The Fastest Storage EVER – HOLY $H!T Ep 14
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,341 words · ~6 min read
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They're finally here. Just
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wait. I got my 24 PCIe SSDs for my new storage
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server. Come on, let's go build it.
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If you haven't seen Nerd Sports yet, check it out. All the episodes are
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available now for free over at youtube.com/ channels
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superfund. But before we begin, we are going to need some supplies. First, a
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barebones server from Super Micro, the
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SSG 2028 AR NR48N.
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I guess we'll just roll it
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there. Quad 10 GB network
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card, 64 gigs of RAM, dual 2699 V422
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core CPUs. Time for boring inventory
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reconciliation. Oh, I've had that in the wrong field. Damn it. I was scanning the
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wrong barcodes. And time for fun again.
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Everybody on board the insane train.
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What better place to build this new machine than our shiny new B-roll set.
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All I'll need is a screwdriver and maybe a table. Time for my favorite
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activity. Shocking drives. Oh, this is going to take a
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while.
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24 NVMe PCIe
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SSDs, each rated at a theoretical up to
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250 with another zero, 2500 megabytes
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per second reads and 1,200 megabytes per second writes. And we are going to take
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all these bad boys and we're going to put them in a gigantic RAID
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array. Oh no.
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cut. But how on earth do you run NVMe
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drives in RAID? The answer is this very
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special barebones machine from Super
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Micro. In fact, this box can handle not
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just 24, but 48 NVMe drives, giving us
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the capacity to, without changing the model of drives that we're using, have
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up to about 50 terabytes of solidstate
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storage in a single box. And did I even
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mention that it's all in a 2U form
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factor? Now that we've got everything we need for assembly, it's time to open
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this sucker up, peel off the oh so satisfying protective plastic, and take
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a closer look. At the back are expansion
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slots, a 1,000W 80 Plus titanium power
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supply with an extra in case the first one dies, and a couple regular SATA 2
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and 1/2 in drive bays cuz you know you're a badass when all of your drives
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don't fit in the front of your case. Back at the front, we've got 24 NVMe
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slots, but this machine supports 48.
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Where do the other 24 go? Ah, that right
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there is the secret of Super Micros simply double enclosures, a whole
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additional bank. But how do you feed 48
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PCI Expressbased drives? Here's where the magic happens. One of the three
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expansion slots that runs off of the second CPU is occupied by a PCIe x16
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quad U.2 card. And there are four native
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ports that use a different connector on the motherboard itself that run off the
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first CPU. Then both of these go to back
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planes behind the banks of drives.
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Since we're in here, this seems like a good time to show how the quad 10 GB
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network card that we showed before goes in. This can be upgraded in the future,
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though I don't see myself needing anything like that for a while. And we
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can throw in our 22 core CPUs and our
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relatively pedestrian 64 gigs of DDR4
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RAM. I think I'll have to steal some memory from the server this is
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replacing. And that's pretty much it for assembly. Time to install the drives.
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Oh, there go all the drives. Well, who didn't see that one
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coming? Finally done. Why is every single one of these
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attached with four
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screws? Anyway, let's take it over to the test
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bench. So, I have all the SSDs plugged
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into this card right now, which means a
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theoretical 16 gigabytes per second of total bandwidth
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using 16x PCIe Gen
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3. Let's go find out how that theoretically translates into the real
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world. Oh, it's heavy.
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Okay, let's get some network connections
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here. Let's get some Oh, yeah. VGA. You
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know it's performance when it has VGA connectivity. Got this all set up. You'd
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think I plug in servers here every once in a while, right? All right, let's
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press the button and listen for the sweet sound of performance.
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That's not bad for a
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2U. So, fast forward half an hour. We
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have got everything set up. So, disc management, we have created a RAID zero.
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You're going to device manager disc drives. Oh, look. Look at
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them all. Obviously, we would never run
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a RAID zero. I am still looking into what will be the best way to configure
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them all with a good balance of performance and redundancy. But this
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video is all about taking it to the extremes. So, we're going to run ADO
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with a QEP of 10 on our Z drive here and
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find out just how fast it can
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go. Whoa. So, now we're talking. That's
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like 2800 megs per second, right? It's
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like play by play. Wow. Oh, it's over
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9,000. We did it. We cracked 10
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gigabytes per second right speeds at
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512K. Wow. Of a theoretical 16 or 15 or so.
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Look at that. Over 11 gigabytes per
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second rights. Over 1 Gigabyte per second reads for 8 megs. I can't imagine
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it getting much higher than that. So there you have it folks. Past 4 to 8
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megabytes. We're looking at read and write speeds in the neighborhood of 10
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GB per second with our highest peak at
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around 12.7 coming close to the
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theoretical maximum of our PCI Express
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X16 link here. Pretty freaking bananas
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if you ask me. And we should be able to easily, even once we work some par or
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redundancy into the equation, saturate our four 10 GB network connections at
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the back here once we get all of those bonded
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And for the first 100 people, you'll get three free meals using the link in our
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video description. So thank you guys very much
9:43
for tuning into this video. If you disliked it, well, that's what that
9:47
button's there for, isn't it? But if you liked it, hit that like button, get
9:50
subscribed, maybe check out the link to where to buy a cool, fast SSD, maybe
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just one if you're not into buying 24 of them at Amazon in the link in the video
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description. Also, down there is our merch store and our community forum. And
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don't forget to check out our other channels, which you'll find a video of
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up here. I will see you guys again next
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time. What's he going to do next time? Nobody knows. Maybe he's going to rip
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out a fan. Ah, while it's running, hot
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swap fans, [ __ ]