Looks like it does heavy analysis of user-access patterns and does speculative loading. Thus, it may inadvertently ( or purposefully ) game benchmarks.

@scottalanmiller said:

And as you can see because of the silly way that Mac OSX identifies running windows, I can't keep track of my own identity today.

But I admire that you can get work done on OS X at all. To me it feels like dropping back into a Pentium 4.

@mlnews said:

@creayt said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Have not read this yet but likely this has info that you want...

http://www.zfsbuild.com/2012/04/18/let-zfs-use-all-of-your-ram/

Read that, seems like it was just pointing out a lack of foresight in the initial design of ZFS and how it arbitrarily ignores a heavy chunk of RAM resources at any scale. Are you saying to look into ZFS itself?

No, it was a fast search. I'm in the middle of a big database migration project and don't have much time to respond. ZFS is just one filesystem on UNIX that has some extensive RAM caching functionality.

NP, thanks for the help. Sounds like a/the major competitive advantage for Samsung Rapid Mode is that they write the software and make the hardware and can directly optimize the software for the hardware ( deducing this as it was alluded to many times, and it makes a lot of sense ).

I wonder if part of the reason the Samsung version benchmarks so high is because of these subtechniques ( which for all I know may be copied from or already exist in Unix

Read/Write Cache. RAPID mode uses system DRAM as a cache of “hot data” based on frequency, recency, file type, etc, such that subsequent requests can be served directly from DRAM, rather than going to the SSD.

Write Optimization. System write requests are processed for optimized performance with [ the Samsung hardware itself ].

File Awareness. RAPID mode may exclude certain files from caching based on a variety of factors, including file type, file size, etc. This prevents unnecessary data from polluting the cache.

Persistent Cache. RAPID mode maintains cache map across system reboot to maintain consistent high performance
operation.

Cache Compression. RAPID mode dynamically compresses and de-compresses cache contents to dramatically improve cache efficiency. Optimized for Samsung hardware. RAPID Mode was co-developed and optimized for the
Samsung MEX controller.

Does anyone here have a Unix box available w/ a single SSD they can run something Crystal like and see what numbers it puts up? I'd be curious to see how close to my numbers on Windows on my ~$1,000 system it can get using the Unix built-in stuff.

@scottalanmiller said:

Have not read this yet but likely this has info that you want...

http://www.zfsbuild.com/2012/04/18/let-zfs-use-all-of-your-ram/

Read that, seems like it was just pointing out a lack of foresight in the initial design of ZFS and how it arbitrarily ignores a heavy chunk of RAM resources at any scale. Are you saying to look into ZFS itself?

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

We're talking about Samsung's Rapid Mode software layer, it's not part of Windows. It's written for and only supported on Windows, because that's their market. If you're saying there's a Unix-available equivalent, what's it called and what kind of numbers can it get out of a single SSD?

I know, that's what I was explaining. Samsung is making third party code to bring into Windows something that every major competitor has natively. It's not called anything, it's just how UNIX works It's just the ram cache.

And it can get whatever you can get out of memory performance. It's a RAM cache.

Wow, thanks. I'm about to Google my ass off. Does that mean that Unix in general is more likely to lose data in the event of power loss than Windows?

White paper: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/downloads/document/Samsung_SSD_Rapid_Mode_Whitepaper_EN.pdf

@scottalanmiller said:

UNIX does that without special software.

Wait, so are you saying that Unix, by itself, uses all available system RAM as a write back cache for all applications blindly?

@scottalanmiller said:

That mode is only needed on Windows because Windows doesn't do that natively. UNIX does that without special software. If something has "better performance on Windows" that should be a red flag that something is being missed. UNIX is used for the highest performance, most demanding environments. Outside of video gaming, it should be really shocking to find any UNIX system that doesn't keep up or crush Windows in performance.

We're talking about Samsung's Rapid Mode software layer, it's not part of Windows. It's written for and only supported on Windows, because that's their market. If you're saying there's a Unix-available equivalent, what's it called and what kind of numbers can it get out of a single SSD?

As far as I know there's no way to get anywhere near that ballpark of performance even on Unix, OS X, or Linux at the moment at least.

@MattSpeller said:

@creayt at least account for the rest of it lol - add the cost of the RAID controller to the 10 and RAM to the single

What's going to be epic is when Samsung releases firmware and software updates and adds support for Rapid Mode across a software RAID of their SSDs and supports infinite cores, that'll be a game changer. It maxes out at one drive and something like 8GB of used RAM at this point I think.

@MattSpeller said:

@creayt at least account for the rest of it lol - add the cost of the RAID controller to the 10 and RAM to the single

I'm not sure that helps hahaha. The server was a Dell refub and I think w/ a 40% off coupon still chimed in at about $7k pre-SSDs, so $12k versus about $1250 for the t110 SSD included. But, the Raid one is in a datacenter and has two octacores w/ 256GB of RAM and can probably handle exponentially more users, so I'll keep telling myself that

@MattSpeller said:

Yeah but

Although the Raid 10 SSDs cost $5,000 and the T110 that's putting up better numbers' 850 Pro cost about $140, so now I feel bitter again

@MattSpeller said:

@creayt said:

It's kind of depressing, because TEN 850 Pros in a Raid 10 only put up these numbers:

Yeah but those 10 did it without sucking up any RAM and without risk of data loss from a power event. Credit where it's due and all that.

Voice of reason. That makes me feel slightly better

@creayt said:

It's kind of depressing, because TEN 850 Pros in a Raid 10 only put up these numbers:

@mlnews said:

@creayt said:

I don't think you can make a single SSD push 4.5 giggers a sec on a *Nix OS, so my raw performance would be much worse.

Where is Windows getting that performance from that UNIX doesn't have?

Samsung's Rapid Mode on any 840/850 SSD. It turns the system's RAM into a write back cache and this box has 32GB and gets this performance:

@Dashrender said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@creayt said:

w/ the exception of me over remote desktop to set it up and monitor.

Window Server includes two Administrative User CALs so you'd be good there.

Sure, but if he connects an internal (home) web browser, he needs a CAL for that - most likely.

It looks like 2012 R2 Essentials doesn't use CALs at all, it just has an upper limit after which you need to switch to Standard. See my earlier post for details.

@scottalanmiller said:

Why the Windows and IIS given that lineup of tools? MySQL does much better on UNIX. Java is indifferent. Does you have an IIS dependency?

Out of curiosity, do you have some links to explain/illustrate the "MySQL does much better on UNIX" phenomenon? I've heard both that that's true and patently false, but the only time I really looked into it I arrived at a post on MySQL.com or wherever that was at the time where a higher up at MySQL was touting how well MySQL runs on Windows and that they have an epic number of clients that do just that.

@scottalanmiller said:

Why the Windows and IIS given that lineup of tools? MySQL does much better on UNIX. Java is indifferent. Does you have an IIS dependency?

No dependency, but I don't feel comfortable adminning Linux or Unix ( have logged less than 5 hours w/ Linux ever and found running and adminning Apache on OS X very annoying, though I know it's simpler w/ a scratch install ) and most importantly: I don't think you can make a single SSD push 4.5 giggers a sec on a *Nix OS, so my raw performance would be much worse.

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

So just to be clear/confirm, I'm just using 2012 R2 as a web, app, and database server, and no LAN clients will connect to it w/ the exception of me over remote desktop to set it up and monitor. Does that mean no CALs beyond the included ones are necessary?

No CALs needed for the IIS aspect. The database, whatever it is, may or may not have licensing needs. You will need a Windows Server CAL for each internal user that connects to any aspect of the system - Windows, IIS, DB, etc. This would apply to if you were running Apache and MySQL too.

Just saw this:

I'll be running IIS, MySQL Community, and a Java-based app server, the which I have a license for. It sounds like this will work, thank you.

@scottalanmiller said:

If you want to run a PUBLIC web server, IIS does not require CALs, it couldn't since you can't know how many users you have. Public vs. private usage is key to CAL determination.

So just to be clear/confirm, I'm just using 2012 R2 as a web, app, and database server, and no LAN clients will connect to it w/ the exception of me over remote desktop to set it up and monitor. Does that mean no CALs beyond the included ones are necessary?

It is public in that it's only people across the country that have a private invite connecting to the web app and myself, but through a browser.