SuperSSpeed S306 120GB RAID 0 TRIM SSD Review Storage   Page 1

Reviewer: Jon Coulter Article Publish Date: 12/5/2012

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

 

 

It’s no secret that RWLabs loves RAID 0. We will run RAID 0 any chance we get. Today we are going to RAID 0 a couple of power efficient low cost SuperSSpeed S306 120GB drives together and see what kind of performance we can get. The S306 drive we tested last week surprised us with really great performance even though it sports only a 4 channel controller.

 

 

 

For little more than the cost of a single 240GB SSD you can get yourself a pair of these great little drives and RAID 0 them for great performance that a single drive can’t match. These drives are very power efficient and have killer small file sequential compressible read performance that actually exceeds any other LSI SandForce drives we’ve ever tested.

The S306 comes with 504 firmware so the drives are TRIM enabled and as usual we will be testing this array’s TRIM performance. TRIM is vital for retaining performance over time and is an aspect of performance RWL tests for that you will find in very few reviews and when it comes to RAID 0 TRIM something you will only find here.

Before we get started are a few prerequisites for functioning RAID 0 TRIM we should go over. 1) You must be running an Intel Z77 board, processor doesn’t matter you can use any 1155 socket CPU. 2) You must have an 11 series OROM as part of your BIOS which should come already built in on any Z77 board. 3) You must be running an 11 or higher series Intel RST storage driver. The last prerequisite is your drives must have functioning TRIM which is a prerequisite of course for a single drive as well. For a more in-depth analysis of functioning TRIM verses non-functioning TRIM (click here).

Editors Note: There is now a way for you to get your P67/Z68 motherboard to have functioning RAID 0 TRIM thanks to 2 supra-genius’s FERNANDO 1 and DUFUS from ANANDTECH Forums. There is a great article you can find by clicking (here) that explains how it’s done and gives a link to the modded OROM necessary. I have modded my Z68A-GD80 B3 BIOS with this OROM and will report back shortly with my own TRIM testing results in a quick article. Another thing to note there are new BIOS’s that will enable RAID 0 TRIM for X79 so it looks like the party won’t be exclusive for very much longer.

Well let’s get this array fired up and see what she’s got in the tank.