Velocity Solo X2 - Two SSD's

[costabunny]

Just a simple post to show off my solution for Dual SSD's on the Velocity Solo X2

I took four squares of velcro and mounted both my Samsung EVO and Intel 520 SSD's on the Velocity Solo X2. This leaves a small gap between the drives to allow for airflow.

Grabbed a short SATA cable from Amazon (£1.99 inc postage). Already had a SATA Power cable threaded in from the optical bay so I put on a splitter.

All done and fitted nicely so I thought I would share And it does not obscure the adjacent PCIe slot (see photo)

(and for those interested I did test it in RAID0 but for some reason the Intel doesn't write at full speed with the Apricorn, however I got over 650Mb/s read and 500 write ) - put it back to Intel as Bootcamp afterwards though.)

 

[pastrychef]

Did it block the adjacent PCI-e slot?

 

[costabunny]

Did it block the adjacent PCI-e slot?

Nope - gimme a mo and I'll snap a pic

...ok pic in first thread

 

[pastrychef]

Nice. If I ever get a second SSD, I will definitely try this but instead of using velcro, I would probably try to attach them together using the screw holes on the sides of the SSDs.

 

[costabunny]

Nice. If I ever get a second SSD, I will definitely try this but instead of using velcro, I would probably try to attach them together using the screw holes on the sides of the SSDs.

I thought about the screw holes, but figured the added thickness of the velcro would leave enough space to allow airflow (SSD's do get quite warm).

 

[Gav Mack]

Time to run another power cable from the optical bay if the bootcamp SSD boots off the second port successfully methinks.

Thanks for the tip, fingers crossed it frees up a sled and gets windows in SATA3

 

[costabunny]

Time to run another power cable from the optical bay if the bootcamp SSD boots off the second port successfully methinks.

Thanks for the tip, fingers crossed it frees up a sled and gets windows in SATA3

well - I fully installed Win 8 on the Intel while in Sled1, then literally attached it to the Solo, booted up first time! nice and speedy too I did some bench numbers on my blog if you wanna look

I am very impressed.

The SATA data cable I used is this one

 

[Gav Mack]

well - I fully installed Win 8 on the Intel while in Sled1, then literally attached it to the Solo, booted up first time! nice and speedy too I did some bench numbers on my blog if you wanna look

I am very impressed.

The SATA data cable I used is this one

So will I hopefully and a drink on me if you're ever in South London if it does - cheers!

 

[gobsmacked]

Nice. If I ever get a second SSD, I will definitely try this but instead of using velcro, I would probably try to attach them together using the screw holes on the sides of the SSDs.

I'm with you on this. I have had the glue fail on the velcro in the past. It doesn't like the combination of heat and vibration. Having said that if costabunny checks occasionally all should be fine as it lets go slowly.

 

[costabunny]

I'm with you on this. I have had the glue fail on the velcro in the past. It doesn't like the combination of heat and vibration. Having said that if costabunny checks occasionally all should be fine as it lets go slowly.

Ahh yes checks - well I do get in there every couple of weeks to clean the fans/heatsinks (we have two lively Bengals).

Also the way in which the card is oriented, the second drive sits on top of the card mounted one (in gravitational terms) and thus is extremely unlikely to slide/fall off. Unless heavily knocked under transport (which for me would always necessitate removal of rotational drives and the Solo card).

I think its pretty secure. I have thought that I could make four standoffs to connect the drives via their side mounting holes (I lack the metal work skills to make the pieces).

Now if someone has the tools to make small strips of aluminium I can provide the dimensions and position/size of screw holes......

 

[Gav Mack]

Ahh yes checks - well I do get in there every couple of weeks to clean the fans/heatsinks (we have two lively Bengals).

Also the way in which the card is oriented, the second drive sits on top of the card mounted one (in gravitational terms) and thus is extremely unlikely to slide/fall off. Unless heavily knocked under transport (which for me would always necessitate removal of rotational drives and the Solo card).

I think its pretty secure. I have thought that I could make four standoffs to connect the drives via their side mounting holes (I lack the metal work skills to make the pieces).

Now if someone has the tools to make small strips of aluminium I can provide the dimensions and position/size of screw holes......

I agree, Newtons laws will keep it in place and neither are spinning disks. Instead of Velcro which can generate static pulling off, somewhere in my workshop I've got a square of thermal sticky pad which I can cut out four tiny squares for each corner, it's 2-3mm thick so will definitely do the job.

Thanks for the tip once again!

 

[Celedral]

Haha nice. I contemplated about stacking two SSDs with 3M double stick tape. I then started to wonder a bit about thermal buildup and held out until i find a most suitable option.

The one thing thats been bugging me is, would using the add. Sata port on the X2 provide enough bandwidth? Theoretically two SSDs in raid 0 through Sata III should pull 900MB/s. Has anyone tested this with two matching SSDs?

 

[Gav Mack]

Haha nice. I contemplated about stacking two SSDs with 3M double stick tape. I then started to wonder a bit about thermal buildup and held out until i find a most suitable option.

The one thing thats been bugging me is, would using the add. Sata port on the X2 provide enough bandwidth? Theoretically two SSDs in raid 0 through Sata III should pull 900MB/s. Has anyone tested this with two matching SSDs?

Raid 0 with the X2 drops a bit cos the bandwidth of the bus is limited to 800mb/sec. In my case with separate SSD's running OSX and Windows 7 which HFS+ and NTFS volumes only read each other it should be more than fine. The 3,1 is on the bench for this Tuesday!

 

[costabunny]

The one thing thats been bugging me is, would using the add. Sata port on the X2 provide enough bandwidth? Theoretically two SSDs in raid 0 through Sata III should pull 900MB/s. Has anyone tested this with two matching SSDs?

Unfortunately I don't have matched SSD's and while the Intel I have is proven to read and write about 470 (on my old PC with SATA3), on the Apricorn it only manages to write at 255ish (chipset thing am sure) so when I did RAID0 them this afternoon for a quick benchie I could only manage 650Mb/s read and 480 write.

I guess that if I paired my EVO with another it should hit the 800ish mark fairly easy.

 

[Celedral]

Raid 0 with the X2 drops a bit cos the bandwidth of the bus is limited to 800mb/sec. In my case with separate SSD's running OSX and Windows 7 which HFS+ and NTFS volumes only read each other it should be more than fine. The 3,1 is on the bench for this Tuesday!

Thanks for the info. I'll test it out in a few days. I guess if I am getting a consistent 800MB/s I can't really complain.

 

[Gav Mack]

Thanks for the info. I'll test it out in a few days. I guess if I am getting a consistent 800MB/s I can't really complain.

I would hazard a guess between 720-760 you'll get which is still pretty decent. Found my pad but it's only 0.5mm thick by Alphacool. Will stick four squares together for a 2mm gap, when they go off they stick pretty hard so 5mm squared pads at each corner will do the trick.

 

[pastrychef]

Unfortunately I don't have matched SSD's and while the Intel I have is proven to read and write about 470 (on my old PC with SATA3), on the Apricorn it only manages to write at 255ish (chipset thing am sure) so when I did RAID0 them this afternoon for a quick benchie I could only manage 650Mb/s read and 480 write.

I guess that if I paired my EVO with another it should hit the 800ish mark fairly easy.

I think the limitation is with the Velocity Solo X2 as described by forum member hfg here.

 

[Gav Mack]

I think the limitation is with the Velocity Solo X2 as described by forum member hfg here.

Would be interesting to see what a pair of 840 pro's or evo's bench at as the SX900 is not that fast an SSD nowadays. I'll be more than happy with SATA 3 on windows if it works out though - no messing around with rEFInd!

 

[Celedral]

I think the limitation is with the Velocity Solo X2 as described by forum member hfg here.

That settles that. Looks like I'll have to purchase another X2 or pony up for the Sonnet tempo pro. I was really settled on the Sonnet Tempo Pro with Dual Sata III Slots, but I was able to get the X2 for $65 before tax, which made sense in the value proposition. Even two x2 would still be $120 cheaper than one Sonnet tempo pro, but I do loose out on a PCI slot.

 

[pastrychef]

One thing that I always wondered about the Sonnet Tempo Pro was whether the card would block the video card fan.

 

[Celedral]

One thing that I always wondered about the Sonnet Tempo Pro was whether the card would block the video card fan.

It will definitely block my 780 with the ACX cooler (top blowing) if I put it in the second slot. But most reference cards pull air from the the side rather than the top. Good thing about 4,1 5,1 is that you can put them in slots 3 and 4.

 

[hfg]

One thing that I always wondered about the Sonnet Tempo Pro was whether the card would block the video card fan.

Any full length card, including the Sonnet Tempo Pro, does a pretty good job of blocking the video card fan if you have a 2-slot video card. I have my Sonnet in the 3rd slot and only put shorter cards in slot #2.

This may be a problem with 3,1 Mac Pros where the upper 2 slots are only PCI 1.0.



-howard

 

[pastrychef]

Good to know. Thanks for the info, Celedral and hfg.