New HD PCI-e

[Multibocks]

I saw this http://www.fusionio.com/ioxtreme/ and thought that I might try it out. $895 is pretty expensive, however it has incredible transfer speeds 617MB/s bursts and 520MB/s average reads. What's nice is that it's PCI-e and Im hoping that will prevent the bullshit I dealt with on the SSD drive I bought (OCZ Agility 120) where they wanted me to uninstall all my drives (destroy a raid-0 setup) just so the motherboard and windows would recognize the drive. I'll be searching around for reviews before I make the purchase though.

[Ess]

OCZ has launched a similar product, only it seems to have even better specs, the lowest capacity is 250GB (price should be around 1k $)

http://www.ocztechnology.com/i/3d.gifRead: Up to 770MB/s http://www.ocztechnology.com/i/3d.gifWrite: Up to 640MB/s http://www.ocztechnology.com/i/3d.gifSustained Write: Up to 600MB/s http://www.ocztechnology.com/i/3d.gifMax IOPS (4k random): 10,000
I has only recently been announced/launched so I haven't read any hands on reviews yet. But I think the same goes for the fusionIO one.

more details (on the 500 GB and 1 TB version the specs are even higher):
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_z_drive_p84_pci_express_ssd

[Multibocks]

fusionIO is taking pre-orders and seems to be more prepared to launch the product, from what I have heard OCZ has been talking about theirs for a while. Also, after my first OCZ product I'm real hesitant to use another. They might have some ridiculous install procedure like:
1. remove all components from mobo
2. install pci-e card first
3. flash bios
4. reinstall windows
5. reinstall other computer components one at a time making sure each works
6. if install fails at any point, start at step 1 again and pray.

edit: found a review of the fusionio card http://www.dvnation.com/Fusion-IO-IODrive-SSD-Solid-State-Disk-Drive-Review.html

In short they thought it was fuckin awesome and note on page four that as a database it is 92x faster than a Raptor drive. That's insane and considering that I will be using it for WoW's data folder it pretty much will be used as a database

[Multibocks]

Oh here's something I found as well:


some updates
VIDEO – Hands-on with the Fusion-io SSD, 13 World of Warcraft windows in 36 seconds

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39600/135/ (http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39600/135/)

Holy shit.

edit: I just checked out prices for the OCZ drive and it is high 1300s. So 400 more than this drive. Hmmmm.

[Sajuuk]

You do realize that most if not all of those cards essentially consist of a couple SSD drives in raid, right? Yes, it's compact and takes a little less work, but it's still the same basic thing.

edit: upon reading the article I stand by my first statement, but wish to revise that while they're basically the same idea, it appears that it takes a lot less power, and obviously a LOT less effort on your part.

[Multibocks]

Less effort is what Im looking for... I really dont like messing with RAID controllers.

[Ess]

Multibocks I can understand why you're not so eager to go for another OCZ product when your first experience was that bad.

Also if it is 400$ more expensive I guess thats a big difference.

I just saw an announcement from Super Talent, they will also make a PCI-e drive. It looks like you can buy an empty case and put in what ever drives you prefer. Maybe an easy way to save money... although rumors go their 1TB model will go for 5000 $ an empty case may still be sold at a reasonable value.

some more info:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=25967

[Multibocks]

Still waiting for one of these drives to launch.....

[Ess]

Still waiting for one of these drives to launch.....

I thought the fusionio one was actually one that was already launched, I guess not then?

[Multibocks]

It says that it launched, but currently there is only a sign up to be notified when you are next to purchase.... so either the line of signups is long (or they take a while to make the product) or they are still not ready to launch.

[Multibocks]

Whattheflyingf*ck?!!

$1990 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SDM3W0/sr=1-1/qid=1256609592/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1256609592&sr=1-1&seller=)

Uh that is over 2 times what they advertised it would cost.

edit: Woops appears they linked the more expensive version. Found the 900 dollar one. I will be giving a review on it shortly =D

editx2: sonofabitch its no longer available.

[aboron]

If someone did want to spend a crapload of money on an SSD card like that $2000 one, they might want to consider a really good raid array controller with 900-1200 MBps throughput and then just raid 0'ing a bunch of regular SSD 2.5 drives.

Here's a wishlist I made that would do 4 SSD's in raid 0 on a 1200 MBps Areaca raid controller with a 4 drive in a 5.25 bay raid enclosure for about $2500:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=11144705

And obviously not going for the high end SSD drives would bring the price way down, without too much loss in capability.

Knowing my history of extreme storage purchases, I could see myself doing something similar to this when i get around to my next main upgrade. Plus I've always wanted a really good, true hardware, raid controller.

[Multibocks]

I didnt want to deal with setting up a controller and installing all those drives after my first incident with an SSD. This is a pci-e solution and its bootable. Im not spending 1900, I was about to spend 900. However, the drive is not even listed on amazon anymore so I believe its sold out already...

[Multibocks]

Ok its ordered, apparently Amazon had a glitch that took down their product, but I got it ordered now. Will let you know how it turns out.

[Multibocks]

Well shit I didnt pay attention to the shipping and apparently amazon has a layaway shipping option. It's going to take two weeks to ship it from Salt Lake City to Seattle. TWO WEEKS WTF! It's already shipped so I cant change it either.

[wowphreak]

Take a look at this Guys the dream computer :)
2200/2000 mb/sec read/write 24 ssd's don't forget to pause at the end to see the spec.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs&feature=youtube_gdata

yeh but does 24 ssd drive cost $16152 they probaly could of just used about 10 and gotten the same performance.

I'm really tempted buying the io extreme but I need to get a new graphics card first :P

[Multibocks]

Ok it arrived! Wewt. SSD came in this sweet metal box.

Hope these attachments work.

[Drommon]

Looking forward to reading your review of this cool product.

Drommon

[Multibocks]

Well honestly I guess I would need to DL some hd testing software as Im not real savvy in that dpt. I do however see a major improvement already. Dalaran is extremely smooth, no hiccups. I put 3 of the windows on this drive and the 2 other off my cheaper SSD (agility 120). I was thinking maybe I should further divide up the load and put 1 on the raided raptors. So then it would be 2 on new SSD, 2 on old SSD and 1 on HDs. I guess I could start upping the graphics settings, right now Im only 1080x760(?) and most effects are off.

[Drommon]

Well honestly I guess I would need to DL some hd testing software as Im not real savvy in that dpt. I do however see a major improvement already. Dalaran is extremely smooth, no hiccups. I put 3 of the windows on this drive and the 2 other off my cheaper SSD (agility 120). I was thinking maybe I should further divide up the load and put 1 on the raided raptors. So then it would be 2 on new SSD, 2 on old SSD and 1 on HDs. I guess I could start upping the graphics settings, right now Im only 1080x760(?) and most effects are off.


I have an SSD and with it I drive 1920x1200 at max settings on the main monitor and the other 4 toons on min settings on another monitor. I also use InnersSpace which help manage the graphics load on multiple GPUs. With all this I see 40-50 FPS in dalaran when multiboxing 5 toons. I have 2 4850 graphics cards and a quad core Q9550 CPU with 8mb of ram. So I believe you can get some serious eye candy with your setup.

Drommon

[wowphreak]

Well honestly I guess I would need to DL some hd testing software as Im not real savvy in that dpt. I do however see a major improvement already. Dalaran is extremely smooth, no hiccups. I put 3 of the windows on this drive and the 2 other off my cheaper SSD (agility 120). I was thinking maybe I should further divide up the load and put 1 on the raided raptors. So then it would be 2 on new SSD, 2 on old SSD and 1 on HDs. I guess I could start upping the graphics settings, right now Im only 1080x760(?) and most effects are off.

You have an io extreme ?? just put wow on it and use symlinking to conserve space, anything else will be slower

crank the graphics till yer comp screams uncle :P

[Sajuuk]

I have 2 4850 graphics cards and a quad core Q9550 CPU with 8mb of ram. So I believe you can get some serious eye candy with your setup.
Drommon

Dang, 8MB, that's hardcore!


Multibocks: You mean you just didn't copy the data folder of wow to your new, shiny expensive PCIE raid array and symlink your directory(ies) to it? Why not just put all your folders on it? Seems like a waste to send so much on hardware only to split it between it and your older hardware.

[Drommon]

Dang, 8MB, that's hardcore!


Multibocks: You mean you just didn't copy the data folder of wow to your new, shiny expensive PCIE raid array and symlink your directory(ies) to it? Why not just put all your folders on it? Seems like a waste to send so much on hardware only to split it between it and your older hardware.


LOL!!! I meant 8GB... hehe :)

[Multibocks]

Dang, 8MB, that's hardcore!


Multibocks: You mean you just didn't copy the data folder of wow to your new, shiny expensive PCIE raid array and symlink your directory(ies) to it? Why not just put all your folders on it? Seems like a waste to send so much on hardware only to split it between it and your older hardware.

Well here's my reasoning. The Ioxtreme can burst to 700, but usually its around 500. The agility 120 can do I think 300s. The raptors are a bit lower than that. If I throw all 5 on the xtreme thats 5 clients requesting data from one drive right? So my bottleneck is 500, so 100 per window(I know its not as simple as that, but lets say average). If I put two windows on the agility, suddenly they all jump up in bandwidth (500/3 and 300/2) further dividing the load add the raptors and you have (500/2) (300/2) and uhm hrm I think raptors are in the 200s so 200/1. Lowest bandwith there is 150 on one window. If my thinking on this is incorrect then go ahead and right my sinking ship.

Drommon: How are you assigning your GPUs? I tried using the config in IS and as soon as window 2 launched it crashed saying it couldnt find the GPU. I have the crossfire ATI 5870x2s (damn so long since I thought about it, I'm not even sure thats the right number, lol)

edit: p.s. the first thing I did was transfer my symlinked setup from the agility to the ioxtreme. Turns out something was bad with the data and it BSOD me when I was playing. I reinstalled WOW and decided to try my "experiment" using multiple drives.

[Drommon]

Well here's my reasoning. The Ioxtreme can burst to 700, but usually its around 500. The agility 120 can do I think 300s. The raptors are a bit lower than that. If I throw all 5 on the xtreme thats 5 clients requesting data from one drive right? So my bottleneck is 500, so 100 per window(I know its not as simple as that, but lets say average). If I put two windows on the agility, suddenly they all jump up in bandwidth (500/3 and 300/2) further dividing the load add the raptors and you have (500/2) (300/2) and uhm hrm I think raptors are in the 200s so 200/1. Lowest bandwith there is 150 on one window. If my thinking on this is incorrect then go ahead and right my sinking ship.

Drommon: How are you assigning your GPUs? I tried using the config in IS and as soon as window 2 launched it crashed saying it couldnt find the GPU. I have the crossfire ATI 5870x2s (damn so long since I thought about it, I'm not even sure thats the right number, lol)

edit: p.s. the first thing I did was transfer my symlinked setup from the agility to the ioxtreme. Turns out something was bad with the data and it BSOD me when I was playing. I reinstalled WOW and decided to try my "experiment" using multiple drives.

I may be wrong about this. But when you copy a folder with symlinked subfolders they become unlinked. What I did is create the symlinked folders from scratch after each install. Yes my crappy SSD fails sometimes but I have a backup on a NAS server. Whenever I copy from the NAS to the SSD I have to recreate the symlinks.

I don't know what to say about innerspace in your case. But I see a big performance boost when I create a primary and secondary display profiles. I have crossfire disabled and I also made sure that the OS actually sees a second card. Oddly, when I turned off crossfire the OS stopped seeing the second card, I dont know why. I use Ultimate Vista 64 bit. Make sure your OS and MOBO bios and all drivers are latest. In my humbe opinion I really would encourage you to drive all wow folders from your new SSD. I know you will see a boost. Don't do the crossdrive stuff, I would imagine it could create a bandwidth issue on the bus (but not really sure).

I hope this helps,

Drommon

[Multibocks]

oh I did have to redo the symlinks, sorry for the confusion. Hmm seperating my crossfire, I'll have to try that. Do you run all accounts on one monitor? I have one big 30" that I run all 5 on. Ya after I posted my experiment I started wondering more about it. Now if 3 drives would create a bus bandwidth problem, well wouldnt one drive do the same (or have less bandwidth?) Actually what I think is more the issue is drive response time. I think I want to stay away from using any HD so I dont get hiccups in game play (dalaran, WG Im looking at you) other than that I dont see a problem using two different SSDs. I really doubt they can saturate the bus, what would be the point of a 700MB/s burst drive if it's limited by the bus?

One final thought that I'm unsure of: Does using two drives at once mean that you have to request info from one, while the other waits? You see that would be a problem and then I can understand only using one SSD.

edit: damn seperated my crossfire via the utility and now I cant see anything inside the innerspace config UI. Also Im not sure what you mean by OS seeing both cards, all 4 show up in my device manager??

[Multibocks]

oh damn do you have to use more than one monitor if you split up crossfire?

[Drommon]

oh damn do you have to use more than one monitor if you split up crossfire?

Yes, I have 2 monitors. Each monitor has 1 card driving it.. I use a 24" for the main and a 22" for the 4 slaves. The 24" is set to max graphics "eye candy" mode. The 22" is set to min graphics. When I Pip, I have the PiP switch hit a macro in wow that improves the graphics of the slave when the screen moves to the 24" monitor and also it hits a macro in the main to reduce its graphics to minimum when it moves to the 22" monitor. That way I preserve the balance of load between all clients.

Yeah, I don't know much about busses so just disregard my statement there. But I really think you should try just putting all of your wow folders on your new PCI SSD. Actually experiment with all combos and keep the best one. It will require some work but I think it will pay off.

Drommon

[Multibocks]

wonder if I can find a switch for a monitor cable so I can swap my GFs monitor back and forth between her comp and mine....

[Drommon]

Well if your GF's monitor has multiple inputs then you may not need a switch, just a cable will do. Check all of your video port options before spending more money. I have my laptop docking station and game PC connected to the same 2 monitors because I am using all of the available ports.

Drommon