Ok, as promised here are the results...
If you are using this with VMware, you need to tune the card. I'm not going to go into all of the specifics, but, this link,
Nytro-XV_NWD_VM_Performance_Acceleration
will be quite helpful too you. Make sure to set the depth, and ensure you make the changes LSI recommends. I have not tried this with Windows, this is with vSphere 6.0. This server is not ideal for this card. The card is a PCI Express 3.0 x8, this is in a PCI Express 2.0 x8 slot. The bandwidth is more than enough, but some of the features including a little better latency will be missing.
Here is my baseline. This is what one of my 24 drive NL-SAS arrays does with a 10Gbe network and a Windows 2012 R2 VM,
All tests where done using a Windows 2012 R2 VM with direct access to the datastore, no expanders, etc. Here is the before results. This is with the slow 4x60GB RAID 0 SATA II SSD's...
And with the little faster 2x111GB RAID 0 SATA III SSD's,
Now, here is the Nytro with the old firmware, and tuning as per LSI,
And with the newest "13" firmware from Seagate and tuning as per LSI,
Here is the test from ATTO,
And when ATTO is running, from ESXi,
UPDATE **: Updated Results with latest v20.00 ESXi driver
Overall, there is a performance improvement over the other drives. The random I/O is consistent, and it feels similar to the other drives. You do notice the improvement in VM boot times, as it's a little faster. Overall, not a bad investment for $200.
I have a 400GB Intel NVMe in my workstation. This drive is in a HP Z440 workstation with Windows 10, and all the proper PCI Express set up, UEFI etc.
This drive cost nearly 2x's what the Nytro does, and has 1/3 the space. Yes, it's much faster (without the PCI Express advantage), but, it is modern, and you get what you pay for.
Overall, I'm happy with the performance. I did put a small 80mm fan in the case to blow on the card, and it stays at a comfy 39C. Obligatory ddcli,
WarpDrive Selected is NWD-BFH6-1200
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WarpDrive Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WarpDrive ID : 1
PCI Address : 00:02:00:00
PCI Slot Number : 0x11
PCI SubSystem DeviceId : 0x100D
PCI SubSystem VendorId : 0x1000
SAS Address : 500605B 0080422F0
Package Version : 13.00.08.00
Firmware Version : 113.00.00.00
Legacy BIOS Version : 110.00.01.00
UEFI BSD Version : 07.18.06.00
Chip Name : Nytro WarpDrive
Board Name : NWD-BFH6-1200
Board Assembly Number : 03-25614-00F
Board Tracer Number : SP43013788
NUMA : Enabled
RAID Support : YES
--------------------------------
Nytro WarpDrive NWD-BFH6-1200 Health
--------------------------------
Backup Rail Monitor : GOOD
SSD Drive SMART Data Slot #: 2: Drive Serial Number 11000409511
-------------- Current (since last Power Cycle) ----------------------
Bytes Read 69158255616
Soft Read Error Rate 4.972048e-03
Wear Range Delta 0 (%)
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Current Temperature 39 (degree C)
Uncorrectable ECC Errors 0
SATA R-Errors (CRC) Error Count 0
-------------- Cumulative --------------------------------------------
Retired Block Count 0
Power-On Hours 1579.1
Device Power Cycle Count 73
Gigabytes Erased 7912 (Gigabytes)
Reserved (over-provisioned) Blocks 35264
Program Fail Count 0
Erase Fail Count 1 0
Unexpected Power Loss Count 79
I/O Error Detection Code Rate 0
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Maximum Lifetime Temperature 46 (degree C)
Cached SMART Data Age 00:00:00 (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
SSD Life Left (PE Cycles) 100 (%)
Total Writes From Host 6069
Total Reads To Host 1965
Write Amplification 1.18
Reserved Blocks Remaining 100 (%)
Trim Count 0
SSD Drive SMART Data Slot #: 3: Drive Serial Number 11000409488
-------------- Current (since last Power Cycle) ----------------------
Bytes Read 69116353536
Soft Read Error Rate 4.817765e-03
Wear Range Delta 0 (%)
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Current Temperature 39 (degree C)
Uncorrectable ECC Errors 0
SATA R-Errors (CRC) Error Count 0
-------------- Cumulative --------------------------------------------
Retired Block Count 0
Power-On Hours 1579.1
Device Power Cycle Count 73
Gigabytes Erased 7910 (Gigabytes)
Reserved (over-provisioned) Blocks 35264
Program Fail Count 0
Erase Fail Count 1 0
Unexpected Power Loss Count 79
I/O Error Detection Code Rate 0
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Maximum Lifetime Temperature 46 (degree C)
Cached SMART Data Age 00:00:00 (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
SSD Life Left (PE Cycles) 100 (%)
Total Writes From Host 6069
Total Reads To Host 1965
Write Amplification 1.17
Reserved Blocks Remaining 100 (%)
Trim Count 0
SSD Drive SMART Data Slot #: 4: Drive Serial Number 11000409503
-------------- Current (since last Power Cycle) ----------------------
Bytes Read 69108238336
Soft Read Error Rate 5.190631e-03
Wear Range Delta 0 (%)
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Current Temperature 39 (degree C)
Uncorrectable ECC Errors 0
SATA R-Errors (CRC) Error Count 0
-------------- Cumulative --------------------------------------------
Retired Block Count 0
Power-On Hours 1579.0
Device Power Cycle Count 73
Gigabytes Erased 7955 (Gigabytes)
Reserved (over-provisioned) Blocks 34752
Program Fail Count 0
Erase Fail Count 1 0
Unexpected Power Loss Count 79
I/O Error Detection Code Rate 0
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Maximum Lifetime Temperature 46 (degree C)
Cached SMART Data Age 00:00:00 (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
SSD Life Left (PE Cycles) 100 (%)
Total Writes From Host 6069
Total Reads To Host 1965
Write Amplification 1.18
Reserved Blocks Remaining 100 (%)
Trim Count 0
SSD Drive SMART Data Slot #: 5: Drive Serial Number 11000409615
-------------- Current (since last Power Cycle) ----------------------
Bytes Read 69104876032
Soft Read Error Rate 4.586122e-03
Wear Range Delta 0 (%)
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Current Temperature 38 (degree C)
Uncorrectable ECC Errors 0
SATA R-Errors (CRC) Error Count 0
-------------- Cumulative --------------------------------------------
Retired Block Count 0
Power-On Hours 1579.1
Device Power Cycle Count 73
Gigabytes Erased 7951 (Gigabytes)
Reserved (over-provisioned) Blocks 34432
Program Fail Count 0
Erase Fail Count 1 0
Unexpected Power Loss Count 79
I/O Error Detection Code Rate 0
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Maximum Lifetime Temperature 45 (degree C)
Cached SMART Data Age 00:00:00 (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
SSD Life Left (PE Cycles) 100 (%)
Total Writes From Host 6068
Total Reads To Host 1964
Write Amplification 1.18
Reserved Blocks Remaining 100 (%)
Trim Count 0
SSD Drive SMART Data Slot #: 6: Drive Serial Number 11000409944
-------------- Current (since last Power Cycle) ----------------------
Bytes Read 69056888320
Soft Read Error Rate 4.151250e-03
Wear Range Delta 0 (%)
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Current Temperature 38 (degree C)
Uncorrectable ECC Errors 0
SATA R-Errors (CRC) Error Count 0
-------------- Cumulative --------------------------------------------
Retired Block Count 0
Power-On Hours 1579.1
Device Power Cycle Count 73
Gigabytes Erased 7949 (Gigabytes)
Reserved (over-provisioned) Blocks 34688
Program Fail Count 0
Erase Fail Count 1 0
Unexpected Power Loss Count 79
I/O Error Detection Code Rate 0
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Maximum Lifetime Temperature 46 (degree C)
Cached SMART Data Age 00:00:00 (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
SSD Life Left (PE Cycles) 100 (%)
Total Writes From Host 6069
Total Reads To Host 1965
Write Amplification 1.18
Reserved Blocks Remaining 100 (%)
Trim Count 0
SSD Drive SMART Data Slot #: 7: Drive Serial Number 11000409538
-------------- Current (since last Power Cycle) ----------------------
Bytes Read 69105214464
Soft Read Error Rate 4.681335e-03
Wear Range Delta 0 (%)
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Current Temperature 38 (degree C)
Uncorrectable ECC Errors 0
SATA R-Errors (CRC) Error Count 0
-------------- Cumulative --------------------------------------------
Retired Block Count 0
Power-On Hours 1579.1
Device Power Cycle Count 73
Gigabytes Erased 7925 (Gigabytes)
Reserved (over-provisioned) Blocks 35264
Program Fail Count 0
Erase Fail Count 1 0
Unexpected Power Loss Count 79
I/O Error Detection Code Rate 0
Uncorrectable RAISE Errors 0
Maximum Lifetime Temperature 46 (degree C)
Cached SMART Data Age 00:00:00 (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
SSD Life Left (PE Cycles) 100 (%)
Total Writes From Host 6069
Total Reads To Host 1965
Write Amplification 1.18
Reserved Blocks Remaining 100 (%)
Trim Count 0
Warranty Remaining : 100 %
Temperature : 39 degree C
Overall Health : GOOD
Hope this helps someone