MSI GT70 SuperRAID Solution Pictured, Tested

[btarunr]

MSI released pictures and performance numbers of its in-house SuperRAID storage design that's implemented in its GT70 gaming notebook. The GT70 has two drive bays, one of which holds a 500 GB WD Scorpio Black hard drive, and the other, the SuperRAID module. The hard drive is tasked with just storage and a system recovery partition, while the SuperRAID module is where the action is.

Simply put, the SuperRAID module is a PCB with a RAID controller, and two mSATA 6 Gb/s slots. Each of these slots holds a SanDisk U100 64 GB mSATA SSD. Each of these SSDs come with rated sequential transfer rates as high as 440 MB/s (reads) with 220 MB/s (writes), but striped in RAID 0, the volume churns out tested transfer rates as high as 964 MB/s (max. read), 928 MB/s (avg. read), and 843 MB/s (min. read), when tested by HDTune Pro 5.00. The SuperRAID module is bootable, and holds the operating system and programs. MSI claims with transfer speeds well over 900 MB/s, it has the fastest storage solution among gaming notebooks.

[daimonass]

Not bad

[neliz]

[DanTheBanjoman]

It is bad, you pay a shitload of your hard earned cash for this and no game will perform any better with this compared to a single standard 2,5" SSD. And even with that standard SSD, it's mostly just loading times.

[Jizzler]

Nice.

Though at least use a pair of 120/128GB mSATA drives for the capacity. Otherwise, I would prefer a single, larger 2.5" in that spot.

[Mindweaver]

It would be great if you could say put a large SSD for OS, and Programs that you need the speed. Then have a smaller SSD that you could use "Intel Smart Response Technology" with that 500GB HD. Just my 2 cents..

[neliz]

Originally Posted by Jizzler

Nice.

Though at least use a pair of 120/128GB mSATA drives for the capacity. Otherwise, I would prefer a single, larger 2.5" in that spot.

Not increasing the cost is also taken into consideration. 2x64GB wouldn't increase the cost yet deliver 30-50% higher performance than a single SSD.

(My Vertex3 maxes out around 500MB/s, not 900MB/s)

[btarunr]

I'll rot in hell for this question, but

Can it run Cry TRIM command?

[neliz]

Originally Posted by btarunr

I'll rot in hell for this question, but

Can it run Cry TRIM command?

That's up to the Intel chipset

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by neliz

Not increasing the cost is also taken into consideration. 2x64GB wouldn't increase the cost yet deliver 30-50% higher performance than a single SSD.

(My Vertex3 maxes out around 500MB/s, not 900MB/s)

Should offer a drive-less model as well, give users the ability to add 120GB drives, as well as the 750GB Black (because we're only talking $10 for +250GB)

Also, seems the chipset would have little to do with it given that the SuperRAID has it's own controller.

[neliz]

Originally Posted by Jizzler

Also, seems the chipset would have little to do with it given that the SuperRAID has it's own controller.

your assumption?

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by neliz

That's up to the Intel chipset

That was in response to single drive (AHCI) vs. SuperRAID.

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by neliz

your assumption?

Playing the odds, which is that SuperRAID is not using a controller that will pass TRIM commands to the array given the lack of this support by all known major controllers.

Did not come out and declare it as fact earlier as because two things could have happened:

- It's using a new unknown controller.
- The news articles miscategorizes the chip used as a RAID controller when it is not.

I thought of the latter because of the answer given in post #6. However, with only a snide remark in #9 with no information on the controller used or evidence to the contrary, the answer to btarunr's question is simply "no" ...unless you would like to bring some information to tread? I'm all eyes.

[Depth]

I'll stick to my Revodrive X2 for a little while longer...

[Aquinus]

TRIM isn't a magic command that suddenly makes your SSDs haul ass, it improves subsequent writes to already written blocks. If you're pushing bandwidths that high (2 Force GTs in RAID-0, I know it's fast,) you're not going to notice that bandwidth and isn't going to help much for every day applications. It really is overkill, but we like that here at the TPU.

My RAID-0 has no trim and every time I run a benchmark, it continue to astonish me with 1gb/s read and write.

[Sinzia]

I think its a step in the right direction myself, I love the idea.

[djcl.ear]

May you post a picture of the raid device other side?
I am assuming it has an mSata connector in there.
If that is so, then using a small size SSD (say 1.8mm) and placing this raid thingy on top plus a flexit-like mSata extension, it could fit into other laptops... could it?