I/O Performance
Here is proof for HyperOS’s statements about several hundred or thousands of times better performance of the HyperDrive 4 versus conventional hard drives or RAID arrays. Even the single HyperDrive 4 provides almost 8,800 I/O operations per second using the fileserver benchmark pattern, and this goes up to as much as 13,800 I/Os per second in a RAID 0 with two HyperDrive 4 units. Even the fastest hard drives max out at approximately 200 I/O operations per second. The WD Raptor WD1500, which you can find on the very bottom of the diagram, is between 123 and 174 I/Os per second.
Web servers typically require few write operations, which is why the Flash-based hard drives from SanDisk make their comeback in this benchmark. Once again, the HyperDrive 4 delivers 7,000 I/Os per second.
Database access involves lots of random access and usually only small blocks. Here the I/O performance of the RAM SSD is stellar again: roughly 12,000 I/O operations per second for the single HyperDrive 4 or up to 23,000 for a RAID 0 setup is nothing any RAID configuration of conventional hard drives could ever beat.
No changes also in the workstation benchmark. The HyperDrive 4 clearly dominates Flash hard drives and the WD Raptor WD1500.
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I'm surprised the RAID controller doesn't get itself all in a twist bating along at those speeds!
Great article THG
But... I have been monitoring the progress of the Hyperdrives (or not!!) over the past few years... The Hyperdrive IV (long awaited) has been around for months... So why have THG taken so long to produce this article???
We get subjected to latest GPU wars (which never show MINIMUM framerates) or Intel CPU... Thats great when they introduce something new (Netburst->Centrino->Core) but otherwise is pretty dull... Time to put the innovation back in THG!!
As for the Hyperdrive IV its a crock of **** because HyperOS Systems _still_ have not sorted out a SATA-300 link for it!! Mind you at least it is no longer vapour-ware (like it was for 2-3 years of development post product announcment)... An SDRAM base Hyperdrive V (?) should saturate a 3Gbit link and only then will you totally kick the butt of any other drive on the planet!! The benchmarks results would change radically then!!
Ah looking forward to 2008!! Donations to the "Bob Build a Server Fund" gratefully received :-)
Bob
Well forget all this and look over here:
http://www.fusionio.com/
They have FAR more bang for your buck.
It will be expensive in the beginning (everything is in IT). Once this filters through to the normal user it will DESTROY anything that SATAII can throw at it. 100,000 io/s, the benchmarks speak for themselves.
doa_cp:
OK the price may be good but the life span isn't. The Hyperdrive will last a lot longer (with decent ECC RAM). Also I would rather have a generic SATA-2 interface than suffer the driver headaches of a PCIe interface. Could you ever install an OS on one - I doubt it!! (Especially Windows of course!!)
I am interested in the performance for RAID-0 cheap CF cards with SATA adapters hanging off a good RAID card with 256Mb+ of cache ram. 8x CF 8Gb cards could have interesting performance numbers!!
Also the individual CF cards could be replaced as they wear out and the investment in CF IDE-SATA adapters and Hardware RAID card amortilised over time... Still waiting, waiting, waiting for THG to pull their collective fingers out and do a decent article on this subject (and not the pansy assed one that came out this year).
Bob
BobWya,
what do you mean the life span is not very long? Its more than a hard drive, and just as good as a CF card.
I would think that drier support would be extremely good, it is aimed at the server market, but if they want windows sales then 2003 and XP are (almost) identical so drivers would not be a problem.
You are right about OS installation though, that is until mainbaords accept PCIe as a boot device (could wait a LONG time for that).
I don't know that I'd want to install an OS on it though, especially windows (think pagefiles!!).
I reckon that it will kick ass as a database/webserver storage solution, maybe just a bridge too far for "normal" pc users.
doa_cp
I guess just losing storage slowely ain't so bad (through wear leveling). I got a new Seagate HD in the Summer and last month one of the heads started aqua-planning on the harddisk. So you're right when you think of HD lifespans...
However I was pitting your PCIe drive against a bank of RAID-0 CF cards or a Hyperdrive V (?? - SATA-1 interface is a waste of money) Now the later may be expensive but it should last a longtime (SDRAM lifetime)!!
Bob