Testbed and Methods
The following benchmarks were used:
- IOMeter 2003.02.15
- WinBench 99 2.0
- FC-Test 1.0
Testbed configuration:
- Intel SC5200 system case
- Intel SE7520BD2 mainboard
- Two Intel Xeon 2.8GHz CPUs (800MHz FSB)
- 2 x 512MB PC3200 ECC Registered DDR SDRAM
- IBM DTLA 307015 hard disk drive as the system disk (15GB)
- Onboard ATI Rage XL graphics controller
- Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 4
I used the latest BIOS and drivers for the controllers, downloading them from the manufacturer’s website.
The controllers were installed either into a PCI Express x8 slot or into a 64-bit/66MHz PCI-X.
The Western Digital WD740GD (Raptor 2) hard disks were installed into the standard boxes of the SC5200 system case.
I tested the controllers with four HDDs in the following modes:
- RAID0 – all the controllers
- RAID10 – all except for the AAR-1420SA (due to technical reasons)
- RAID5 – only for RAID5-supporting controllers, i.e. the AAR-2820SA and the ASR-3405
The controllers were set at the Performance mode for maximum performance during the tests. This mode allows deferred writing and look-ahead reading for both the controller (in its own buffer memory if available) and the disks. The Performance mode should not be used without a cache battery because there is a high risk of losing data in case of a power failure.
