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FRONTPAGE HighPoint RocketCache 3240X8 Review
- Thread starter Overclockers.com
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- Joined
- Jul 31, 2004
Having a nice large SSD (of my choice) for cache that will work on any system with any drives (of my choice), not just some specific Intel chipset, or some Seagate XT drive, or some OCZ drive, is exactly what I want 
Hopefully the firmware is reliable. I've had rather poor luck with HighPoint devices in the past. Definitely going to wait until there's a bootable version before I buy one, though.
Hopefully the firmware is reliable. I've had rather poor luck with HighPoint devices in the past. Definitely going to wait until there's a bootable version before I buy one, though.
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- Joined
- Aug 11, 2008
The only issue I had was the crash after waking from sleep and accessing the drive, which sounds like a firmware/BIOS issue to me. Once I disabled sleep/hibernation, everything worked great.
Good point on the RocketCache working on any system, that's worth reiterating. If your board doesn't have onboard caching, then this is pretty much the only choice that allows you to run any SSDs and HDDs together as single drives. Not only that, but allow multiple SSDs combined for RAID0-like cache performance.
I'll be trying to get ISRT working for comparison in the near future. I wanted to get that testing in this article, but the Rapid Storage Tech software was refusing to work...
Good point on the RocketCache working on any system, that's worth reiterating. If your board doesn't have onboard caching, then this is pretty much the only choice that allows you to run any SSDs and HDDs together as single drives. Not only that, but allow multiple SSDs combined for RAID0-like cache performance.
I'll be trying to get ISRT working for comparison in the near future. I wanted to get that testing in this article, but the Rapid Storage Tech software was refusing to work...
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- Aug 11, 2008
In my opinion, having to disable sleep mode is a very minor sacrifice for what you get out of the product. If a user would rather have their PC at the desktop a few seconds sooner than have high speed, high-capacity, secure data, then the RocketCache probably isn't meant for that user.
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- Jun 9, 2010
+1
Most of the people I know don't put their computers to sleep. (folding and the like instead)
So I would also consider it to be optional, especially since it can be disabled. If it wasn't able to be bypassed then I would consider that a fail.
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- Aug 11, 2008
Also, with a SSD as a boot device, boot time is significantly faster. So, when you can go from off to desktop really fast, that makes Sleep mode pointless.
The Sleep issue with the RocketCache still needs to be fixed, don't get me wrong. It's just not a deal breaker.
Yes, if Sleep couldn't be disabled, it would have definitely gotten a Fail since it wouldn't be usable at all.
The Sleep issue with the RocketCache still needs to be fixed, don't get me wrong. It's just not a deal breaker.
Yes, if Sleep couldn't be disabled, it would have definitely gotten a Fail since it wouldn't be usable at all.
I dunno ... I gotta say that it looks like junk to me. Especially for $160!
It seems overly complicated and poorly programmed. It's modes are also kind of stupid and misleading and their benefits seem somewhat ill conceived.
They should give you independent control over each array of HDDs and SSDs.
Not giving any option for raid 5/10 style parity is dumb as well.
I was initially excited about this product because I am looking for something like this for my server that has limited motherboard drive space. But after reading the review it seems like they need to go back to the drawing board and come back with a real product. IT should be more like a super fancy raid controller card then a bloated and confused hybrid ssd/hd disk.
This part makes it also seem a bit underwhelming for the price:
It seems overly complicated and poorly programmed. It's modes are also kind of stupid and misleading and their benefits seem somewhat ill conceived.
They should give you independent control over each array of HDDs and SSDs.
Not giving any option for raid 5/10 style parity is dumb as well.
I was initially excited about this product because I am looking for something like this for my server that has limited motherboard drive space. But after reading the review it seems like they need to go back to the drawing board and come back with a real product. IT should be more like a super fancy raid controller card then a bloated and confused hybrid ssd/hd disk.
This part makes it also seem a bit underwhelming for the price:
Sleep could and should probably be abolished considering what Intel is doing with hazzy and the power features they're building into it...
Old MS users know to distrust hibernate and sleep ... but i wonder how much they've improved for win 7 and 8.
eh probably not much...
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2008
I'll also throw this out there showing costs, "best case" speeds (RAID0 or cache performance modes), and performance/$ and assuming someone wants 4TB of storage.
Getting 4TB of SSD space is out of the picture due to cost, plus you would probably need a RAID card to get support for 8 drives in RAID. I guess you could just span them across each other to avoid buying an HBA, it would just cut the speed down to 550MB/s, making SSDs-only even less worth it. So, to get affordable high speed, high capacity storage, RAID arrays or SSD caching is required. For single SSD caching, ISRT may be a better choice if your motherboard supports it just because of the "no extra cost" to the end user. I'll be testing ISRT soon to find out, as long as I can get the software working.
Cache is set up the same on the following modes, so performance is similar with fast reads and writes.
There can only be one array on the RocketCache, and you have control over it. Am I missing something on this? Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean.
From the last 3 quotes, you are definitely looking for a RAID card and the RocketCache is not one. The HighPoint RocketRAID 2720 costs the same $160, supports up to 8 drives, and has RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/JBOD. However, you won't get close to the speeds that the RocketCache can provide unless you RAID0 4, 8, or 12 HDDs. The RocketCache at least has protection from a single drive failure when in the Protection modes. So, HighPoint made a compromise. They sacrifice a SAS port and RAID 5/6/10/50/JBOD features for greatly increased speed. It depends on what the end user is looking for.
HighPoint may very well combine the RocketCache with one of their RAID cards to have the best of both worlds, having SSD caching RAID arrays; which sounds awesome, but it won't be cheap.
Getting 4TB of SSD space is out of the picture due to cost, plus you would probably need a RAID card to get support for 8 drives in RAID. I guess you could just span them across each other to avoid buying an HBA, it would just cut the speed down to 550MB/s, making SSDs-only even less worth it. So, to get affordable high speed, high capacity storage, RAID arrays or SSD caching is required. For single SSD caching, ISRT may be a better choice if your motherboard supports it just because of the "no extra cost" to the end user. I'll be testing ISRT soon to find out, as long as I can get the software working.
Cache is set up the same on the following modes, so performance is similar with fast reads and writes.
- Max Performance: SSD RAID0 Read/Write + Combine HDD Storage
- High Protection and Cache Performance: SSD RAID0 Read/Write + Mirrored HDDs; Data is written to cache first, then moved to HDD when idle. So, you get faster writes.
- High Performance with Cache Protection: SSD RAID0 Reads + Combined HDD Storage; Data is written to the HDD first, then moved to cache. So writes aren't as fast.
- Max Protection: SSD RAID0 Reads + Mirrored HDDs; Data is written to the HDDs first, then moved to cache. So writes aren't as fast.
There can only be one array on the RocketCache, and you have control over it. Am I missing something on this? Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean.
From the last 3 quotes, you are definitely looking for a RAID card and the RocketCache is not one. The HighPoint RocketRAID 2720 costs the same $160, supports up to 8 drives, and has RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/JBOD. However, you won't get close to the speeds that the RocketCache can provide unless you RAID0 4, 8, or 12 HDDs. The RocketCache at least has protection from a single drive failure when in the Protection modes. So, HighPoint made a compromise. They sacrifice a SAS port and RAID 5/6/10/50/JBOD features for greatly increased speed. It depends on what the end user is looking for.
HighPoint may very well combine the RocketCache with one of their RAID cards to have the best of both worlds, having SSD caching RAID arrays; which sounds awesome, but it won't be cheap.
I think that I just fail to see the purpose of a product like this. I think the thought process behind it has potential but the end result is clumsy and possibly not worth the cost.
The alternative of using a SSD (or two for mirror/backup) for your OS and a Raid 1/5/10 for your storage just seems like not only a safer/better, but more cost effective solution.
With the cost of SSDs steadily dropping, you would be better off with spending the $160 in that much more space on a SSD and pick up a HDD as well. With that you get more GB/$ and also less links in the chain to fail.
Just my 2 c ;P
The alternative of using a SSD (or two for mirror/backup) for your OS and a Raid 1/5/10 for your storage just seems like not only a safer/better, but more cost effective solution.
With the cost of SSDs steadily dropping, you would be better off with spending the $160 in that much more space on a SSD and pick up a HDD as well. With that you get more GB/$ and also less links in the chain to fail.
Just my 2 c ;P
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what about seek times? my raptors in raid zero spit out good numbers, seek times are not the best.
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- Aug 11, 2008
The RocketCache is for people who need fast transfers on all their storage without breaking the bank. Using a SSD for the OS and HDDs for storage isn't a bad solution at all. However, only data on the SSD will be fast, whereas with the RocketCache, any data you have stored and use often will be fast. For example, if you happen to change what data you access from week to week, then it will all have fast transfers using SSD cache. If you are constantly creating data and want to have fast transfers with that data, then a SSD will fill up much faster than SSD cached HDDs when saving the data.
I actually said the above in the conclusion
"However, for the everyday user, it would be more economical to get a larger SSD and maybe an external HDD...
An eSATA/USB3 external or internal HDD would work best.
There are access times (ms) in the AS SSD table, I didn't want to add more graphs when there's already over 30 in the article. I have the hard numbers linked at the beginning of each section. What do your Raptor access times look like?
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- Jul 31, 2004
Those read access times look rather horrid...
I don't see the point of this product. It is simply Intel's Rapid Response on steroids, however, with HighPoint's reputation I would not trust my data to this product.
We need OS/software level support for tiering, similar to the new Fusion Drive option on OS X.
We need OS/software level support for tiering, similar to the new Fusion Drive option on OS X.
I had no idea Highpoint had a bad rep... interesting (happen to have any links so I can read up?)
Along those lines, a good backup policy is CRITICAL to have for a single drive or any other setup for that matter......mitigating any risk supposedly incurred by using Highpoint's products, no?
Along those lines, a good backup policy is CRITICAL to have for a single drive or any other setup for that matter......mitigating any risk supposedly incurred by using Highpoint's products, no?
In my experience their UDMA 66 and 133 controllers were prone to nuking drives. We had many an irate customer with Abit mobos that had these controllers on them.
As for backups, yes, the data is saved, but you still waste time.
