Somebody recommend fast and reliable PCIe storage for workstation..

[katit]

I'm re-doing my work environment. Will be using my old-ish desktop I built for development. This is what it's going to be:

ASUS P8Z77-V motherboard
i7-2700K - will overclock to ~4.5
ATI FirePro V5800 graphics
??? storage

I will be running Windows Server 2012 R2 as host system, already installed on some Intel SSD
I will use VMWare workstation for my work VM

I need suggestion for good solid PCIe SSD card. I need about 300-400Gb of storage for VM and don't want to spend more than ~$300 or so. Any suggestions on models/brands? Need to work in overclocked machine... Cheaper is better, used/refurbished will work as long as it's got good reputation.

 

[katit]

Hm.. After reading a lot - seems like there is only 2 choices on market? Intel 750 and Samsung 950? I don't have m.2 on motherboard, so Intel is the only choice?

But I also read that most consumers won't notice a difference because those speeds really useful when there is queue depth whatever it means. My case is storing VM on this drive. Inside VM - development environment with Visual Studio and hundreds of small files to compile.

 

[Cole]

You can do PCIE to M.2 adapter if you want to use the 950

 

[katit]

You can do PCIE to M.2 adapter if you want to use the 950

Yes, I've seen that. But question is.. For my use - should I want to use 950? Or 750?
Or getting 2x S3710 and putting them in stripe will give me just as good performance with more storage for less?

 

[Cole]

Wish I could give you more advise. Sadly I'm still on lowly SATA SSD's

 

[katit]

Wish I could give you more advise. Sadly I'm still on lowly SATA SSD's

Lol. I'm too Well, almost. My Macbook has PCIe SSD I think.
But all other PCs is just lowly SATA SSDs

Reading lot's of mixed reviews on those. I'm not gamer, but want to squeeze every bit out of hardware because it's my workstation. Waiting 1 minute for project to startup is just a waste of time

 

[keybored]

Have you determined that storage is your bottleneck? You could be spending money on something that doesn't benefit your usecase at all... Maybe bench your typical usage scenario and see if you're being throttled by storage?

 

[katit]

Well. I did try to setup RAM Disk and built project from there. Improvement was from 80 to 70 seconds. But this only for project files. I think if whole driver will be replaced - it will be even better.

But I'm not sure where PCIe will be in relation to RAM Disk and software stripe of 2x S3710

 

[keybored]

So you went from 80 to 70 seconds by going from a SATA3 SSD to RAM; i.e., your project files were on RAM disk and the OS was on your SSD? A 10-12% improvement? My thinking is that you'll see maybe a 3-4% improvement instead of a 10-12% improvement with a PCIe SSD. And if you stripe your SATA3 SSDs, you'll likely come very close to that 3-4% range.
I glanced at this set of benchmarks for PCIe SSDs: Samsung 950 PRO M.2 SSD review
Then there is this CDM benchmark for a RAM disk: Supercharge your Steam games - APC
Finally, a few samples of RAID-0 setups (first one is for a pair of 840 pros): The CrystalDiskMark SSD bench thread - Page 31
RAM stomps all over PCIe and you could only get 10% more speed by running your project off of it. So, with PCIe, you'll get maybe a 3rd of the speed. And RAID-0 is not too far behind PCIe. If this was my money, I'd probably just use my existing drives and go for RAID-0...

 

[katit]

Yep. It's correct. Thats what I saw. But even though all project files were on RAM Disk - Visual Studio and other stuff were on slower SSD. I'm not sure if there is cache files, temp files, etc involved.. Maybe there can be more.

But I agree, probably not worth it. So.. Currently I have following hardware. If you to setup RAID0, which way would you go?

1. 2x Samsung 850 EVO 500Gb
2. 1x LSI 8 megaraid - Will it help in RAID0?? I'd rather remove card/heat/extrathingtobreak if it won't benefit..

Currently it's set as hardware mirror. I don't need it anymore. I have choices:
1. Remove LSI and put drives on MB SATA
a. Use soft RAID0 on motherboard
b. Use STRIPE partition on Windows 2012 Server (OS)

2. Leave LSI and put then in RAID0 - will it give best performance?
2. Re-flash to IOT and do 1a or 1b - probably doesn't make sense..

 

[ttabbal]

If you will only need the drives to work in Windows, I don't see any reason not to use software striping. I doubt you're gaining much by using the LSI card. Those are usually used for running bigger arrays, not just a simple 2-drive mirror/stripe. Even then, with ZFS setups, we run them in IT mode with no hardware based RAID help.

Unless Windows won't boot from the software stripe, which it should be able to do, I would just do that with the motherboard SATA ports. No need to use the onboard fake-raid.

 

[katit]

This is going to be stripe for VM files only. Host OS already boots from other Intel SSD(52o) so it doesn't matter if stripe bootable or now.