The 3ware Escalade 7500-4LP Hot Rod!

RAID? Not the bug neutralizer!

RAID, what exactly is it about this acronym that tends to scare most people into a corner?  Let’s say that you are standing around with your pals at the water cooler during break one day and you hear Mike talking about building a nice computer system with RAID.  You then hear Steve imply “you should go with SCSI since it’s incredibly fast!”.  You automatically roll your eyes over to Mike before Steve completes his statement.  “True, but it’s way too expensive and very noisy”.  Clearing his throat, the new guy pipes up and asks the million dollar question: “Why exactly do you need to have RAID anyway, aren’t most computers already fast enough nowadays?”  Ahhh, the question that you have been waiting for!  But before you can take your focus off of the new guy’s shirt with a coffee stain on it, Mike and Steve both look at the new guy with a look of idiocy and simultaneously respond with a sarcastic “Uhhh, speed that’s why!!”  Your mind automatically associates speed with this new terminology RAID.  You look at the new guy with disgust and repeat the obvious, “yeah man, speed!”  There, your stature is now safe amongst your peers but now it’s time to go back to your cubicle, jump on the internet, and do some research on RAID.

A RAID refresher:

Much like others that fancy computers and making them run as fast as possible, you will eventually be confronted with whether or not to go RAID.  For those of you that do not know what RAID is, here is the definition: RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or sometimes "Independent") Disks.  RAID is a method of combining multiple hard disks into a single logical unit to offer high availability, performance or a combination of both.  This provides better speed, resilience, and performance than a single disk drive depending on what level of RAID array you choose.  Some of the benefits from using RAID will be:

• Higher Data Security
• Fault Tolerance
• Improved Availability
• Increased, Integrated Capacity
• Improved Overall Performance

The good in this case also comes with the ugly.  Some of the negatives that are associated with RAID are the following:

• Overall Cost of Hardware
• Loss of the data/array (RAID 0)

I will omit the finer details of RAID because that is beyond the scope of this review.  I just wanted to wet the whistle for those of you that needed a refresher on the topic.  There are many excellent sources with more detail about RAID out on the net for it’s various devices and configurations.  This review will focus around the economical but speedy ATA, or Parallel RAID.  The product that I will be reviewing for you today will be the 3Ware Escalade 7500-4LP (Low Profile) ATA RAID Card.  From this point on we will proceed to call this card the “7500” throughout this review for sake of simplicity.

The Escalade 7500-4LP ATA RAID Box

Introduction:

Why would we even think about purchasing and implementing an ATA RAID controller in our systems?  This answer will be different depending on what you will be using the RAID for.  ATA RAID storage is a viable alternative for SCSI in non-mission critical applications and the initial and maintenance costs are far less expensive.  Webservers or webfarms that constantly need to send and receive an enormous amount of data will ultimately benefit from using a high end SCSI RAID solution.  Other users that will see the direct advantages of RAID are those that work with huge files that stream a lot of data such as a CAD/CAM seat, a Video Editing station, a 3D Solids Modeler, or a Graphic Artist.  All of these users will most definitely see the advantage of using RAID but might not care to shell out the money for SCSI.  What about the typical home user or the avid gamer?  Will they benefit from the robust features the 7500 has to offer in a low cost RAID solution?  These are the questions that I hope to answer for you today.  Since I do not have four of the same hard drives to fully test the capacity of this controller I will only use two with the system I have and direct the review more towards the typical home user or small business server.  With that said, let’s get on with the review.  Here are the specifications for the Escalade 7500-4LP and the Test System used:

Escalade Specifications:

Half-length PCI Form Factor

64-bit/33MHz Bus Master

Auto-sensing ATA 133/100/66/33 Drive Interface

PCI 2.2 Compliant

BIOS Pnp, and BBS Compliant

OS Support:

Windows 98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP

Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux

Linux Driver available through open source kernel 2.2.15 and later

http://www.3ware.com/support

Escalade Features:

Non-blocking switch architecture maximizes fault isolation and throughput.

On-board processor minimizes host CPU overhead

SCSI device driver for OS compatibility and easy installation

Easy-to-configure from BIOS

Browser-based 3ware Disk Manager (3DM) utility for ease of management

Hot-swap and hot-spare support for maximum data availability

Dynamic sector repair and media scrubbing for robust data protection

BIOS supports booting from the array

S.M.A.R.T. disk drive monitoring for advance warning of impending drive failure

Multiple logical volumes and RAID levels can exist on one card

Multiple card support for up to 4 controllers in a single system

R5 Fusion technology for unmatched RAID 5 write performance

Physical and Environmental Specifications:
Calculated MTBF@ 25°	Over 1.27 million hrs
Operating Temperature	0°C to 40°C (0°F to 104°F)
Operating Humidity	10% to 40% non-condensing
Power Requirements	5W max on +5V.025W max on -12V
Dimensions	L=6.875” x H=3.875” (17.5cm x 9.9cm)

Test System Specifications:
Operating Systems:	Windows 2000 (SP3) & Windows XP (SP1)
Mainboard:	Tyan Tiger MPX (S2466)
Chipset:	AMD-760-MPX
	AMD-762 Northbridge
	AMD-768 Southbridge
	Winbond W83627HF-AW LPC I/O ASIC
Processors:	(2) AMD Athlon MP2200+ & Thermaltake Volcano 7 HSF’s
Memory:	Corsair 1.5 GB ECC Registered PC2100
Hard Disk(s):	(2) Western Digital 80GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB Buffer Special Edition
Video Card:	Visiontek GeForce3 Ti-500
Sound Card:	Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Network:	Onboard 3COM 3C90X TX-10/100
CD/RW:	Lite-On 52x24x52
Power Supply:	Powmax 430W
System Cooling:	Air cooled: (1) 120mm fan, (4) 80mm fans
Mainboard Temp:	94°F to 106°F (Idle & under load)
Processor(s) Temp:	91°F to 102°F (Idle & under load)
Ambient Temp:	Room Temp ~78°F

Benchmark Programs Used:
Windows 2000/XP	Intel’s IOMeter v2003.02.15
	Passmark Performance Test v4.0

Out of the box:

The 7500 comes with a 44 page installation guide, release notes, products and accessories sheet, four (4) “total” two port ATA/133 40 pin cables, a 3ware case badge sticker, one (1) CD with the drivers and install of 3ware’s 3DM (Disk Management Utility), and last but not least the actual controller card.  Upon further visual inspection of the card, you will notice that the card is a small controller hence the name 7500-4LP (Low Profile).  There are instances of “3ware” stamped over most of the components and the onboard processor.  You can definitely tell this is a 3ware card, can’t fault them for being proud of their product!

Contents of the Escalade 7500-4LP Box

Another feature that I have been eager to test out is the 64-bit/33 MHz bus on this puppy.  These interfaces are capable of sustained PCI data rates of 264 MB/s (528 MB/s for 64-bit, 66MHz; 264 MB/s for 64-bit, 33MHz or 32-bit, 66MHz; 132 MB/s for 32-bit, 33MHz).  The burst rate of data throughput on the PCI bus doubles with the 64-bit interface with data transfers.  Since 64-bit transfers achieve better PCI bus utilization, more devices can be added to the bus before realizing the bus' full bandwidth potential. The more heavily weighted your system becomes with peripheral devices the more it benefits from having a 64-bit 66 or 33 MHz PCI bus.  The motherboard that I will be using for this review is the Tyan Tiger MPX and it does have two (2) 64-bit/66MHz slots so this should be interesting to see what kind sustained data throughput I will get with this controller.

The 7500’s 64-bit 33MHz Interface

Getting started, installing the card:

The first set of benchmarks that I will use will come from the Windows 2000 Professional OS.  The reason that I chose to use Win2k for this first set of tests was simply for the fact that many people still use this fairly stable chunk of code.  I first formatted the two Western Digital hard drives individually using NTFS for a clean install.  I then installed the 7500 controller as per the instructions in the installation guide.  So far no curse words or bloody knuckles and the card fit in my test rig with no problems at all.  I then proceeded to connect the 3ware supplied ATA cables to the WD HDD’s and connected the LED pin to the Jumper on the 7500.  Finally I closed up the case and fired up the computer.  The BIOS instantly recognized the card and invoked the 3ware BIOS Tool.  Immediately you must hit “Alt-3” to enter the 3ware Disk Array Configuration display.  Next you must select the HDD’s that you wish to use for the RAID array.  Highlight the drives that you wish to use for your array and press “Enter”.  There should be an asterisk to the left of the chosen HDD.  Now you may use either the arrow keys or press “Alt-C” for “Create Array” and this will take you to the “Select RAID Configuration”.  Once here, you will have four (4) options: Stripe (RAID 0), Mirror (RAID 1), Mirroring and Striping (RAID 10), and Parity Data and Striping (RAID 5).  For this review I will only be testing this card with RAID 0 (Striping).  You should now be at the “Select Striping Size” screen.  The default selection is “64K” so that is what I will use for this first round of testing.  You now have the option of choosing “Write Cache Properties”.  The 7500 gives you a choice of disabling the write cache for your disk arrays.  Write cache is used to store data locally on the drive before it is written to the disk, allowing the computer to continue with it’s next task.  Enabling this feature results in the most efficient access times for your system.  The default for this feature is “Enabled” so we will leave it as it is.  Select the “OK” button to confirm and “F8” will make it permanent.  Note: The current limitation is 2TB for any physical or logical unit but I don’t think we need to worry about that for this review!

Here we go!  The Windows 2000 Installation:

Once the array is built we are now ready to install our OS.  I did notice that the NTFS format went by extremely fast, much faster than with a single HDD.  Ok, now we have our OS up and running.  I only installed the necessary evils such as device drivers, Service Pack 3, 3ware’s 3DM software, DirectX 9, then did the usual round of updates from the Microsoft Update utility.  Lastly, I installed the various benchmark programs that I would be using to achieve my results.  At first, I chose to do an install with everything that came bundled on the Escalade CD then later decided to scrap this and just download and install the newest drivers off of the 3ware website.  At this point, I do need to mention something that is very important!  If you plan on installing with the driver set: 7.5.3 which comes bundled with your 7500 and you later wish to update to the newest set of drivers from the 3ware downloads section please pay close attention!  You must download three (3) files to make sure that everything works together in unison.

First you need to get v7.6.0 of the 3DM Management Software.  Secondly, you need to download v7.6.0 of the driver fileset.  And finally, you will also need to grab v7.6.0 of the Firmware Update.  Read the release notes from the website about updating your firmware on the 7500 because this is the only way that you will be able to use the 3DM Management Software v7.6.0 with your favorite browser.  Basically, if you have an older firmware version on the controller and you install the v7.6.0 drivers for the 3DM Software your intended browser functionality will not work!  I learned this the hard way and after some head scratching I finally got the order figured out and the card updated with no problems at all.  Once again, read the release notes!  This will save you a lot of frusteration down the road when your 3DM software gives you the //localhost:1080/ “Page cannot be found” error inside your browser.  The downside to this whole process is the fact that you will need to use an old DOS 6.22 boot disk to get started on the firmware update.  This upgrade cannot be done inside a Windows DOS prompt, you must use this process.  This is a bit of a hassle but it will be well worth it in the long run.  You can download the proper DOS 6.22 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com for free incase you tossed it out five years ago like I did.

Up at bat! Intel’s IOMeter:

Intel’s IOMeter is an industry standard for testing input and output access patterns through various settings and configurations.  Although this program is purely a synthetic test, it is still a crowd favorite for running tests such as these.  For our testing we will go with some variations of Intel’s recommended Fileserver Access Patterns.  I know this is not the typical setup for the template that has been done hundreds of times for a review such as this but I wanted to truly see both ends of the spectrum when it comes to pushing my test system as well as the 7500.  These numbers will probably make the I/O Benchmark zealots go nuts but this is the way we are going to proceed.  Using the 256 I/O load test setting is understandibly over the top since even busy servers might achieve this figure only in burst moments.  When considering steady-state loads, 64 I/O’s easily represents a very busy server so that will be what we’ll shoot for on our target results.  The first set of testing will be done exclusively with Windows 2000 Professional.  Once I have finished running all the tests and are satisfied with all of the results, I will repeat the process with Windows XP in the same fashion.  The way that I setup and executed the benchmarks was with three (3) Test Set’s each with two (2) Runs to achieve my results.  You can look at the following table to see what I am talking about in more detail.  Please click the images to see the settings that were used for that specific Test Set.

      

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