One can improve the performance of small files by up to 50X which for certain types of setups can reap HUGE results. Webservers, File Servers, and OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) will benefit tremendously. There is definitely a large group of users that would be very interested in combining the positive aspects of both solutions (HDD/SSD) into one cohesive unit.  How …

After a period of time the SSD cache is going to be accessed quite frequently, and this has other advantages. Right now Cachecade is a read-only layer, so it might not be easy to understand the tremendous benefits that it has in regards to write performance on the HDD array. By freeing up the HDD from the most constantly addressed …

CacheCade performance is much more dependent on SSD read performance than on SSD write performance, so the performance depends upon the size of the SSDs and the total size of the data hot spots. If there simply aren’t many hot spots on the array being accelerated, you will not gain as large of a performance gain. Once again, in our …

This is the Test Bench and a quick click will display it close up.  As you may have guessed, it truly is no ordinary Test Bench, and I have dedicated many many hours creating this build, which has been used in many benchmarking excursions and extreme overclocking sessions. She has even set a few HWBot world records along the way! …

This is the single source test. The straight read testing just uses a single test file of 50GB that is read from the array as a 4k (aligned) Random Read pattern, at a Queue Depth of 32.  With this test it is showing the absolute best case scenario, results are usually going to be 2x of the more demanding zoned …

Zoned Setup- A more complex read pattern that is much more demanding of the caching algorithm. The overlapped cold-cool-warm-hot data regions IOMeter benchmark is the most stressful on the hot data caching algorithms and so results typically reach performance in the 30,000 to 45,000 IOPS range. The base array in this scenario is generating around 500 IOPS before acceleration, which …

ADDED VALUE During testing,  one thing that struck me was the sound of the drives, once they were loaded with information and being tested. The 4k random read is one of the hardest types of file access for any storage solution, especially Hard Disk Drives. At the beginning of each test, sitting in the room I could hear the sound …

The search for fast, cheap, reliable and large capacity Hard Disk Drives seems to be never ending. Enter Samsung with their new EcoGreen 54EG 2TB Series of hard drives and we get a fresh look at something newer, faster, quieter and requiring less power than other hard drives in todays fast moving world of storage. With contenders such as Seagate, …

This is the Test Bench and a quick click will display it close up.  As you may have guessed, it truly is no ordinary Test Bench and I have dedicated more hours creating this build than than I care to admit to get it where it is today. Our main focal point in this report will be an array of …

MBR LIMITATIONS In order to ensure that our review went smoothly, their needed to be consideration as to what partitions would serve our tests best as this was definitely not a standard-issue configuration.  This was first discovered when we examined the inherent limitation of the MBR disk partitioning system which is the standard used for the vast majority of drives …