell.

I'm working out some final bugs but I intend to have this done ASAP.

Anybody interested in beta testing?Seems like maybe the way you make money is scamming people into giving you their personal contact info ? what do you do with it; sell it ? spread viruses ?

How many more lies you posted ?One word: L O L

[Kural]

One word: L O L

Not quite sure what you're 'lolling' at. To me, you come across as a 15 year old shit pedlar, selling your fantasies for the price of a butt lick. You pump out the standard, tired lines of a 5 star BS merchant; "I'm lazy so I won't post a pic... I put together one of the finest residential computer systems in the world, commissioned a liquid-nitrogen cooling system from a magical company (who shall remain nameless) and crafted some well thought out technical posts - but I'm way too lazy to lift my camera phone, take a snap-shot and bluetooth it to my PC, which incidentally is so powerful that I cybor with God"

You are a fascinating example of the Human race's lust for attention and approval. Your inability to offer any coherent or plausible response to fairly simple challenges, betrays your emotional youth.

As a closing note, please think only of this: If you were willing to withdraw $100,000 in bank notes, scatter them around a computer and then take some stills of this delightful occasion - What changed in your life, that made you so "lazy" that you can't bring yourself to share this latest, outstanding achievement with those that you obviously consider either your peers or at the very least a reliable source of ring kissing.

I swear I'm going to love it if I'm wrong about all of this and you're just a dick.

[Evilseed]

Wow some of these responses could certainly be nominated for the best comedy emmy. I like having my morning laughs at the expense of somebody who replaces opinionated assumptions for fact.

[Owltoid]

I'm in Kural and Moorea's corner. Pics or it didn't happen. I feel bad for Hotkeynet since he likely lost a few customers that are endlessly waiting for Evilseed's non-existant program instead of using the proven HKN mouse broadcasting.

[Kural]

Wow some of these responses could certainly be nominated for the best comedy emmy. I like having my morning laughs at the expense of somebody who replaces opinionated assumptions for fact.




So, I replaced an "opinionated assumption" for with fact. Think you may want to swap that around. Or just learn to put sentences together.

I'm sorry for this people, shouldn't have got myself involved. Fighting, Internet, Special Olympics etc.

Is it just me though? I assume most of you have a reasonable income from a resonable job / business. Have you ever come across a very 'tech savvy' individual, with $100,000 in bedroom bills that spouts this much garbage?

----------
Edit:
----------

I would like to offer some personal thoughts to the community that has been a true goldmine of information for me. It is yours to do with as you wish.



Do not listen to Evilseed. He is a lonely web-jester, well practiced in the art of emotional trolling.
Do not wait for Evilseed's software. You will never see it. Ever.
If anybody talks about "My lawyer" or "My Accountant" as a sole reason for not launching anything, not even a website - immediately turn on your bullshit filter and ignore this moron. He's never been inside a Lawyers office in his life.
If they claim to be about 3 years ahead of global technology, such as playing WoW on their cell/mobile phone - Filter ON.
If he never has a direct answer to a question. For example "What raid controller are you using"? That's a fairly simple question. Evilseed's response was a link to "something like this" but not this. "I don't remember - it has a bazillion SATA ports".
These are just a few points. My Sherlock-skills suggest to me that this guy has access to a computer of this nature, perhaps at work, but it does not belong to him. Hence the inability to recall specific details or simply get an order confirmation out from when he bought these epic parts.

If this is the case, why not just say that? It would still be a cool thread. You would still earn some gratz and gentle bum kisses.

[Akeldema]

Since my wife will kill me and divorce me (not in that order) if I spent $2500 on 5 SSDs, I will have to live vicarously through your rig :(Actually the raid is 4 drives not 5 (I have a 5th to test the non E SSD). However, the cost was about $1100ish per drive, making it $4400 not $2500 hehe.I wonder were you got them for that much. :whistling:
Someone somewhere made a bundle off cash off you, thats for sure. But seeming as your so rich paying almost 2x what they are worth dosnt matter to you i guess..


I also agree with Kural and Moorea. I smell somthing dodgey on the air.

[Kural]

I'm in Kural and Moorea's corner. Pics or it didn't happen. I feel bad for Hotkeynet since he likely lost a few customers that are endlessly waiting for Evilseed's non-existant program instead of using the proven HKN mouse broadcasting.

I just edited my above post but feel it is important that nobody be sucked in by this tit.

Posting here:

I would like to offer some personal thoughts to the community that has been a true goldmine of information for me. It is yours to do with as you wish.


Do not listen to Evilseed. He is a lonely web-jester, well practiced in the art of emotional trolling.
Do not wait for Evilseed's software. You will never see it. Ever.
If anybody talks about "My lawyer" or "My Accountant" as a sole reason for not launching anything, not even a website - immediately turn on your bullshit filter and ignore this moron. He's never been inside a Lawyers office in his life.
If they claim to be about 3 years ahead of global technology, such as playing WoW on their cell/mobile phone - Filter ON.
If he never has a direct answer to a question. For example "What raid controller are you using"? (That's a fairly simple question) - Filter ON. Evilseed's response was a link to "something like this" but not this. "I don't remember - it has a bazillion SATA ports".

These are just a few points. My Junior Sherlock kit suggests to me that this guy has access to a computer of this nature, perhaps at work, but it does not belong to him. Hence the inability to recall specific details or simply get an order confirmation out from when he bought these epic parts.

If this is the case, why not just say that? It would still be a cool thread. You would still earn some gratz and gentle bum kisses.

[Akeldema]

EDIT: I was succesfully able to 20box on 1 PC using these drives. The framerate was very good, around 560 combined FPS in the starting area of taurens.
EDIT#2 Hmm I can't remember why I'm running my gfx cards at such a low frequency. I think I could run them at 1.3ghz each. Oooh more funs to be had!Oh i do Love these edits you threw in to make it look just a little more authentic.

oh, and do overclock them to 1.3ghz, can take some photos of you cooking some eggs on it while it over heats.
if of course your not to lazy.

[Akeldema]

Is this same vaporware as the software you were releasing "soon" ?
("My uber awesome program I've spoken about (dubbed MC) will be officially released this Monday, January 11th.")

Using symlinks and OS cache (ie more memory) is a much cheaper way to achieve good performance; but as said above: picture or it didn't happen...Well the pics will fall into the same category of my so called vaporware (the website is built now, absolutely gorgeous, but my lawyer said I need to tag along a little EULA to the software so ppl don't sue me when they program the mouse to click their PC's self destruct button, so it'll be 1-2 more days lol). By that category I mean that I'm extremely lazy and prolly won't post picture.

Oh, I think I posted my current rig or prior rig on the DB site a long while ago with $100,000 in cash scattered around it. Search and show me the link yo!

This guy is Xzin Part 2. /sigh

At least that guy has dildos... Evilseed has.........................NOTHING!/pat
There, there its not as bad as it seems....Hopefully.....

[weeep]

Get 2x i-RAM for $200 and 16Gb DDR for extra $200, and you get a WoW storage solution that is MUCH faster than any SSD array.

[OpTiMo]

HAI GUYZZ! I know i'm knew here but I thought I'd share my system specs. Well, first off let me preface this by saying I play in outerspace. It's so cold in space there is no need for fan or liquid cooling. How do I play in space you might be asking yourself? Well it's simple, I recruited (name left blank for legal issues) to let me use their (product left blank for legal issues). I think somewhere though some guy at this place (name left blank for legal purposes) posted a picture of my rig on a website (happens to be down at the moment) somewhere on the internet. It's a good one of me in a space suit playing WoW with space hookers and blow floating all around. Pretty soon I'll be moving in to my computer though and will actually be living in outerspace with Al Gore. I'm marketing this for EVERYONE in 2121 so be ready. THANX

[Akeldema]

HAI GUYZZ! I know i'm knew here but I thought I'd share my system specs. Well, first off let me preface this by saying I play in outerspace. It's so cold in space there is no need for fan or liquid cooling. How do I play in space you might be asking yourself? Well it's simple, I recruited (name left blank for legal issues) to let me use their (product left blank for legal issues). I think somewhere though some guy at this place (name left blank for legal purposes) posted a picture of my rig on a website (happens to be down at the moment) somewhere on the internet. It's a good one of me in a space suit playing WoW with space hookers and blow floating all around. Pretty soon I'll be moving in to my computer though and will actually be living in outerspace with Al Gore. I'm marketing this for EVERYONE in 2121 so be ready. THANXMade my day(Night)
Thanks.
:thumbsup:

[Yo-Yo Freak]

This guy is Xzin Part 2. /sigh

At least that guy has dildos....if i may ask, what do you mean by "this guys sounds like Xzin part 2"? its fine if you don't want to tell me or something like that but i have only been with these forums for about 3 months so i'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. from atleast what i have read on these forums Xzin seems alright. last i checked his accounts haven't been active in a while.

as for the OP, like others have said no pictures no proof. IMO it does sound like a load of bull, no strait answers to any questions, saying you can release something because of "legal issues". it all just sounds kind of fishy. i couldn't find that supposed pic of your old rig with $100,000 scattered around it. if anybody can please post a link. anyway just my 2 cents.

~YYF

[Moorea]

LOL. I think it's time for Evilseed to sign up under a new name as I think this one is burned, and maybe be a bit more subtle next time in his trolling. This being said; for everybody who fell for his lies and sent contact information for his two software beta programs advertised here... It may not be so funny/I would be worried... not sure if there is a place (local police?) you can report suspected scammers.

[puppychow]

fwiw evilseed plays on the same realm/faction I do (Blackrock horde) and I have seen his team in wintergrasp, he is able to summon up all the stuff and bring out the treants and all that jazz. Of course he is 2-37 in 5s arena for the season so its not like it helps him in any way at all for PVP, but I don't knock him for that, I'm 0-40 (dont even enter arenas anymore).

Anyways never understood the big fuss, as people have said AHK (free I think?) does this, Innerspace does this ($40/yr?), and with a little bit of kludging and window layout Octopus (free) does this too.

[-silencer-]

Get 2x i-RAM for $200 and 16Gb DDR for extra $200, and you get a WoW storage solution that is MUCH faster than any SSD array.
I was seriously going to do this, but Gigabyte hasn't made an i-RAM that supports more than 4GB available to the public, and you'd need at LEAST 3 (but more likely 4) to contain WoW's /data folder. Also, there hasn't been a DDR2 i-RAM in the USA yet, so we're stuck spending more than twice as much for DDR1 over DDR2. The RAMBOX would be a better overall solution since it doesn't use multiple PCI slots like a i-RAM RAID0 array would.. but I've never found one available in the US.. only Hong Kong.

[Moorea]

So far Evilseed is following almost the exact same path as Xzin. Overly vague and spouts bullshit when questioned for details.

A scam artist sounds a little harsh - but he does come off that way. (Evilseed, not Xzin)I don't think Xzin ever tried to collect people information to sign them up for fake beta programs has he ? I wouldn't put the 2 in the same category...

To puppychow / evilseed: what are the boomkin toon names on Horde Blackrock ?

[puppychow]

So far Evilseed is following almost the exact same path as Xzin. Overly vague and spouts bullshit when questioned for details.

A scam artist sounds a little harsh - but he does come off that way. (Evilseed, not Xzin)I don't think Xzin ever tried to collect people information to sign them up for fake beta programs has he ? I wouldn't put the 2 in the same category...

To puppychow / evilseed: what are the boomkin toon names on Horde Blackrock ?

someone linked the armories above I think but its blackrock, horde side, and evilseeda, evilseedb, evilseedc, etc

[Moorea]

Seems like Evilseed did indeed create his new alias "Mousecloner" ? wonder what kind of trojan is in there...

[Sam DeathWalker]

Evilseed does indeed have a website mousecloner.com and it seems a lot of work just for a trojan (his legal disclaimer would cost $1000 for an attorney to draw up), and the fact that the very name of the web site "mousecloner" would be hard to aqquire at this point (almost any combination of good words is taken).

He also says he is Tim Sullivan previous owner of wowhead (which I use every day). If in fact that is the case I would see little reason to doubt his claims as to anything.

I mean outside of the fact it took him longer then expected to release his software is there any particular reason to doubt his word at this point?

Also read his initial post, the simple fact he knows all this information well, why would someone aquire such knowledge just to post a trojan or whatever?



I did some digging into why these intel SSDs provide such a massive performance gain and it is all about the IOPS and seek times. The real strain on a PC is that running multiple wows, symlinked or not, requires a ton of random reads from random files. The more reads that exist, the lower your throughput will be. For example, while 1 read constant may yield you 100mbs, 10 reads will NOT yield you 10mbps per read. Rather, it'll do maybe 1.5mbps per read. The reason for the througput cut is the seek time latency. With my raid0/1 array using 4x x25e SSDs, I'm able to hit over 1000mb/s read *and* write, and can have 10,000 open file handlers reading/writing and still obtain over 400mbs. My wow multiboxing is now insane.

That observation does not appear incorrect on its face, and thats some advanced thinking actually.

[Lyonheart]

I'm glad things are coming to light. I feel bad for people that get accused of being something other than what they claim. Then you come to find out they are just what they said they were, and more ( previous owner of wowhead? wowzers! ) I love wowhead! I think we should loosen up just enough to let individuals judge for themselves and less bashing on public forums.

I understand the desire to "protect" the forum population for the "evil sheep in wolves' clothing, but there are more respectful, tactful ways of going about it 8) IMO

[Kural]

I'm glad things are coming to light. I feel bad for people that get accused of being something other than what they claim. Then you come to find out they are just what they said they were, and more ( previous owner of wowhead? wowzers! ) I love wowhead! I think we should loosen up just enough to let individuals judge for themselves and less bashing on public forums.

I understand the desire to "protect" the forum population for the "evil sheep in wolves' clothing, but there are more respectful, tactful ways of going about it 8) IMOOh please. Look at the state of that site. It's an absolute mess. www.mousecloner.com - I own al kinds of cool two-word domains that cost me about 7 bucks. It's not hard.

Guys, he said (in actual human English) that he was healing ZF on his phone, with full sound and graphics............................... :|

Sam, please stop encouraging people to invest interest in this chimp. If it's his product, why does he show his own customer feedback on his site?


Real User Quote:
5 Druids instantly summoning 15 trees at one time? `Nuff said!
-Tim (aka Evilseed)

You never know, he may jut be dense but it smells so fishy that I thought my Grandma was coming to visit.

[Sam DeathWalker]

He is in fact the previous owner of wowhead:

http://www.wowhead.com/?aboutus

Go to the 2nd paragraph from the bottem of the above link, then click on evilseed:

http://www.wowhead.com/?user=Evilseed

[Sam DeathWalker]

Hey I recomend me all the time.

[Evilseed]

I'm glad things are coming to light. I feel bad for people that get accused of being something other than what they claim. Then you come to find out they are just what they said they were, and more ( previous owner of wowhead? wowzers! ) I love wowhead! I think we should loosen up just enough to let individuals judge for themselves and less bashing on public forums.

I understand the desire to "protect" the forum population for the "evil sheep in wolves' clothing, but there are more respectful, tactful ways of going about it 8) IMOIt'll always be the crux and the benefit of any public communication method that there are those who always like to cry in distress when an otherwise calm situation exists. The intelligent and educated people are the ones who will do their own research and substantiate their own opinions and those are truly the ones to be heard. To the people who say my project is "vaporware" or has "malware" or is some devious scheme because I created a new username to better represent and focalize questions/feedback, as much as the spread of misinformation frustrates me, I will always have the belief that anybody and everybody has the right to say what they want to say, be it an agreeable statement or not.

I will always respond the same way, by being honest and maintaining to myself that people always deserve some measure of respect.

[Freddie]

Get 2x i-RAM for $200 and 16Gb DDR for extra $200, and you get a WoW storage solution that is MUCH faster than any SSD array.
I was seriously going to do this, but Gigabyte hasn't made an i-RAM that supports more than 4GB available to the public, and you'd need at LEAST 3 (but more likely 4) to contain WoW's /data folder. Also, there hasn't been a DDR2 i-RAM in the USA yet, so we're stuck spending more than twice as much for DDR1 over DDR2. The RAMBOX would be a better overall solution since it doesn't use multiple PCI slots like a i-RAM RAID0 array would.. but I've never found one available in the US.. only Hong Kong.
Have you seen this? Up to 64 GB of DDR2:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16255

[Evilseed]

Get 2x i-RAM for $200 and 16Gb DDR for extra $200, and you get a WoW storage solution that is MUCH faster than any SSD array.
I was seriously going to do this, but Gigabyte hasn't made an i-RAM that supports more than 4GB available to the public, and you'd need at LEAST 3 (but more likely 4) to contain WoW's /data folder. Also, there hasn't been a DDR2 i-RAM in the USA yet, so we're stuck spending more than twice as much for DDR1 over DDR2. The RAMBOX would be a better overall solution since it doesn't use multiple PCI slots like a i-RAM RAID0 array would.. but I've never found one available in the US.. only Hong Kong.
Have you seen this? Up to 64 GB of DDR2:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16255First glance: Holy crap!

I just read the HD Tach (this is what I use) and it doesn't list it as being faster as the Intel X25's? How would this make sense? Doesn't DDR2 bus architecture support something like 800mb/s up to 5.3gb/s? I'm so confused why it is equal to intel's SSD x25.

A side note, does anybody know if eSATA2 has additional latencies over normal SATA2? I'm considering getting a eSATA drive encloser and putting the x25's I have in there for the ability to "plug and play" the drives between multiple machines of mine. I wouldn't want to do it if eSATA has speed latencies far in excess of normal SATA2. For example, USB drives have huuge speed cruxes due to USB file handlers and unsustained speeds.

I've never used eSATA so I've no idea and my google research so far seems very limited in results.

[Sam DeathWalker]

the 9010B is only $249 but with just one Sata port you can't raid it.

esata apparently is the same as regular sata. 3G.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Look the very best is a Tyan Server Motherboard with like 32G on it. Thats like way more then enough lol. And all your ram is system ram, not Sata ram so you do get the full DDR2 spec.

http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=566

Thats like $840 without even trying to find it on the cheap. Take your board, add $400 for the ram drive and this has it beat I am sure.


Antoher possibilty is the i7 stuff, they are running at some insane 14g/sec with DDR3 which blows away all other memory bandwidth solutions. This board is only $250 but 12G max, still you might be ablt to get away with 8 gig for wow folders and 4 gigs for playing 5 instances of wow easy.

http://www.motherboardpro.com/Asus-Rampage-II-Extreme-Intel-X58-Core-i7-Socket-1366-6-DDR3-3PCIEX-16-2GB-ATX-Motherboard-Retail-p-1040.html

LoL 24G and 3-6 video cards:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=257&Itemid=69&limit=1&limitstart=5

[aboron]

On a purely cost per subjective performance increase I'd have to recommend against getting the Acard 9010 for just WoW.

The access times are lightening fast across the board, but the recovery from the CCF card is uselessly slow. I did it once with my 32Gig Ram from a standard 32Gig Camera-type CCF and it took about 2 hours to fully recover.
It will, however, boot from the unit while passing through from the CCF until it comes into sync, but it means you can't really play for the first 2 hours after a power on.

All things confidered, the average wow-er would likely be happier with the flash SSD route.

I have mine set up as a data drive and use a boot time scheduled restore in windows to load an uncompressed image from my hard drive back onto it, which only takes about 10 minutes and is set to happen even before i log in as an admin level service.

I have some tests and such I will post eventually, but I'm in FL and my computer with the images is in CA and turned off right now.

[Evilseed]

I am starting to notice something really wierd on my Intel x25 (both e and ms). I'll be playing WoW on them (I broke my raid, doing singles now) and sometimes the drive will actually dissapear from my OS. For example, I have my main WoW window on my G drive. Well, suddenly windows will give me a wierd error and the G: drive dissapears completely. If I check Vista's device manager, it no longer lists it as a HDD. It is completely gone until I reboot.

I'm thinking about buying a new SATA2 controller, one that supports eSATA, and hopefully it'll end up being the issue with this system's mobo. This PC has a Striker Xtreme.

[Freddie]

Deleted, double post.

[Freddie]

All things confidered, the average wow-er would likely be happier with the flash SSD route.
Is the slow time to reload the thing the only reason you say that? If so, what if you leave your PC on most of the time and reboot only occasionally?

[aboron]

All things confidered, the average wow-er would likely be happier with the flash SSD route.
Is the slow time to reload the thing the only reason you say that? If so, what if you leave your PC on most of the time and reboot only occasionally?

Actually when I'm not on the road my desktop doesn't get turned off, so the reload speed would not be the clincher for me (and the reload is really only that slow when using the unit as a boot drive) - it's mainly the price increase from say $250 for a quality samsung 32 Gig flash SSD compared to $1200 for 32Gig on this thing is not reflected in an equivalent performance increase of even double, let alone 5x.

Edit -
That being said, if i had an infinite supply of money: I would get 4 of these, an Areca 1680 raid controller (in raid 0) and a liquid cooling solution - because they run rather hot.

[Evilseed]

I don't spose anybody here knows how to troubleshoot a drive randomly dissapearing in windows (as in, it suddenly doesn't show up in device manager) when it was there just moments ago?

[puppychow]

run "eventvwr" it'll tell you why windows removed the device usually, look in system or application.

I wouldn't bother with cheap SSD drives (OCZ, ADATA, etc) the performance gain is extremely minor over hard drives for wow. I run mine off a OCZ 64GB and it has barely made any difference in FPS.

[Evilseed]

Yea I checked out eventvwr and holy crap, it is horrible in Vista. I can't seem to find anything useful. Is there a particular section this should be at in the event viewer? Thanks in advance!

BTW, the Intel x25m/e is the own for mboxing in WoW (see my OP).

[Evilseed]

Also could anybody recommend the best eSATA 2.5" drive enclosure? I've been googling and for some reason I can't find anybody doing specs on eSATA drive enclosures. It is as if they are all the same! Maybe they are? :p

[Owltoid]

run "eventvwr" it'll tell you why windows removed the device usually, look in system or application.

I wouldn't bother with cheap SSD drives (OCZ, ADATA, etc) the performance gain is extremely minor over hard drives for wow. I run mine off a OCZ 64GB and it has barely made any difference in FPS.

Heh, I think I got one of those cheap SSD drives today :( However, I'm hoping that it's as good as Velociraptors for playing WoW and one 64 GB was cheaper than putting a couple raptors in a raid format. Hopefully increased reliability, too.

The culprit:
Single Hard Drive (64 GB Ritek RiDATA 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology)[+126])

[Evilseed]

If you are going for SSD speed, get the intel x25e/m They are insanely fast. However, they dissapear from windows for no reasons:)

[Sam DeathWalker]

Owltoid post yur results with that drive, I might try the $83 adata mcl 32g drives if yours works out.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Look nothing is close to the I7 solutions:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/824/4/

All these other items are junk by comparison.

Look ASSUMING that the X25 compleatly saturates its Sata 3G buss thats absolute MAX of 3G/S, and they don't even claim their drive can come close to saturating its buss. If it did the X25 would be the lowest thing on that graph at 3000.

The I7 motherboard memory is 28G/S

Do you see the 900 percent increase in speed between the two? NINE HUNDRED PERCENT FASTER! And cost for a I7 (920) with 24G onboard isnt a ton more then all these other solutions for a system that has NINE times the memory bandwidth speed. And again if you are only running 5 wow's you should be able to get by with 12G (barely).

And if you have a 64 bit operating system you won't "lose" yur system memory lol ...

Download sandra (FREE version) from
http://www.sisoftware.net/

Run the memory bandwidth test and you can see what your results are. (I'm between 10 and 11 G on my m2n32 vista with amd 6000 x2, which is better then anything on their graph cept the I7).

[Moorea]

Where is the iphone wow application from Feb 08 ?

Lol at "mousecloner" if it actually even works (anyone dare to try?) - the description is you enter X,Y coordinates (that the tool itself can't capture!) and it clicks those coordinates... woot; such advanced UI it's revolutionary... sounds like sending mousedown events... and you need to put coords yourself... awesome usability...

Real user quote: Moorea rocks -- Moorea

[Owltoid]

......Do you see the 900 percent increase in speed between the two? NINE HUNDRED PERCENT FASTER! And cost for a I7 (920) with 24G onboard isnt a ton more then all these other solutions for a system that has NINE times the memory bandwidth speed. And again if you are only running 5 wow's you should be able to get by with 12G (barely).....

Sam, my new rig won't arrive for about 3 weeks, unfortunately, but when it does if you tell me how to run the diagnostics I will.

Also, what did you mean by 5 WoW's barely able to get by?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well the wow folder is up to about 8G now isnt it? It might be even more then that. Then the OS will be like 1G or so, then you need like 1/2G or so for each instance.

The 5 files in the Data folder are 7G themselves, but I bet 95 percent of the reading is those 5 files.

16G would really cover it well but thats not divisible by 3 I guess 18G is the sweet spot.

[aboron]

I think 18 is an impossible number since it would involve finding 3 or 6 Gig ram modules, which will not likely ever be made.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya what a problem ...

Well like I say you MIGHT get by with 12G, otherwise well go for 24G.

Ill bet you could just Put the Data Folder only (7G) in the Ram and cover 98percent plus of your reads. 3G for 5 wows is also good enough. I think 12 should cover it, not with much left but should do 99 percent of the job. I bet w7 probably has a smaller footprint then vista also.

Or just go for 24 then ...

If you decide on 12G then get the rampage board.

If only running 5 wows the difference between 12G and 24G will be hardly noticable, if you want 20 wows well then 24G is the way to go. And even with 20 wows this set up and 24G is going to have no problems I would bet. Except how to display them.

Again with 24G and 5 wows I doubt you will get more then a 1percent (if that) benifit over 12G. And the cost of that last 1percent is going to be a ton.

Ill be moving to this kind of set up at some point (probably after prices are about 1/2 of what they are now), unless AMD comes up with some similar memory buss.

[Sajuuk]

If you add the Wrath files to your data folder the size comes up to around 12.3Gb.

(Just thought I'd add that)

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ahh I don't have wotlk ...

Well in that case its 24G or nothing ....

[Evilseed]

Guys there is a fantastic article here on TH: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-flash,2127.html

I've now encountered 3 failures on my Intel x25 drives. I'm returning the lot of them to New Egg and am going to be reconsidering everything as a whole. I'm sick and tired of a loud and complicated PC setup and am considering building something more user friend from the ground-up, and these ram drives are looking really nice. I saw the link to that MOBO with 24/32 gigs of ram, but I can't seem to find a place to sell 6G chips? Maybe I'm missing something here...