Intel VROC Configuration with 10 Drives

[idata]

Hello Community,

i have a question about the configuration of Intel VROC. How can we setup up a RAID with more than 4 Drive

an array?

Following hardware is given:

Supermicro Server with two Intel Gold 6134 CPU´s. 10 Intel SSD DC P4600 2TB. We have the

VROCPREMMOD Key

Everything works really fine up to 4 drives an array, but we couldn´t configure more than 4 drives!

Intel´s Whitepaper

Now.. what is to do? We have the optimal CPUs, supported Intel Enterprise SSD and the

max. VROC Key.

Greetings SteveO.

[idata]

Hello SteveO.,

Thank you for contacting Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) support and in regards to your situation we'll be more than glad to help you; in order to determine which way will be the most appropriate to assist you we'll need that you send us the Technical Specifications of your machine such as:

• Motherboard Model:
• Amount of RAM that you have installed:
• The Drives are used in a RAID (0, 1, 5, 10) configuration?:
• Version of Intel® RSTe/VROC that you're using:
• Operating System Version:

If possible please attach us the LOG Files generated by RSTe, depending on your Windows Version they could be found in the C:\Users\[username]\Intel folder or also you can use the Email option on the RSTe GUI to generate a report for your equipment.Additionally, we'll like to know if your VROCPREMMOD it's showing-up properly in the BIOS of your equipment, as this could cause the type of situation that you're mentioning. Also, please remember that if you require more assistance or want to add additional details, we'll be glad to assist youBest regards,Chris

[idata]

Hey Chris,

i found the answer. Intel VROC does only support RAID10 with 4 Drives. I cannot understand why? Could you explain that to me?

Here some features:

Supermicro 2029UZ-TN20R25M Server with X11DPU-Z+ Mainboard

2x Intel Gold CPU´s12x Samsung 32GB DDR4 2666 RAM10x Intel DC P4600 2TB SSD 2,5" PCie With RAID5 over all 10 drives, i got a very terrible write performance but incredible read performance. Why? All drivesare connected with x4 (8GB/s)...

I will do some Screens to show u what i mean.

thx

SteveO.

[idata]

Hello SteveO,

We are currently checking the information you provided us, we will get back with you once we get further updates on your questions.Best RegardsLuis H

[idata]

Hello together,

here some benchmarks with the supermicro servers and Intel p4600 2TB NMVe SSD´s.

I have 2 servers with the same specifications. 10 SSD´s each host, 384GB RAM and

the intel gold 6134 cpus. Replacement for my Hyper-V hosts with 30 virtual guests.

No cluster and any other things... Hyper-V Replication to a 3rd host (a DELL 730xd

with 24x 900GB SAS RAID6 with super performance)DELL R730xd 24x 900GB SAS @ RAID6 ... Starting position..

So we beginn now on the brand new servers.

First a single Intel DC P4600 SSD, that confirm the https://ark.intel.com/de/products/122509/Intel-SSD-DC-P4600-Series-2_0TB-2_5in-PCIe-3_1-x4-3D1-TLC specifications of Intel

RAID1 with Intel VROC. The write speed is nearly the same as a single ssd. The

read performance is very great!

RAID0 with Intel VROC. This time 10 P4600 SSD´s. Bad read performance and

.... better write performance. Not very "Intel Enterprise"...

For consolution a RAID0 with my desktop computer Z370 chipset and Samsung

960 evo (really consumer like). That is what i want. Only the poor read performance

is not want i understand...but its consumer stuff.

RAID0 with Intel VROC. 20 P4600 SSD´s.... the scaling ... https://www.linguee.de/englisch-deutsch/uebersetzung/especially.html especially the read

performance ist very bad. This are 20 Intel DC P4600 2TB NMVe 2,5" PCIe Enterprise SSD´s..... I´m https://www.linguee.de/englisch-deutsch/uebersetzung/disappointed.html disappointed about that performance... for near 45.000 Euro.

And now the highlights...for the VROC PREMIUM... i tested all RAID5 configs...

everytime the same result...

RAID5 with Intel VROC. 10 SSD´s.... Cannot believe that.... very bad result.

Write speed is much less than a single cheap consumer SSD... I repeat.. 10

Intel Enterprise SSD with Intel Enterprise Solution.

So finally my choice.. which i could work..

2x RAID10 (only over 4 SSDs)

Could some one explain me the results?

Greetings

SteveO.

[idata]

Hello SteveO.,

Thanks for your reply and the information you've provided us, in regards to your situation please allow us a brief time to research and as soon as we have additional information we'll contact you back for sure. Also, please remember that if you require more assistance or want to add additional details, we'll be glad to assist youRegards,Chris

[idata]

Hello Intel, hello community,

i did some additional tests of my system. So perhabs you can use this information for

your choise to use Intel VROC.

Hardware:

Supermicro https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/2029/SYS-2029UZ-TN20R25M.cfm SuperServer 2029UZ-TN20R25M with https://ark.intel.com/products/120493/Intel-Xeon-Gold-6134-Processor-24_75M-Cache-3_20-GHz Intel Xeon Gold 6134 CPU.

12x Samsung 32GB DDR4 PC2666 ECC reg.

10x https://www.intel.de/content/www/de/de/products/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/data-center-ssds/dc-p4600-series/dc-p4600-2tb-2-5inch-3d1.html Intel P4600 DC SSD (DATA)

2x https://ark.intel.com/de/products/120526/Intel-SSD-DC-S4500-Series-240GB-2_5in-SATA-6Gbs-3D1-TLC Intel S4500 DC SSD (Boot)

All drives are connected with max. bandwidth. So the bifurcation is working well. Lastest

BIOS of the X11DPU-Z+ is Version 2.0b (Feb. 2018), difference with or without "VMD Spanning"

wasn´t measureable!!

Software:

Microsoft Windows 2016 Datacenter (updated with latest updates)

Latest Drivers for RSTe, NVMe, VROC (RSTe_AHCI_VROC_NVMe_Win_5.3.0.1413_2017.10.30)

Single Drive

Raid0 2 drives

Raid0 3 drives

Raid0 4 drives

Raid0 6 drives

Raid0 10 drives

Raid1

Let´s have some experimental time:

2x Raid1 via Intel VROC and a Stripset with Windows.

5x Raid1 via Intel VROC and a Stripset with Windows (feels like a big RAID10 and looks very nice)

So now the reason why you have to buy VROCPREMIUM....it doesn´t matter, when the initialization of the

volume is done. Same result!

Raid5 3 drives

Raid5 10 drives

After testing any configurations... i write all down in an excel sheet.

Crystal read

Crystal write

AS SSD read (RAID10 no data)

AS SSD write (RAID10 no data)

ATTO read

ATTO write

So for my actual productive system i will choose 2x RAID10 (2x 3,6TB) for the VM´s and 1x RAID1 temporary

data of the Hyper-V Host. What a pity that the VROC RAID5 had this terrible write performance... so i hopethey find the way out to make that right! All my systems of the last 15 years were with intel... i never weredissappointed... but the result of intel vroc raid 5.... oh... lovely intel... please make my world happy again .

Greetings

SteveO.

When somebody have questions....

[idata]

Hello SteveO.,

Thanks for the additional information and information you're providing us with this extensive tests; I'll append this information to our investigation and we'll be back with you as soon as possible. Additionally, please remember that if you require more assistance or want to add additional details, we'll be glad to assist youBest regards,Chris

[LBois]

Hi SteveO,

Excellent posts! Thank you for that.

I have an ASUS C422 PRO/SE motherboard with Intel VROC Premium chip installed, an ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 Card. The disks are NVMe Samsung 960 Pro 512GB X4. This is configured in RAID5 bootable with Microsoft Server 2016 Essentials and I'm constantly getting parity errors in my RAID5 and the system is sluggish and sometimes crashes. I can't even do any updates, not one (Error 0xc80003fa). The sequential read speed is about 3000MB/s and the write speed is an abysmal 49MB/s. These disks have been verified with the latest firmware applied and they are in good condition as per the Samsung Magician disk utility and scanned with HDDScan.

Did you verified your RAIDs for parity errors?

Do you get errors? If you do, and rerun the verifications, do they get repaired and are your errors gone?

Thank you.

Luc

[idata]

Hello SteveO,

Thanks for your time and in regards to your situation we'll like to know if you're using the same workload parameters on the 3-drive RAID5 and the 10-drive one. Additionally we'll like to mention that the performance of smaller random packets should be enhanced with a Higher Worker count or IOdepth, as this tools that you're using are more Client Oriented than Workstation/Server Oriented. Also, please remember that if you require more assistance or want to add additional details, we'll be glad to assist youBest regards,Chris

[idata]

Good Morning,

@Luc

i installed Win 2016 Datacenter on a Raid5 with 10 Disks. I didn´t have problems with the parity.. So it works very well. Only the performance @ RAID5 .... is not that what i want.

@Intel

I know that all this tests are only synthetically. But they give us the direction which performance we can expect...

My tests were all with the same parameters... I will do some more tests, to show you where the problems (poor performance) are.

Greetings

SteveO

[idata]

Hello SteveO.,

Thanks for your reply and in regards to your situation we'll be waiting for your test results in order to investigate on the situation that you're describing when using RAID-5 with VROC, once you have the test results please don't hesitate to share them with us. Also, please remember that if you require more assistance or want to add additional details, we'll be glad to assist youBest regards,Chris

[idata]

Hello Chris,

now i made my 2 servers ready to run for my network.

Here my lastest "tests" of RAID10 vs. RAID5 (10DISKS)

Windows 2016 Datacenter >> up-2-date >> and for any components the lastest driver versions.

Copy a 100GB vhdx file on the same partition...

The raid10 works.... ok for me (i expected a bit more performance)..but the raid5 with journal configuration... is not acceptable!

RAID0 standard

RAID0 64k Cluster / Stripsize

Greetings SteveO.

[DiegoV_Intel]

Hello,

I would like to share a new article that has been released recently which covers an analysis of RAID performance on Intel® VROC. It may cover as well some of the concerns discussed in this thread: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000032376/memory-and-storage/ssd-software.html

We apologize for the delay in our response.

Regards,

Diego V.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation