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Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A
Introduction
Although Adaptec is known more for SCSI adapters than anything else, their product line is far more diverse. Included in the diversity is a fairly extensive line of RAID cards - ATA, SCSI, and even Fibre Channel RAID. This article takes a look at one of two recently announced additions to Adaptec's ATA RAID product line: the ATA RAID 2400A. The 2400A falls into the "high-end" category, while the ATA RAID 1200A (the second recently announced RAID card from Adaptec- expect a review soon) is more of a low-cost solution.
The Hardware...
Adaptec positions this adapter to compete with the likes of Promise's SuperTrak100 and 3ware's Escalade series. With a RISC processor, RAID 5 support, and 32MB of cache (up to 128MB supported), it's certainly a formidable competitor on paper. Below are the card's specs in more detail:
- RAID levels 0, 1, 01, 5, and JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks)
- i960RS based
- Four ATA-100 channels (1 drive per channel)
- Hot swap and hot spare support
- Stripe size selectable from 8K to 256K
- 32MB of cache (up to 128 supported)
- 32-bit/33MHz PCI
- Online capacity expansion
- Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95/98/Me, Windows 2000, Red Hat Linux, SuSE 6.4 & 7.0, Novell NetWare, FreeBSD, and SCO Unix support
- 3-year warranty
Included with the adapter are the following items:
- Four single-connector ATA cables
- Driver/utility CD
- User manual
As is becoming standard with high-end ATA RAID cards, the 2400A is a full-length PCI card. On the adapter itself reside four ATA connectors, two HighPoint HPT370 ATA-100 RAID chips, a 32MB SDRAM module (ECC PC100, CL2), an Intel i960RS processor, and a total of eleven LED's that illuminate the entire bottom-half of the case when lit.
It's worth pointing out that the ATA RAID 2400A is the first ATA unit to support online capacity expansion. This feature allows drives to be non-destructively added to an existing array. For example, a 4th drive could be added to a 3-drive RAID 5 array to increase capacity.
Another notable feature of the 2400A is the ability to non-destructively create a RAID 1 array using a drive that already has data on it (an OS installation, for example). Though featured on adapters such as the Escalade and MegaRAID IDE 100, this feature merits a mention since, as yours truly learned the hard way at work a couple weeks ago, it's a feature that even some very expensive SCSI RAID cards lack.
The Software...
The ATA RAID 2400A comes with several software tools to facilitate array management. The primary piece of software - Storage Manager Pro - is a GUI that allows arrays to be managed from within Windows, Netware, or RedHat Linux. With Storage Manager Pro, a plethora of configuration and management functions may be performed both locally and remotely. Arrays may be created, destroyed, expanded, and reconfigured. Event notification settings may be configured to email and/or page the appropriate person when, for example, a drive failure occurs. Several controller settings such as task priority and write cache configuration are also present.
In addition to Storage Manager Pro, the package includes Storage Manager, which, according to Adaptec, provides the same basic functionality but also supports SuSE Linux, SCO UNIX, and FreeBSD. Another utility - RAIDUTIL - is a scriptable command-line version of Storage Manager. This comes in handy when a GUI is not available. Finally, the card's BIOS utility (called SMOR; short for Storage Manager On ROM) allows for standard functions such as array creation, deletion, and rebuilding.
The Benchmarks...
In the following trials, the 2400A's write cache was enabled and set to 'write through' mode (the default). The stripe size was 64k for all tests. Driver version 3.02 was used along with BIOS revision 3.50c.
 Note: Shortly after testing was completed, Adaptec informed us of a new BIOS release (version 3.607) and a new driver release (version 3.03) for the ATA RAID 2400A. We could find no discernable performance difference using both the new BIOS and new drivers; therefore, we decided to stick with the original results.
WinBench Results...
We'll first take a look at single-drive scores to use as a baseline.
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - Baseline Scores
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The only thing that stands out here is the Adaptec's slightly higher access time relative to most other base configurations.
WinBench RAID 0 Scores...
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 0 with 2 Drives
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 0 with 3 Drives
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 0 with 4 Drives
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Overall, the 2400A's RAID 0 Diskmark scores don't increase at all relative to a single drive. But, as we've learned in previous RAID reviews, WinBench's Diskmark tests can be extremely unrepresentative of RAID performance. For that reason, we'll wait and see what IOMeter has to say about the ATA RAID 2400A's RAID 0 performance before drawing any conclusions.
Of particular interest is the 2400A's incredible STR performance. When we saw the Escalade 2400 sustaining 103MB/sec in a 4-drive RAID 0 configuration, we were quite surprised... We simply didn't think the PCI bus was capable of sustaining such a high transfer rate. Imagine our surprise when the 2400A turned in an even-more-impressive 109MB/sec.
WinBench reports a CPU utilization of 88% in the 4-drive RAID 0 configuration, just like it has done with every other RAID card we've tested so far. This is, of course, unrepresentative of reality.
WinBench RAID 1 Scores...
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 1 with 2 Drives
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As was the case with the Escalade 6400 and SuperTrak100, the 2400A yields RAID 1 WinBench Diskmark scores significantly lower than that of a single drive. In both cases, we concluded that the scores were unrepresentative of each card's performance. The same is likely true for the 2400A as well; again, IOMeter may provide a more accurate performance picture.
That aside, it's interesting to note that the 2400A's STR remains unchanged relative to a single drive. This indicates that, unlike the Escalade, the 2400A isn't doing any load balancing during sequential reads. Access time is also unchanged, which by itself could lead one to conclude that the 2400A doesn't load balance random reads, either. As we'll see, however, the 2400A's RAID 1 IOMeter scores show otherwise.
WinBench RAID 01 Scores...
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 10/01 with 4 Drives
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The 2400A's RAID 01 Diskmark scores are obviously unrepresentative, so we'll just ignore them. The card's STR is what we'd expect based on what we've seen so far. Its slightly higher access time in RAID 01 (compared to a single drive), however, is interesting.
WinBench RAID 5 Scores...
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 5 with 3 Drives
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Ziff Davis WinBench 99 under Windows 2000 Professional using NTFS - RAID 5 with 4 Drives
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WinBench's RAID 5 Diskmark results continue to be useless with the ATA RAID 2400A. When we first encountered this issue with the SuperTrak100, we hoped that the card itself was at fault so that it would be an isolated problem. Obviously, this isn't the case; it appears that we're going to be stuck with the problem until either the testbed changes (if it's somehow the fault of the motherboard, for example) or until a new version of WinBench is released.
Astute readers may notice something interesting about the 2400A's access times: they are, on average, about 0.5ms higher than single-drive configurations (SL6 and Ultra66) as well as the Escalade's scores. This is somewhat disconcerting- 0.5ms is fairly large overhead for random, linear reads. Does this increase in access time cause the 2400A to stumble in random IO situations? Let's take a look at some IOMeter scores and find out.
IOMeter Scores...
Base Scores...
| IOMeter - Single Drive Baseline |
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| File Server Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3ware Escalade 6400, 1 Drive | 65.77 |
66.60 |
75.80 |
84.57 |
96.91 |
| Abit SL6, 1 Drive | 64.11 |
66.91 |
76.83 |
86.75 |
94.68 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, 1 drive | 63.79 |
65.55 |
74.46 |
82.32 |
95.46 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, 1 Drive | 61.23 |
63.23 |
72.58 |
80.79 |
88.24 |
| Promise Ultra 66, 1 Drive | 65.51 |
67.85 |
78.11 |
87.72 |
96.97 |
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| Workstation Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3ware Escalade 6400, 1 Drive |
77.43 |
77.98 |
86.38 |
95.44 |
110.31 |
| Abit SL6, 1 Drive | 75.20 |
77.47 |
88.26 |
98.92 |
110.14 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, 1 drive | 74.83 |
77.59 |
85.07 |
95.46 |
111.00 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, 1 Drive | 71.55 |
73.54 |
83.35 |
92.14 |
100.51 |
| Promise Ultra 66, 1 Drive | 76.05 |
77.96 |
88.49 |
99.85 |
110.34 |
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| Database Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3ware Escalade 6400, 1 Drive | 70.04 |
71.18 |
78.72 |
87.25 |
97.45 |
| Abit SL6, 1 Drive | 68.64 |
70.33 |
79.27 |
87.89 |
95.50 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, 1 drive | 68.74 |
70.82 |
80.66 |
86.70 |
98.05 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, 1 Drive | 65.58 |
67.06 |
75.06 |
82.32 |
89.31 |
| Promise Ultra 66, 1 Drive | 76.05 |
77.96 |
88.49 |
99.85 |
110.34 |
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| Random Write Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3ware Escalade 6400, 1 Drive | 109.01 |
108.73 |
108.94 |
109.37 |
116.02 |
| Abit SL6, 1 Drive | 104.48 |
104.36 |
104.33 |
105.80 |
114.16 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, 1 drive | 131.43 |
131.07 |
130.91 |
130.61 |
131.04 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, 1 Drive | 107.65 |
107.63 |
107.83 |
109.37 |
117.65 |
| Promise Ultra 66, 1 Drive | 105.25 |
105.17 |
105.12 |
106.68 |
115.36 |
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| Sequential Write Pattern - Total MBs per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3ware Escalade 6400, 1 Drive | 27.64 |
27.66 |
27.68 |
27.69 |
27.37 |
| Abit SL6, 1 Drive | 27.54 |
27.48 |
27.48 |
27.49 |
27.15 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, 1 drive | 26.32 |
26.31 |
26.35 |
26.39 |
26.11 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, 1 Drive | 12.81 |
12.85 |
12.85 |
12.85 |
12.77 |
| Promise Ultra 66, 1 Drive | 27.60 |
27.63 |
27.64 |
27.62 |
27.36 |
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The 2400A's Workstation, File Server, and Database scores are pretty much in line with the Escalade's - no significant differences are present. Write performance, however, is a different story. The 2400A's Random Write performance significantly betters the Escalade's, while its Sequential Write performance is somewhat lower.
RAID 0...
| IOMeter - RAID 0 with 2 Drives |
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| File Server Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 71.71 |
109.55 |
122.64 |
135.94 |
157.68 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 2 drives | 70.84 |
109.12 |
116.24 |
139.95 |
157.76 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 66.77 |
67.46 |
76.03 |
83.00 |
91.09 |
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| Workstation Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 84.93 |
130.58 |
144.55 |
158.87 |
183.84 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 2 drives | 82.85 |
130.44 |
137.74 |
168.92 |
186.64 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 77.96 |
78.29 |
86.55 |
95.08 |
105.11 |
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| Database Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 82.21 |
121.60 |
133.57 |
146.21 |
165.85 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 2 drives | 82.34 |
121.68 |
131.35 |
153.51 |
168.13 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 76.07 |
76.69 |
84.41 |
91.27 |
99.86 |
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| Random Write Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 191.39 |
191.77 |
191.68 |
192.77 |
199.15 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 2 drives | 223.87 |
223.23 |
223.29 |
223.70 |
222.86 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 198.06 |
197.76 |
198.46 |
199.28 |
207.37 |
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| Sequential Write Pattern - Total MBs per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 55.28 |
55.37 |
55.37 |
55.39 |
55.13 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 2 drives | 46.63 |
52.63 |
52.81 |
52.90 |
52.03 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 2 Drives | 15.50 |
15.54 |
15.56 |
15.56 |
15.48 |
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| IOMeter - RAID 0 with 3 Drives |
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| File Server Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 73.46 |
146.34 |
174.30 |
194.35 |
227.12 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 3 drives | 72.20 |
150.71 |
166.38 |
203.78 |
227.37 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 68.45 |
68.76 |
75.67 |
83.62 |
93.58 |
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| Workstation Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 86.20 |
166.87 |
205.43 |
227.60 |
263.69 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 3 drives | 83.31 |
174.56 |
198.25 |
242.50 |
269.35 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 79.38 |
79.88 |
86.21 |
95.48 |
106.80 |
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| Database Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 84.31 |
170.70 |
190.08 |
209.49 |
235.98 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 3 drives | 84.23 |
173.84 |
186.01 |
224.89 |
242.12 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 78.38 |
78.12 |
84.40 |
93.10 |
104.37 |
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| Random Write Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 280.47 |
281.26 |
281.78 |
284.74 |
289.87 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 3 drives | 322.94 |
321.84 |
322.43 |
322.76 |
321.90 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 295.93 |
295.39 |
296.63 |
296.69 |
305.16 |
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| Sequential Write Pattern - Total MBs per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 57.87 |
61.93 |
61.89 |
61.83 |
61.71 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 3 drives | 5.77 |
5.18 |
4.92 |
5.19 |
5.19 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 3 Drives | 16.86 |
16.93 |
16.93 |
16.92 |
16.84 |
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| IOMeter - RAID 0 with 4 Drives |
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| File Server Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 74.87 |
169.28 |
225.49 |
251.12 |
293.66 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 4 drives | 73.23 |
172.93 |
214.46 |
261.87 |
296.13 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 68.56 |
68.94 |
74.25 |
82.63 |
92.92 |
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| Workstation Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 87.28 |
188.96 |
265.44 |
294.50 |
338.69 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 4 drives | 85.30 |
196.68 |
253.88 |
313.81 |
346.24 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 79.32 |
79.68 |
84.65 |
94.29 |
105.75 |
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| Database Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 85.71 |
192.41 |
245.70 |
272.60 |
308.59 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 4 drives | 82.73 |
208.56 |
240.27 |
294.58 |
317.20 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 78.94 |
78.94 |
83.21 |
92.34 |
104.38 |
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| Random Write Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 372.29 |
372.26 |
374.17 |
375.69 |
381.89 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 4 drives | 416.83 |
415.66 |
416.07 |
417.31 |
416.69 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 294.08 |
295.39 |
205.69 |
42.87 |
74.84 |
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| Sequential Write Pattern - Total MBs per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 57.97 |
62.07 |
62.08 |
62.09 |
62.02 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 0, 4 drives | 3.75 |
3.14 |
3.16 |
3.14 |
3.15 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 0, 4 Drives | 0.56 |
1.87 |
1.87 |
1.87 |
1.84 |
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Overall, the ATA RAID 2400A's RAID 0 scores are excellent. In the Workstation, File Server, and Database patterns, the 2400A not only keeps pace with the Escalade 6400 (an impressive feat in of itself), but also manages to beat the Escalade in most tests. The 2400A consistently remains a few percentage points higher than the Escalade under moderate and heavy load, with the Escalade returning the favor under light load. Results under linear and very light loads are mixed, though very close overall.
The 2400A turns in RAID 0 Random Write performance significantly better than the Escalade's. There seem to be issues with the 2400A's Sequential Write performance, however. Under 3- and 4-drive tests, the 2400A's scores are simply awful. We witnessed similar issues with the FastTrak100 under RAID 1 and RAID 01 - there, the issue was resolved with an updated driver. Hopefully the same will be true for the 2400A as well.
The 2400A's RAID 0 performance is impressive despite the Sequential Write issue. It's the first card to come close to the Escalade's performance, let alone perform better overall... a noteworthy feat indeed.
RAID 1...
| IOMeter - RAID 1 with 2 Drives |
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| File Server Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 1, 2 Drives | 74.43 |
116.88 |
126.98 |
135.37 |
152.29 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 1, 2 Drives | 65.78 |
115.10 |
119.16 |
138.96 |
151.85 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 1, 2 Drives | 71.72 |
73.20 |
82.40 |
83.28 |
102.37 |
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| Workstation Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | Light | Moderate | Heavy |
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| 3Ware Escalade 6400, RAID 1, 2 Drives | 87.17 |
131.54 |
137.33 |
149.93 |
169.88 |
| Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A, RAID 1, 2 Drives | 68.70 |
117.66 |
123.59 |
146.68 |
159.35 |
| Promise SuperTrak 100, RAID 1, 2 Drives | 84.87 |
85.90 |
96.40 |
108.49 |
119.50 |
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| Database Access Pattern - Total I/Os per second |
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| All Loads | Linear | Very Light | |
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