SSD caching, which controller and setup?

[chrissweden]

Can you guys give me some recommendation regarding a suitable card for SSD caching?

I want me set up to be like this:
2x samsung 850 pro 512GB (raid1)
6x4TB sata (ST4000NM0063) (raid10)

I will use a dell R720 to place this in.
The H710 mini that is included already only supports read caching (cachecade 1.0) so it is useless for my purpose.

I have seen some cards by Adaptec with megacache 3.0 and LSI with cachecade pro but I wonder if there is a better solution as this technology dates from 2010-11 and I'm sure a lot has changed in those years. Placing 6x4TB SSD is not within my budget..

A suitable/reliable option is needed as this set up will be used to store vital data.

 

[T_Minus]

If it's going to store vital data then maybe consider enterprise SAS drives instead of Seagate?

 

[chrissweden]

ST4000NM0063 is a SAS enterprise disk, no? I'm more worried about a suitable controller or if there is a better solution to have this array lightning fast.

 

[azev]

I have run both before, and tbh although newer adaptec card allows for much larger cache size the LSI caching algorithm seems to work better for virtualization purposes.

 

[chrissweden]

Azev is there particular card you'd recommend?

 

[Diavuno]

ST4000NM0063 is a SAS enterprise disk, no? I'm more worried about a suitable controller or if there is a better solution to have this array lightning fast.

It is, I really like the ES.3 line for their bamg for the buck for SAS storage.

 

[_alex]

i'd just skip hw-raid, get an hba and use zfs or bcache or dm-cache if zfs is not an option.

 

[azev]

Azev is there particular card you'd recommend?

My test comprise of adaptec 81605zq & LSI 9271 with cachevault controlling the same 16x 4tb nearline toshiba drive (6g) and 2 x 800gb S3700 cache. I didn't keep the benchmark result, but I remember that the cachecade has better cache algorithm compared to adaptec.
i didnt do any cache tuning on both card, it is default write back cache setup on both.