Performance of ASUS Z170-A when using an add-on card.
Performance of ASUS Z170-A when using an add-on card.
Hello, I'm setting up the ASUS Z170 as a file server with several storage options. The configuration includes a no-mane M.2 SSD from a recovered USB-C enclosure, two HDDs on the internal SATA ports, four HDDs connected via a JMicron card using an X16_1 PCIe slot, plus an onboard Intel i219 and a Gigabit LAN card. I'm running RAID ZFS across all drives, using part of the SSD for the operating system and cache. My question is whether this arrangement creates any speed limitations. Should I rearrange the slot placement for the add-on cards or prioritize the internal SATA ports? Would adding a RAID controller help? I'm considering swapping the no-mane M.2 drive for a 970 EVO and wondering if that would make a difference. Or should I connect the 970 EVO directly to the M.2 card via PCIe? Thanks!
You have an extra gigabit card because it offers more bandwidth than your current setup allows. The PCIe adapter won’t change the speed, HDDs are slow, and four of them won’t make a single X1 slow. Your main limitation will likely come from the network connection itself.
I have two distinct ISP connections. One is for downloads (deluge, sonarr, radarr, jackett) and the other is for gaming. The first serves media streaming and LAN tasks, while the second handles general downloads and external use. I think 100MB/s should be fine, but I'm more concerned about performance inside the system, such as slow transfers or disk operations.
Instead of relying on a switch, you could simply use it to manage the situation. If it functions, go ahead. If not, you'll face network and disk restrictions here. The PCI should remain unrestricted. What speed upgrades are you observing?
Pool is brand new, just began initial cleaning. Received 500G, snapshot shows: pool: big state: ONLINE scan: scrub in progress since Sun Oct 17 04:24:06 2021 496G scanned at 2.57G/s, 109G issued at 580M/s, 496G total 0B repaired, 22.04% complete, 00:11:22 remaining.
In any case, I expanded the SSD cache in the array. Fio examples here demonstrate reaching 300 MB/s on the raidz setup. It doesn’t match the full SATA 6 Gbps speed, though I anticipate the raidz settings will add a penalty. Please share your thoughts, thanks Edited October 18, 2021 by FCM typo