PROMISE EX4650 + 4x FUJITSU MBA3300RC

Introduction

We recently posted a write-up on the Promise EX4650 RAID card using four Western Digital RE2-GP 1TB drives.  That article can be found HERE.  Because those were power-efficient SATA drives not necessarily designed for performance, we thought to try the EX4650 on a set of four Fujitsu MBA3300RC SAS drives. 

The testbed used is comprised of the following components, and the OS is WinXP x64.

Manufacturer's specifications of the MBA3300RC is as follows:

The most impressive spec here is its 15,000 RPM spindle speed.  The buffer is a good 16MB, although some may say it's not 32MB like some of today's latest SATA 7200RPM 1TB monsters.  Obviously, the firmware for those drives are written differently than these SAS units designed for servers handling many more I/Os than desktop SATA units. 

Another interesting note is the "Dual Serial Attached SCSI" interface.  This means that the drive can connect to two controllers simultaneously.  The intention is for the second interface to be a backup or failover controller in the event the first SAS controller malfunctions. 

Here is what they look like: 

And again, the Promise EX4650 below.  For more info, click on the link above to go to the first article showing its specs...