System Set-Up

The next question is what system do we test this from?  First and foremost this is an enterprise
drive and therefore should be found in all workstations, especially mission critical ones that
require storage for extreme model sizes.   To get the ultimate performance we dug out our
Supermicro "Crunchinator" system with its notorious Nehalem 3.2GHz EP CPU's.  Therefore, in
theory a system that should fully stretch the hard disc with various tests, from File transfers to
and from backup devices, Drive to Drive File Copies and so the list goes on.

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

Supermicro for the supply of the X8DAi Mainboard and 2 X 32GB Intel Enterprise SSD's

Intel EU for the supply of the 3.2GHz Intel® Xeon® W5580 Nehalem EP® CPU's shown within the Test System.  
 
Crucial Memory  for the DDR3 1333MHz Unbuffered ECC Memory, thank you for pulling out the stops here, currently DDR3 ECC memory is a very limited supply option from most memory makers.  On going to print we have been advised by Micron/Crucial that their is a good supply of this memory module.

Western Digital for the supply of the 2 X WD 2TB RE4-GP™ Enterprise SATA Hard Discs
 
 AMD for the supply of the FirePro V8700 professional graphics card.  
 
Akasa for the supply of the Chassis and PSU

With the support and help of all the companies involved.   It gives you the reader a new choice on upgrade paths that many of you look for here with the performance ratio’s the system has to
provide.
 
Systems Integrators, OEM’s and VAR’s should contact all companies directly for pricing and availability of all components.
Members of the public should contact their respective suppliers requesting the parts directly.

Benchmarks and Software 64-bit Mode

To maintain our target audience within the professional market place, though we are now seeing many old readers coming
back who like the style we produce; we opted for this outing a complete set of professional applications benchmarks.  
This in turn means all walks of life have a very good idea what they are about to buy and just how fast it really is from
this factual article.  The test system shown within will be readily found within many arena's soon now.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit SP2
HD Tach Version 3.0.4.0
HD Tune Version 3.50
Sandra 2009 SP2
Everest 5 Ultimate

Each set of tests has been applied on the clean system hard drives shown above to ensure that no
residue drivers were left installed with all updates/patches applied.   A test has been completed many
times over different periods of the system uptime.  

The results speak very clearly for themselves as a picture paints a thousand words; so there is absolutely no need for a running commentary of the results gained from each system.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Introduction Continued
Page 3 - System Set-Up
Page 4 - Single Drive Results
Page 5 - Raid 1 Results
Page 6 - File Transfer Results
Page 7 - Conclusions and Award