HighPoint 7604A RAID card evaluation: As much as 32TB of blisteringly-fast storage

Greatest Costs As we speak: HighPoint 7604A RAID card

If you would like as much as 32TB of lightning-fast storage, there’s no higher approach to get it than HighPoint’s 7604A — a four-slot, PCIe 5.0 x16, NVMe growth card. It could switch knowledge as quick as 50GBps in RAID 0, and can also be a good way to up your depend of PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots from the only slot offered by most motherboards.

However you want software program that does direct I/O to make the most of the RAID efficiency and the 7604A is costly — this pet will set you again a cool $1,000. In the event you discover that scary, it was listed at an astronomical $2,000 after I began this evaluation. Thankfully, the corporate got here again to low earth orbit, nevertheless it’s nonetheless not what most individuals would think about an impulse purchase.

Learn on to study extra, then see our roundup of the perfect SSDs for comparability.

What are the 7604A’s options?

As already mentioned, the 7406A is a PCIe 5.0 x16 card with 4 x4 NVMe M.2 slots on board. With every slot allotted 4 lanes, you get high bandwidth out of each SSD on the cardboard, not like many cheaper playing cards the place 4 or eight lanes are divvied up.

In idea, throughput will be as excessive as 56GBps in RAID 0. Relying in your system, the 7604A can get near that. Yowser!

As you possibly can see above (and under with the heatsink/fan on), the 7604A is of high quality building. Not proven are the standing LEDs on the endplate. These present suggestions on the state of the cardboard. The 7640A will even yelp (a loud beep) at you in the event you attempt to use it with out the heatsink/fan. You may guess how I acquired that exact piece of information.

The 7604A can perform as 4 particular person full-bandwidth x4 PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, or in varied RAID modes (0, 1, 5, 10). The RAID is {hardware}, but additionally dependent upon HighPoint’s driver, in addition to the corporate’s configuration and monitoring software program. I.e., there aren’t any dip switches or jumpers.

The driving force was rock strong and the configuration software program works fairly nicely. The admin interface is HTML-based — i.e., it opens in your net browser, and is barely gradual to reply to instructions. It additionally gave me a can’t-connect error requiring a few reloads earlier than the interface would seem. Communications lag, little doubt.

The configuration interface can also be a bit geeky in language and ideas, so in the event you don’t find out about RAID, bone up on the ideas earlier than making an attempt to create an array or in any other case configure the cardboard.

Notice that neither the motive force or configuration software program are required in the event you merely wish to add 4 x4 M.2 NVMe ports to your system. Slap the populated 7604A into an x16 PCIe 5.0 slot and the drives will merely seem below disk administration, the place you might in initialize and format the drives appropriately.

How does the 7604A carry out?

Whereas I didn’t get the numbers that HighPoint says are potential, they have been nonetheless fairly darn good on our new check mattress. You may learn in regards to the new check mattress on the backside of this text.

After all, to get high efficiency out of the 7604A, two issues should occur: It should be populated with PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs and it should be in a 16x PCIe 5.0 slot and really connecting with 16 lanes and at 32GT/s. This may be a problem with some motherboards and CPUs, so test the variety of lanes you could have and the way your motherboard allocates them (bifurcation).

I populated the 7604A with two Essential T705 and two WD Black SN8100 2TB SSDs for testing — among the many very quickest of their PCIe 5.0 ilk. The only SSD check was with a WD Black SN8100.

Notice that the single-queue efficiency is what you’ll see from Home windows Explorer transfers (theoretically, actual life is way completely different) and most software program, whereas the multi-queue efficiency is what you’ll see from software program that does its personal I/O. Regardless, 44.3GBps is a enjoyable quantity.

The 7604A’s CrystalDiskMark 8 random check outcomes spotlight the info that RAID 0 isn’t notably good for random entry, and that the 7604A can also be an excellent host for particular person drive efficiency.

What is obvious from the following charts is that you simply’re not going to see huge enhancements with the bare eye in terms of Home windows file transfers. Notice that we’ve got modified this check to incorporate DiskBench (DB) and Xcopy (XC) alongside our conventional Home windows Explorer drag-and-drop (backside of the chart).

Xcopy is considerably quicker than the Home windows Explorer drag-and-drop, which raises the query: Why would Microsoft optimize a command line program whereas leaving Home windows Explorer comparatively gradual as molasses?

Xcopy is likely to be price studying and utilizing in the event you greater than sometimes have a variety of knowledge to repeat. Large trace: batch information (x.bat).

The 7604A turned in good numbers in our 450GB write check in RAID 0; nevertheless, it was truly quicker with a single drive on this check in keeping with the faster Xcopy and FastCopy. If you would like quick file transfers inside Home windows Explorer, take the latter for a check experience.

The 7604A was significantly quicker with single drives than our Z890 check mattress motherboard’s M.2 slots — a identified challenge with the chipset, NVMe, and sure processors comparable to our i5 Core Extremely 225.

In RAID 0, the 7604A will probably be a boon for any software program that may’t make the most of it. Meaning any software program utilizing multi-queue, multi-thread disk I/O. Such software program is uncommon within the client market, however not remarkable.

Caveat: In case you are a fan of utmost peace and quiet, be warned that the 7604A’s fan kicks in fairly a bit when it’s below stress, and it’s not notably bashful. Simply saying.

Do you have to purchase the HighPoint 7604A?

I like the 7604A and it’s a implausible performer. Would I pay $1,000 for it? Sure, if I had the necessity and the software program to take full benefit. Even with out the software program to leverage the 50GBps RAID 0, having an extra 4 full-speed PCI 5.0 NVME slots is terribly attractive.

For the common consumer, although, which incorporates me — the 7604A is a tricky advocate because the real-world advantages in on a regular basis utilization don’t fairly add as much as $1,000 in my estimation.

However that’s completely not a knock on the 7604A as a product. As I stated, it’s a implausible piece of equipment. Good job, HighPoint.

How we check

Drive exams presently make the most of Home windows 11 24H2, 64-bit operating off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Professional in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Extremely i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Each 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are built-in and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. SSDs concerned within the check are mounted in a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 adapter card. (Sure, the topic of this evaluation)

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 artificial benchmarks to search out the storage gadget’s potential efficiency, then a collection of 48GB and 450GB transfers exams utilizing Home windows Explorer drag and drop to point out what you’ll see below Window, in addition to the far quicker Xcopy to point out what’s potential.

The 48GB switch exams make the most of an USFMount RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB of whole reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from an SSD on the HighPoint card.

Every check is carried out on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Notice that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency might lower resulting from much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different components. This may be much less of an element with the present crop of SSDs with far quicker late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can fluctuate by capability resulting from extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching. Distributors additionally sometimes swap parts. In the event you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.