3x NVMe Intel 760P 1024GB SSD in RAID0 on Asus ROG G703GI (Core i9-8950HK)

[Gvand]

Hello All,

Maybe you can help out.

I recently got an Asus ROG G703GI laptop with following specs:

• Core i9-8950HK CPU
• 4x 16GB DDR4-2666 Mhz SDRAM
• 3x 1TB Intel 760P SSD (INTEL SSDPEKKW010T8) (2 SSD's on Intel CPU attached NVME Controllers)
• 1x 2TB Samsung 850 Pro SATA SSD
• 1x GTX 1080 GPU

Drivers:

• Intel(R) Chipset SATA/PCIe RST Premium Controller: driver-version 16.0.10.1104

This is what I installed. The original specs were:

• Core i9-8950HK CPU
• 2x 16GB DDR4-2666 Mhz SDRAM
• 2x 256GB Intel 760P SSD (INTEL SSDPEKKW256GB)
• 1x 2TB Seagate FireCuda spinner
• 1x GTX 1080 GPU

This PC is supposed to be able to reach 8700Mbps SSD speeds but mine does not reach that (still 5000 to 6000Mbps though).The RAID0 read speed of the 3 1TB SSD's is about the same as of the 2 256GB SSD's. The write speed is higher though.

Is there anything I miss?

[n_scott_pearson]

With only this much to go by, it is difficult to speculate - but I've never let that stop me before!

Ok, you have two NVMe interfaces using CPU PCIe lanes and a third that is using PCH PCIe lanes. This would make the most obvious issue DMI bus contention. What else was going on when you ran the test?

...S

[Gvand]

Thanks for trying Scott.

There was nothing else going on at the time, really. Could it be that the 3TB Volume is too big? When I started to build the RAID0 with the IRST driver from within Windows 10 1803/RS4, I got a warning that the RAID0 volume could not exceed 2TB. I could, however, set up the 3TB RAID0 anyway.

[n_scott_pearson]

Really? That seems odd. What if you create the RAID0 array from within the RAID BIOS extension (OpROM)? [You do CTRL-I during BIOS POST to get into this extension.]

..S

[Gvand]

RAID is/can be setup from within the UEFI BIOS. RAID BIOS through Ctrl-I is not implemented. On both my Asus G752VY and now the G703GI I was able to install/have a Windows boot partition on one SSD and than create the RAID0 from within Windows with the IRST software.

Here is a link to the Asus ROG forum where I describe how I setup the RAID0 on my G752VY: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?85069-Setting-up-RAID0-on-G752VY Setting up RAID0 on G752VY

[idata]

the reason you are not reaching 8700MB/s speed is because the raid is via chipset, and chipset connecting to CPU is DMI 3.0 x4 lanes link. which is same spec as pcie 3.0 x4 lane, pretty much caps out at around 3.9 GB/s or 3900MB/s at best.

also raiding with so many SSD is pointless, it increases your sequential performance which is rarely used in client workload environment, at best you'll be a bit faster in game level loading by 1-2 seconds or faster in terms of editing video/audio thats about it. raid actually INCREASE latency due to multiple drives, thus have some impact to system's overall snappiness.

also, that screenshot of Crystal disk mark is hilarious. it shows just how crappy and inaccurate that software is. CDM is known to give peak results, which should only be used for 4k random at QD1 and T1. your sequential goes to Q32 thats hardly possible in client workload. at best daily scenario ranges from QD 1 to QD 2, maybe once in a while you'll hit QD4 if you load multiple things at the same time.

[Gvand]

You definitely are more knowledgeable on this than I am. But I think 2 SSD's are directly attached to the CPU.

[idata]

im sorry bro, I know what you think they said, its all marketing. the people who made that picture have no idea what they are talking about. it is HIGHLY VERY unlikley you'll EVER find a laptop that allows SSD attach to CPU, let alone raid.

especially raid via CPU for consumers JUST came out like 1yr ago, its called VROC (which is crap btw, many problems, low performance than through chipset). VROC is only available on x299 the first consumer high end desktop platform, which offers up to 18 CPU cores 7980xe. (8700k MIGHT have it as per pcper) so your laptop is 99.9999999999999% raided via chipset.

ultimately, you have been misled by marketing, typical of ASUS/MSI etc.

now if by some chance this will be FIRST EVER laptop allows storage raid through CPU which I do not know of, then it goes back to what i mentioned. VROC is pretty much at first generation and there are ton of issues with it. look it up VROC review through tomshardware, you'll see the performance you get from raid is hardly worth it.

lastly, your CPU has x16 lanes, x8 goes to dGPU assuming its not iGPU. you have x8 lanes left, split into 4 of x2 lanes, means each x2 lanes only hit about 1.6GB/s. you have 3 SSDs, that gives you around 5GB/s at most for perfect scaling.