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Highpoint 7101A - PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
With native NVMe aupport in the latest 10.14.1 beta and better performance for PCIe slots in previous updates, can someone provide updated benchmark results?! Have they been improved?

For me, here in Germany the Amfeltec and HighPoint cost both almost the same. But which one performans better? Maybe I will not notice a big difference it in my daily usage, but to know, when it is needed, I have the maximum performance available, gives me a better feeling and psychologically calms me down and asures me, that even my ~10year old cMP will hold on for the next years!

Thanks in advance!
 
misanthrophy said:
With native NVMe aupport in the latest 10.14.1 beta and better performance for PCIe slots in previous updates, can someone provide updated benchmark results?! Have they been improved?

For me, here in Germany the Amfeltec and HighPoint cost both almost the same. But which one performans better? Maybe I will not notice a big difference it in my daily usage, but to know, when it is needed, I have the maximum performance available, gives me a better feeling and psychologically calms me down and asures me, that even my ~10year old cMP will hold on for the next years!

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

From what I’ve Read. High postcard gives you better performance for single SSD, but if 4x SSD in RAID 0, Amfeltec card may do better.

If I were you, I will go for the Highpoint. A single SSD can achieve 3000MB/s seems more useful and less trouble.
 
h9826790 said:
From what I’ve Read. High postcard gives you better performance for single SSD, but if 4x SSD in RAID 0, Amfeltec card may do better.

If I were you, I will go for the Highpoint. A single SSD can achieve 3000MB/s seems more useful and less trouble.
Click to expand...
The amfeltec (gen 3) can also achieve 3000 MB/s from a single SSD. Go for the highpoint because it's newer or because of the design or because of support, but not because of performance.
 
joevt said:
The amfeltec (gen 3) can also achieve 3000 MB/s from a single SSD. Go for the highpoint because it's newer or because of the design or because of support, but not because of performance.
Click to expand...

AFAIK, the gen 3 card wasn't work well in cMP. Do you know if the 138.0.0.0.0 fixed this issue?
 
bookemdano said:
Maybe the SSD7101-A will get slightly cheaper now that the SSD7102 is coming out (not much difference apparently, other than the ability to boot from a RAID volume).
Click to expand...


Hi -
I recently got my hands on a mid-12 c-mp, so I started lurking around here to see what I can do it bring it to 2018 speed.
I am going to put it for personal use, so I really find it ridiculous that these cards are so expensive. Maybe someone can setup a group buy will bring the card to an affordable price range.
 
bookemdano said:
Maybe the SSD7101-A will get slightly cheaper now that the SSD7102 is coming out (not much difference apparently, other than the ability to boot from a RAID volume).
Click to expand...
How does changing the firmware of the PLX make the NVMe drives RAID bootable? I think some other parts of the PC are doing the RAID.

h9826790 said:
AFAIK, the gen 3 card wasn't work well in cMP. Do you know if the 138.0.0.0.0 fixed this issue?
Click to expand...
If by not working well you mean that it booted into gen 1 speed instead of gen 2, then isn't that the same problem the Highpoint card had? If 138.0.0.0.0 fixes the Highpoint, then it also fixes the amfeltec.
 
Who is gonna be the first one to buy HighPoint SSD7102 and dump the new firmware? I bet that they changed the SPI flash memory to a bigger one, but it's not a problem for me to replace it.


Datasheet: HighPoint SSD7102

Broadcom has a DOS utility to read and write the EEPROM: https://www.broadcom.com/products/pcie-switches-bridges/pcie-switches/pex8747#downloads

Broadcom_EEPROM_DOS.png

[doublepost=1540407201][/doublepost]Btw, I bought a SSD7101A yesterday, so today they announce SSD7102 - I'm always lucky like that :p
 
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bugout said:
here’s the official word directly from Highpoint:

SSD7102 currently will not support Mojave booting because of Apple\'s restrictions causing our SSD7102 to be not detected during boot up.
Click to expand...
SSD7102 booting 4 970Pro with RAID-0 HFS+ and 10.13.6 will be the king of benchmarks until Apple finally implement APFS RAID.
 
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tsialex said:
SSD7102 booting 4 970Pro with RAID-0 HFS+ and 10.13.6 will be the king of benchmarks until Apple finally implement APFS RAID.
Click to expand...

That was my plan! There is no real need for mojave as long as we can extract the BootROM and inject it into 10.13. hopefully they arrive just in time for Black friday and I can snag one for cheap!
 
I ordered a Highpoint 7101a card but I'm concerned I won't like the noise of the fan. I'm willing to try replacing it with a resistor. Anyone have a suggestion for the resistance value to choose?
 
Just wanted to share some test results with RAM disk for comparison. Single RAM disk , raid 2 by 10GB striped and raid 4 by 10GB striped:
 

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Just a quick update to let you guys know that I modded my 7101A and had replaced the noisy fan with a 17mm x 17mm x 2mm (height/thickness) pure copper heatsink as well as another pure copper heatsink for my NVMe drive.

The card is operating normally and the drive's temperature, installed in slot 1, is 38C peaking at 46C under heavy writes with the PCIe fan running at 1000rpm and ambient at 25C.

I'll upload photos later today.

Edit: adding photos

IMAG0154.jpg

IMAG0156.jpg

IMAG0159.jpg

IMAG0161.jpg
 
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W1SS said:
Just a quick update to let you guys know that I modded my 7101A and had replaced the noisy fan with a 17mm x 17mm x 2mm (height/thickness) pure copper heatsink as well as another pure copper heatsink for my NVMe drive.

The card is operating normally and the drive's temperature, installed in slot 1, is 38C peaking at 46C under heavy writes with the PCIe fan running at 1000rpm and ambient at 25C.

I'll upload photos later today.
Click to expand...

Can you post some pictures of the final results? Are you able to put on the case? Or are you using it without the black case?
 
misanthrophy said:
Can you post some pictures of the final results? Are you able to put on the case? Or are you using it without the black case?
Click to expand...

Photos added. I wouldn't put the card's enclosure back on as it needs the airflow from the PCIe fan.
 
tsialex said:
Who is gonna be the first one to buy HighPoint SSD7102 and dump the new firmware? I bet that they changed the SPI flash memory to a bigger one, but it's not a problem for me to replace it.


Datasheet: HighPoint SSD7102

Broadcom has a DOS utility to read and write the EEPROM: https://www.broadcom.com/products/pcie-switches-bridges/pcie-switches/pex8747#downloads

View attachment 798002
[doublepost=1540407201][/doublepost]Btw, I bought a SSD7101A yesterday, so today they announce SSD7102 - I'm always lucky like that :p
Click to expand...
Alex what about 7120? Isn't it an option for the cMP?
 
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