Conclusions.

It goes without saying that the results obtained within are certainly most spectacular and it goes without saying how value a commodity the LSI 8888ELP Raid card really is when properly deployed.  The added argument of cost comes into play, but does it really when you take into account the security and devastating performance shown here today.   No studio or SoHo user can afford downtime especially when working to very strict tight deadlines.  There is nothing worse than a whole scene in redraw drops away due to a drive failure which can be an all too often occurrence.   Although worse case scenario, it still is a risk assessment that has to be made from concept of putting the system together in the first instance.  Yes fast is good, as we all like fast.  Fast means deadlines are to be met, though sometimes at what cost when the all too simple answer lies within a price range $450 - $700 raid card that provides the ultimate security.  Drop a drive – just replace a short wait during rebuild and return to work.  It does not get any easier than this.

Notwithstanding the new Western Digital RE3 enterprise drives, for a first outing here they have shown a spectacular array of results.   Deployed as either a single drive or combined within Raid (which after all is what they have been designed for) have caught our attention as too those that have had a brief look into the results before this article was produced.  With three 334GB platters, 32MB of cache and a five-year warranty, the RE3 is capable of competing easily with other terabyte offerings out in today’s market.   This latest edition to the Western Digital RE Range is without doubt one of the fastest about – with the exception to the rule of our favourite 10000RPM VelociRaptor.   In some areas as shown within it may seem like a single drive has the added advantage but we have to note the added pull on the CPU utilisation and the access time is down by 2ms.  As a singular drive the Western Digital RE3 Enterprise 1TB disc has to be taken very seriously for those of you who need the top of the range disc that has the stamina and strength of a workhorse.

For those of you who skipped past 3D Studio Max 9 page or could not make out the numbers clearly they are once more

CBALLS2 – NON RAID Configuration - 2 MINUTES AND 3 SECONDS
CBALLS2 – RAID 1 Configuration - 1 MINUTES AND 50 SECONDS (Faster by 11.8% or 13 Seconds)

Radiosity – NON RAID Configuration - 12 MINUTES AND 44 SECONDS
Radiosity – RAID 1 Configuration - 11 MINUTES AND 24 SECONDS (Faster by 11.6% or 1 min & 20 sec)

Underwater Scene 5 frame Pass – NON RAID Configuration – 1 Hour, 38 MINUTES & 21 SECONDS
Underwater Scene 5 frame Pass – RAID 1 Configuration – 1 Hour, 28 MINUTES & 14 SECONDS (Faster by 11.5% or 10 mins & 7 Sec)  

When deployed independently, hard drives are left to perform error recovery on their own while the rest of the system waits. RAID controllers do not like to be inactive.   If a drive takes too long to recover from an error, it's often marked as bad and dropped from the array. To prevent an untimely expulsion from the array, the RE3 features Time-Limited Error Recovery (TLER) that limits the amount of time the drive will be unresponsive while attempting error recovery on its own. If the drive can't recover the error within this limited time span it defers the error recovery to the RAID controller.  An exceptional little add-on from both parties.

For many the thoughts of a card like this within a professional workstation would be completely overlooked and would have the card firmly planked into place on the server for security.  If we wish security here then why is it not deployed as shown within?  Hopefully today we have raised and heightened the awareness to all alike that a card of this nature is required unequivocally.

LSI’s MegaRAID 8888ELP Raid card has shown today a few of its basic capabilities and we have really just touched the very early beginnings.   None the less they are very spectacular to say the least and will have a few professionals out there seriously thinking now who thought onboard Raid is sufficient.   For some, the first outing of this card may seem a little overwhelming but it’s really very simple to install and set-up as the web bios facility has so much to offer.     The results shown within the article most certainly prove without a shadow of doubt that this is the way ahead for the professional.  Increases in performance within many areas substantiate the cards existence within the system.   Who can allow or miss out such significant increases in output performance as this has shown.

Overall this has been an interesting outing showing just how well the LSI MegaRAID 8888ELP has performed.  It has given a good workstation not only added security in disc management but additional superb performance that no-one can afford to ill afford to ignore

Ultimately, the new Leader in our awards section for the Mass Storage

Page 1 - LSI MegaRAID 8888ELP Introduction
Page 2 - Western Digitals 1TB RE3 Enterprise Hard Drives
Page 3 - System Set-Up and Software Used
Page 4 - HD Tach 3.0.4.0 Journalists Edition
Page 5 - HD Tune Benchmark 3.10
Page 6 - ATTO and Everest Disc Benchmarks
Page 7 - PCMARK 2005 Advanced and MAXON Cinebench 10
Page 8 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009
Page 9 - 3DS Max 9 SP2 Scenes
Page 10 - SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
Page 11 - SPECviewperf® 10.0
Page 12 - Conclusions