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Gigabyte's AORUS RAID 2TB is an AIC format drive that uses a combination of four NVMe SSDs and an enterprise-class NVMe RAID controller to produce read speeds of up to 6300MB/s via a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface. If you're looking for the fastest speeds without moving to PCIe 4.0, is this a viable solution?
The AORUS RAID SSD 2TB uses four Gigabyte 512GB NVMe drives which are controlled by an enterprise-grade Marvell 88NR2241-BWW2 Intelligent NVMe Switch and out of the box are set up in a RAID 0 array. The controller also supports JBOD, RAID 1 or RAID 10 arrays. Performance-wise, the drive is officially rated at up to 6,300MB/s and 6,000MB/s for Sequential Read and Writes respectively but there is no mention of random performance in the spec sheet for the drive we've seen.
According to Gigabyte's motherboard compatibility list for the drive, it can be installed on Intel X299, Z390, Z490 and AMD TRX40, and X570 motherboards.
Power consumption is stated as up to 19W active for both reads and writes with a 7.5W figure when the drive is idle. The official endurance figures for the drive are 700TBW for each of the four SSD's and Gigabyte backs the drive with a 5-year limited warranty.
Specifications:
- Usable Capacities: 2TB.
- NAND Components: 3D TLC NAND.
- NAND Controller: Phison E12.
- RAID Controller: Marvell 88NR2241-BWW2.
- Interface: PCIe Gen3.0 x8. NVMe 1.3.
- Cooling: Active (5cm fan) / passive.
- Form Factor: HHHL (Half-Height, Half-Length) AIC (Add-in-card).
- Dimensions: 278.59 x 120.04 x 19.80mm.
The AORUS RAID SSD 2TB comes in a large box, with just the AORUS logo and product name on the front. The rear of the box has a multi-lingual list of some of the drives features. The drive fits snuggly in the dense foam box lining to prevent it from moving around inside the box.
The AORUS RAID SSD is a single-slot AIC design that makes use of a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface.
Gigabyte has provided the drive with a serious amount of cooling, in both passive and active forms. The PCB sits on a metallic baseplate, then there are three high thermal conductivity pads, one sits under the M.2 baseplate with another on top, and the final one between the drives and a 5.5mm high-density heatsink.
Finally, there is the Armor outer shell. The main cooling is provided by a 5cm blower fan sitting at the far end of the PCB which can be set in one of three modes (silent, balanced and performance). Keeping an eye on the drive's internal temperatures are nine sensors; 2 per SSD and one for the Marvell Intelligent NVMe Switch.
To access the internals of the drive you have to undo the six screws in the baseplate, and once removed there are four more in the back of the PCB. The drive's components are well laid out with the four M.2 slots front and centre. These are filled by four Gigabyte 512GB NVMe drives each using a combination of 3D TLC NAND and a Phison E12 controller. Next comes the Marvell 88NR2241 Intelligent NVMe Switch which sits under its own passive heatsink and finally the 5cm cooling fan.
For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. We try to use free or easily available programs and some real world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.
This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.
Main system:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB DDR4-2400, Sapphire R9 390 Nitro and an MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge Wifi motherboard
Other drives
To give an idea of the Gigabyte AORUS RAID's performance versus PCI Gen 4 drives we've compared it to both first and second-generation Gen 4 SSD's as well as WD's Black AN1500, another consumer PCIe 3.0 x 8 AIC drive that uses multiple NVMe SSD's.
Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark 4.
CrystalMark 6.0.0. & 8.00.
AS SSD 2.0.
IOMeter.
Futuremark PC Mark 10.
All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.
CrystalDiskMark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using v6.0 and v8.0
Although the AORUS RAID SSD sits close to the bottom of the CDM6 4K QD32 (1 thread) results chart, it is faster than Samsung's SSD980 PRO in this particular test.
Looking at the Sequential scores in CDM confirms the official read/write maximums of 6,300MB/s and 6,000MB/s respectively. Comparing the two CrystalDiskMark result screens shows that the Phison E12 controllers that each SSD uses are much more efficient when reading compressible 4K data at a queue depth of 1.
CrystalDiskMark 8
CrystalDiskMark 8 Peak Performance Profile
CrystalDiskMark 8 Real World Profile
CrystalDiskMark 8 comes with dedicated NVMe test settings as well as some interesting ready-made testing profiles including Peak Performance and Real World.
The Sequential results in the Peak Performance profile of 6,530.35MB/s for reads and 6,219.27MB/s for writes confirm the official figures of 6,300MB/s (reads) and 6,000MB/s (writes). The best tested random 4K figures in the Peak Performance profile were 255,393 IOPS for reads and 254,477 IOPS for writes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t confirm how these figures match up to the official ones as Gigabyte don’t have the random performance figures featured on any specification sheet for the drive we’ve seen.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
We are using version 4.0 for our drive testing.
The official Sequential read/write figures for the drive are up to 6,300MB/s and 6,000MB/s respectively. Using the ATTO benchmark we couldn't quite hit the maximums with a tested read figure of 6,090MB/s with writes at 5,770MB/s. However, both of these tested figures are faster than a number of first-generation PCIe Gen 4 drives that we've reviewed.
AS SSD is a great free tool designed just for benching Solid State Drives. It performs an array of sequential read and write tests, as well as random read and write tests with sequential access times over a portion of the drive. AS SSD includes a sub suite of benchmarks with various file pattern algorithms but this is difficult in trying to judge accurate performance figures.
The drive seemed to struggle with the default AS-SSD tests in relation to both generations of PCIe 4.0 drives and for that matter, the WD Black AN1500.
IOMeter is another open-source synthetic benchmarking tool that is able to simulate the various loads placed on the hard drive and solid-state drive technology. There are many ways to measure the IOPS performance of a Solid State Drive, so our results will sometimes differ from the manufacturer’s quoted ratings. We do test all drives in exactly the same way, so the results are directly comparable.
We test 128KB Sequential read and write and random read and write 4k tests. The test setup’s for the tests are listed below. Each is run five times.
128KB Sequential Read / Write.
Transfer Request Size: 128KB Span: 8GB Thread(s): 1, Outstanding I/O: 1-32 Test Run: 20 minutes per test
4K Sustained Random Read / Write.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB Span: 80GB Thread(s): 4, Outstanding I/O: 1-32 Test Run: 20 minutes per test
4K Random 70/30 mix Read/Write.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB Span: 80GB Reads: 70% Writes: 30% Thread(s): 4 Outstanding I/O: 2 – 32 Test Run: 20
minutes
Gigabyte rate the Sequential performance of the AORUS RAID SSD as up to 6,300MB/s for reads and up to 6,000MB/s for writes. In our Sequential tests, we couldn't quite hit the maximum official read score with a test result of 6,198.18MB/s but we could confirm the official write score with a test result of 6,191MB/s.
128KB Sequential Read v QD performance compared.
When it comes to comparing the drive against PCIe Gen 4 drives with its Sequential read speed, the best performance from the AORUS RAID SSD comes at QD2 where it sits in fifth place in the results chart which is very impressive.
128KB Sequential Write v QD performance compared.
At low queue depths, the AORUS RAID SSD struggles to make any sort of impression on the results chart, however, at the deeper queue depth of 32, it suddenly seems to spark into life as it shoots up to the results chart to a top-five spot.
In our 4-threaded 4K random read test, the drive's performance rose steadily as the queue depth deepened but the rate of increase did seem to slow down from QD16. The best performance we saw from the drive was 258,753 IOPS at a QD of 32.
4K Sustained Random Read v QD Performance Compared.
The drive is no match for the PCIe Gen4 drives when it comes to random read performance, although having said that it is slightly faster than the 1TB version of Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus at a QD of 32.
In the 4-threaded random write test, the AORUS RAID SSD peaked at 253,530 IOPS at QD8 before dropping back to finish the test run at 241,295 IOPS (988MB/s).
4K Sustained Random Write v QD Performance Compared.
At a QD of 1, the drive sits firmly at the bottom of the results chart but as the queue depth deepens the AORUS RAID SSD starts to take a few Gen 4 scalps.
In the 4K 70/30 read/write mix test, the drive peaks at QD16 with a figure of 250,865 IOPS (1027.55MB/s) before dropping back to finish the test run at 241,829 IOPS (990.535MB/s).
In our read throughput test, the drive's performance drops between the 128KB and 256KB Block sizes but recovers well to finish the test run at 4,507.73MB/s. The write performance climbs pretty steadily for the duration of the test, finishing at 4,928.67MB/s.
While the AORUS RAID SSD can't keep up with the latest 2nd generation PCIe Gen 4 drives, it outperforms a good number of the first-generation drives in both our throughput tests.
The PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives. The benchmark is designed to measure the performance of fast system drives using the SATA bus at the low end and devices connected via PCI Express at the high end.
The goal of the benchmark is to show meaningful real-world performance differences between fast storage technologies such as SATA, NVMe, and Intel’s Optane. The Full System Drive Benchmark uses 23 traces, running 3 passes with each trace. It typically takes an hour to run.
Traces used:
Booting Windows 10.
Adobe Acrobat – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Illustrator – starting the application until usable Adobe Premiere Pro – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Photoshop – starting the application until usable.
Battlefield V – starting the game until the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4 – starting the game until the main menu.
Overwatch – starting the game until main menu.
Using Adobe After Effects.
Using Microsoft Excel.
Using Adobe Illustrator.
Using Adobe InDesign.
Using Microsoft PowerPoint.
Using Adobe Photoshop (heavy use).
Using Adobe Photoshop (light use).
cp1 Copying 4 ISO image files, 20 GB in total, from a secondary drive to the target drive (write test).
cp2 Making a copy of the ISO files (read-write test).
cp3 Copying the ISO to a secondary drive (read test).
cps1Copying 339 JPEG files, 2.37 GB in total, to the target drive (write test).
cps2 Making a copy of the JPEG files (read-write test).
cps3 Copying the JPEG files to another drive (read test).
The AORUS RAID SSD handles PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark reasonably well. The two best performances in the creative group of test traces were the 562MB/s from the Adobe Photoshop heavy use test and the 276MB/s from the Adobe After Effects test. It also showed strong performance in the cp1, cp2 and cp3 file transfer tests.
For the long-term performance stability test, we set the drive up to run a 20-minute 4K random test with a 30% write, 70% read split, at a Queue Depth of 256 over the entire disk. The Gigabyte AORUS RAID 2TB averaged 101,662 IOPS for the test with a performance stability of 61.8%.
As this test is the one that pushes a drive hard we took temperature readings to see how well the drive's cooling worked. At the start of the test, the drive measured 39°C (ambient 23.7°C) with the temperature peaking at 57° C during the test run.
To test the real-life performance of a drive we use a mix of folder/file types and by using the FastCopy utility (which gives a time as well as MB/s result) we record the performance of drive reading from & writing to a 256GB Samsung SSD850 PRO.
We use the following folder/file types:
- 100GB data file.
- 60GB iso image.
- 60GB Steam folder – 29,521 files.
- 50GB File folder – 28,523 files.
- 12GB Movie folder – (15 files – 8 @ .MKV, 4 @ .MOV, 3 @ MP4).
- 10GB Photo folder – (304 files – 171 @ .RAW, 105 @ JPG, 21 @ .CR2, 5 @ .DNG).
- 10GB Audio folder – (1,483 files – 1479 @ MP3, 4 @ .FLAC files).
- 5GB (1.5bn pixel) photo.
- BluRay Movie – 42GB.
- 21GB 8K Movie demos – (11 demos)
- 16GB 4K Raw Movie Clips – (9 MP4V files).
- 4.25GB 3D Printer File Folder – (166 files – 105 @ .STL, 38 @ .FBX, 11 @ .blend, 5 @ .lwo, 4 @ .OBJ, 3@ .3ds).
- 1.5GB AutoCAD File Folder (80 files – 60 @ .DWG and 20 @.DXF).
Gigabyte's AORUS RAID SSD displayed a very good consistency of performance for both reads and writes when dealing with the larger file sizes in our file transfer tests averaging 513MB/s writing to the drive and 443MB/s reading the data back for the seven largest file transfers.
To get a measure of how much faster PCIe NVMe drives are than standard SATA SSD's we use the same files but transfer to and from a 512GB Toshiba OCZ RD400:
When transferring files to and from another NVMe drive, the AORUS RAID SSD showed just how fast it can be with ten of the thirteen tests producing a write figure over 2GB/s with seven over 2.5GB/s.
Although Gigabyte's AORUS RAID SSD 2TB drive has been around for a while, it's still a viable option for those gamers/enthusiasts who are wanting a drive with PCIe Gen 4 levels of performance but are using a motherboard with only PCIe 3.0 architecture. Gigabyte’s motherboard compatibility list for the drive states it can be installed on Intel X299, Z390, Z490 motherboards, as well as AMD TRX40 and X570 boards.
To reach the level of performance that the AORUS RAID SSD offers via a PCIe Gen3 interface, Gigabyte has built the drive on an AIC (add-in-card) format. Sitting under the well-designed heatsink (more on that in a moment) are four 512GB Gigabyte NVMe drives which each use a combination of 3D TLC NAND and a Phison E12 controller. Controlling the four drives overall is an enterprise-grade Intelligent NVMe Switch (Marvell 88NR2241-BWW2). The drive comes with the internal drives already built into a RAID 0 array, but the Marvell 88NR2241 also supports JBOD, RAID 1, and RAID 10 arrays which can be built/deleted using the Marvell page in the motherboard's BIOS.
With four SSDs and a high data rate switch, things are bound to get pretty toasty inside the drive but Gigabyte has built a serious amount of cooling into the drive to prevent any serious overheating issues. The cooler, which covers the entire PCB uses a metal backplate and a well designed top cover. The drive uses a mix of passive and active cooling to keep the four SSDs cool with the Marvell controller having its own passive cooler.
There are three high thermal conductivity pads for the drives; one under the M.2 baseplate with another on top and the third sitting between the drives and a 5.5mm high-density heatsink. Finally, there is a tri-mode (silent, balanced and performance) 5cm blower fan sitting at the far end of the PCB. To make sure everything runs smoothly the drive uses no less than nine temperature sensors, 2 per SSD and one for the Marvell Intelligent NVMe Switch.
To see how well all this cooling supported the drive we kept an eye on the temperatures as we ran our performance stability test which pushes a drive hard. At the start of the test, the drive was showing a temperature of 39°C (ambient 23.7°C) and peaked at 57°C during the benchmarking process, which is below the 70°C operating limit noted in the specs for the drive, and cause any throttling problems.
Gigabyte quotes sequential read/write figures for the AORUS RAID SSD drive as up to 6,300MB/s and up to 6,000MB/s respectively. Using the ATTO benchmarking tool we couldn’t get to the maximum official rating for reads or writes, the tested drive producing a read figure of 6,090MB/s with writes at 5,770MB/s. However, we could confirm the official numbers with the CrystalDiskMark 8 benchmark with the best read result being 6,590MB/s (using compressed data) with 6,245MB/s being the best write result.
We found the Gigabyte AORUS RAID SSD 2TB on Watercooling UK for £409.24 (inc VAT) HERE.
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Pros
- Near PCIe Gen 4 sequential performance.
- Well thought out cooling array.
- Easy to set up.
Cons
- Needs 8 PCIe lanes for full performance.
- 4K random performance is a bit disappointing.
- Pricey.
KitGuru says: Gigabyte's AORUS RAID SSD delivers PCIe 4.0 type sequential performance for those people who are using PCIe 3.0 based systems, but you do pay a premium versus a single 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD.
