Adaptec 5405 + 2x Falcon 128 = 487.5MB/s

[Mor]

After many failed attempts to get my Falcons working on an Adaptec RAID 5405 card I updated the Adaptec's firmware to 16501 (available since feb 18), wiped the drives (wiper.exe on this forum), configured a Raid 0 array with 128 stripe on the Adaptec and selected 'drive specified' for the caching option instead of my normal 'enable all', installed Windows 7 x64 without having to load a driver (included in Windows installation) and very surprisingly everything worked and kept working!! Repeated triple runs of EVEREST disc benchmark hours apart report no speed drop, infact a slight progressive increase, initially average 466, 3 hour later 476, 2 hours later 487.5.

Before doing the above I never suceeded completing an instalation on the Adaptec without the RAID controller losing a drive. I had succeeded on an intel x58 but the speed tapered off by the hour after 5hrs around 300MB/s and frequent hanging.

Not sure if this means TRIM is working with Windows 7x64 on Adaptec controllers with the latest firmware, but I am sure without the latest firmware Falcons and other new SSD's with the same controller were a no go on many RAID cards including Adaptec's 5405 despite older SSD's working.

Anyway, whether it was wiping the drives to get their speed to match, installing the new Adaptec firmware or choosing 'drive specified' in the controllers BIOS options or all of the preceding my RAIDing Falcon's now really fly

[GSKILL TECH]

After many failed attempts to get my Falcons working on an Adaptec RAID 5405 card I updated the Adaptec's firmware to 16501 (available since feb 18), wiped the drives (wiper.exe on this forum), configured a Raid 0 array with 128 stripe on the Adaptec and selected 'drive specified' for the caching option instead of my normal 'enable all', installed Windows 7 x64 without having to load a driver (included in Windows installation) and very surprisingly everything worked and kept working!! Repeated triple runs of EVEREST disc benchmark hours apart report no speed drop, infact a slight progressive increase, initially average 466, 3 hour later 476, 2 hours later 487.5.

Before doing the above I never suceeded completing an instalation on the Adaptec without the RAID controller losing a drive. I had succeeded on an intel x58 but the speed tapered off by the hour after 5hrs around 300MB/s and frequent hanging.

Not sure if this means TRIM is working with Windows 7x64 on Adaptec controllers with the latest firmware, but I am sure without the latest firmware Falcons and other new SSD's with the same controller were a no go on many RAID cards including Adaptec's 5405 despite older SSD's working.

Anyway, whether it was wiping the drives to get their speed to match, installing the new Adaptec firmware or choosing 'drive specified' in the controllers BIOS options or all of the preceding my RAIDing Falcon's now really fly

that is great to see everything works like a charm. i do notice that lots of people using older raid card and not able to see, or install OS. some of raid card doesn't even have new firmware yet. but i will suggest them to update the frimware

[Mor]

Update: 24 hours later after, moving 100+gb of data between drives while simultanously imaging the RAID drive, using media files and downloading 6 steam games (a pretty good real world test). All tranfers finished successfully in excellent time, no noticable mouse or any other hangs.

Everest reports 489MB/s linear mid-drive read, 427 random read and 850 buffered read. These are the best speeds to date and were obtained without stopping the steam downloads to the drive. Other than the buffered read these speeds are slightly faster than the 4 velociraptors that use to be on the Adaptec controller before and have 30+ times less latency.

Falcon's in a RAID 0 array truely working like a charm.

[G.SKILL]

thanks for purchasing our Falcon SSD
and we're very glad to hear the great performance


G.S

[edwinpj]

I hope to get similar performance.

I currently have two 128GB SSD (not Falcon), and an Adaptec 5805, and I can confirm that they are terrible when coupled with an Adaptec controller. I am still waiting for G.Skill to reply to my RMA/upgrade request (five days!!!)

Having four of these drives (~$1000) and the Adaptec 5805 (~$500), and not being able to compile while moving the mouse is terrible for a software engineer. This was supposed to be a barn-burning build rig, but now, it's just an overpriced web-surfing station.

You made the right choice when you bought the Falcon drives. I was foolish to think that the JMicron-controller based drives were actually SATA-II compliant, but they are not, which is why the Adaptec controller does not work well with them.

Please, G.Skill, demonstrate your solid customer support by allowing me to RMA and pay to upgrade my disks!!!

Also, G.Skill, please warn your customers about the stuttering in non-Falcon drives! It's death for enterprise-class RAID controllers.

[G.SKILL]

I currently have two 128GB SSD (not Falcon), and an Adaptec 5805, and I can confirm that they are terrible when coupled with an Adaptec controller. I am still waiting for G.Skill to reply to my RMA/upgrade request (five days!!!)

Having four of these drives (~$1000) and the Adaptec 5805 (~$500), and not being able to compile while moving the mouse is terrible for a software engineer. This was supposed to be a barn-burning build rig, but now, it's just an overpriced web-surfing station.

You made the right choice when you bought the Falcon drives. I was foolish to think that the JMicron-controller based drives were actually SATA-II compliant, but they are not, which is why the Adaptec controller does not work well with them.

Please, G.Skill, demonstrate your solid customer support by allowing me to RMA and pay to upgrade my disks!!!

Also, G.Skill, please warn your customers about the stuttering in non-Falcon drives! It's death for enterprise-class RAID controllers.

sorry, we already reflected your problem, but these days are COMPUTEX, so there is not a solution yet
JMICRON also will have a new firmware which should improve this issue
anyway, we'll try to give you an answer these 2 days
sorry for the late reply


G.S