Linux Lite Is Heavy on Features and Usability

In a computing world distracted by distro overload, Linux Lite is a lightweight Linux OS that has no trouble handling a heavy workload.

Long gone are the days when it took hours to install and set up Linux on a computer, but most Linux distros still need a bit of configuration to adjust the massive desktop options to your liking.

Not so with Linux Lite. It is one of the few out-of-the-box experiences I have had in testing Linux distros that let me actually be up and working in under five minutes.

That is not to say I haven't spent time installing various preferred packages. That's the great beauty of using Linux. It gives users so much freedom to individualize the look and feel and choice of applications.

To its credit, Linux Lite does not install excessive numbers of programs to clutter up menus and home directories. Instead, it installs a collection of work and play packages to get you working and surfing. Rather than spend time removing or tolerating unwanted programs, users can simply add their preferred tools.

Testing That Testimony

My routine in checking out any unfamiliar Linux distro is to see how quickly the live session boots on my standard equipment. Usually, the first sign of duress is the lack of a wireless connection. The next stumbling block is usually one or more snags while installing the new distro to the test computers.

Linux Lite impressed me from the start. It loaded a live session in under 30 seconds with a prompt to enter my wireless connection credentials. I liked its speedy responsiveness when loading files from the DVD. I liked its fresh look and uncluttered design.

Linux Lite won me over when it installed on even my balkiest test computers without a single sign of trouble. That satisfaction continued as I performed my next critical step. Using nothing more than the installed set of packages, I attempt to use the distro to do actual work tasks for as long into my work day as I can tolerate.

I was pleasantly pleased not to have to make any settings changes or packages additions except one minor matter. Linux Lite defaults to two virtual workspaces. It only took a right click to change that setting to my standard four. The new setting was immediately activated in the workplace switcher app on the dock.

Look and Feel

Linux Lite uses the Xfce desktop environment. Not having any other choices is sometimes a good thing: It removes any quandaries about which optional offering would be better. Of course, if you prefer more memory-intensive flash-bang desktop effects, Xfce may not suit your comfort zone.

Xfce is fast and lightweight, but it is also very simple to use without compromising on performance. The Linux Lite developers did not make the mistake so many others make by embellishing or altering the integration of the desktop environment to make it more distro-unique.

I was able to easily change the default two-tone gray background with a right click on the desktop to select the Desktop Properties menu. Linux Lite offers a nice collection of colorful background images as part of the live session functionality. Often this personalizing option is not available with other Linux distros until you make a hard drive installation.

Working Desktop

The desktop screen is neat and simple, with easy navigation to the menu, system settings and configuration options. As I already mentioned, though, Linux Lite really needs no finessing to be truly usable from the start.

The menu is fairly standard yet simple and intuitive. For example, the folders are organized according to their categories. The slide-out menus are also well-categorized.

You can use the Run Program search box at the top of the menu to run a program rather than scroll through the standard menu -- but that only works if you actually know the name of what you want.

Another option is to use the Application Finder in the Accessory menu. Just select a category in the left column and click on the desired installed application in the right column.

Everything Just Works

Linux Lite has a lot going for it to make a very good first impression. With Linux Lite the basics work out-of-the-box.

For example, the only included browser is Firefox. I would have preferred the Chromium Browser, but Firefox was a reliable browser for me to start my work day rather than take time to install Chromium. Even Firefox's preinstalled state allowed me to play my online music collections and view YouTube videos without having to track down missing players and plug-ins.

When I needed to take that extra step to use some added third-party programs, relief was just a menu item away. The restricted extras package in the main system menu includes proprietary libraries and applications that enable the use of TrueType Fonts, Java, Flash and the ability to playback MP3s.

Strong System Support

Especially useful for configuring Linux Lite your way is the menu item to easily install special packages. The list includes a file and folder search tool and instant messaging. It also lets you add remote desktop, restricted extras, torrent software, video editing, VirtualBox, a weather monitor and/or Wine.

Linux Lite lacks its own community repository. The full range of package installation and software removal is done with the Synaptic Package Manager. A separate application in the main menu lets you install system updates.

The latest version of Linux Lite is "Amethyst," or version 1.0.6, released in June. The distro is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which includes five years of system updates without worrying about having to upgrade.

If you are not a fan of Ubuntu Linux, do not let the family lineage deter you from trying Linux Lite. Other than the system underpinnings, you will not see any trappings from the Ubuntu desktop.

Bottom Line

Linux Lite is an ideal starter distro for those looking for an upgrade when Windows XP dies early next year. Yet this distro is not just an easy Linux intro for newcomers -- it is a suitable workhorse distro for seasoned Linux users as well.

Even without installing it to a hard drive, you can reliably use Linux Lite in a live session from the DVD or USB drive installation. The USB option does not let you save your settings and software changes, however -- it is not intended for true portable use with persistent memory. However, if you use it only in live session mode, you can save your personal files externally.

Linux Lite is fully featured with the preinstalled software to be usable right out of the box.

Want to Suggest a Linux Application for Review?

Is there a Linux software application you'd like to suggest for review? Something you love or would like to get to know? - source

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"Rocha" : Pear OS 8 Review

I have been following Pear Linux/OS for quite sometime. In fact, in between, I used Pear OS 6, the LTS one, as my main production distro for quite sometime last year. Pear OS intrigues me primarily because of it's striking resemblance to Mac OS X and inherent simplicity of the controls. Pear OS 8, based on Ubuntu 13.04 or Ubuntu Raring Ringtail, is the latest release from their stable. Unfortunately this release comes a bit late with the Ubuntu Raring already 6+ months old and Ubuntu Saucy (the latest version) already released. So, my basic interest was how the latest release of Pear OS fare against the previous LTS release: Pear OS 6 with support till April 2017.

Pear OS 8 release states the following incremental improvements:

• New refreshing design with an intuitive and powerful desktop environment
• No unnecessary programs or trial software to slow things down
• Pear Cloud to share files across platforms
• Utility software like MyPear 6, Clean My Pear 2, etc. to provide easy customization options for users

I downloaded the 1 GB 32-bit ISO for this test, created a live USB using Unetbootin. I used a couple of laptops for this test:

• Asus K54C with 2.2 Ghz Core i3 processor, 2 GB DDR3 RAM & Intel HD 3000 128 MB graphic memory
• Asus K55VM with 2.8 Ghz Core i7 processor, 8 GB DDR3 RAM & Nvidia GEFORCE 2 GB graphic card

I did a live boot on both the laptops and then installed Pear OS 8. The primary reason for installing in a couple of laptops is that throughout 2012-13, I used Asus K54C for testing the Linux distros and record benchmark performance. However, now with a lot of improvement going on as far as drivers for dedicated graphic cards are concerned, I intend to use Asus K55VM for all purposes in 2014. Hence, in the transition phase I am using both the laptops.

Pear OS 8 ships with tweaked GNOME 3.6.3 and Linux kernel 3.8.0. Nautilus 3.4.2. I expected Pear to migrate to the more modern Nautilus fork Files; anyway, both are one of the best file managers in business.

Aesthetics

I must say that I am very impressed with Pear OS 8 interface. It is very simple, intuitive and functional. Unlike Pear Linux 6 & 7, the annoying animations are left out to go for a more sober and subtle effects. The default wallpaper is quite good and gels with the overall Mac-ish theme. The desktop interface looks very refined and aesthetically appealing to the eyes.

Pear OS also ships with some attractive Pear OS branded wallpapers. A couple of them are quite original and better than the default wallpaper.

The dash is similar to GNOME and is activated on clicking the launcher. Regular Linux user will take a day or two to adjust to the Pear OS interface as the launcher is in the docky, rather than at the top panel. Unlike Unity dash, Pear dash doesn't have any filters and it may become a bit cumbersome when you install a whole lot of applications. Never-the-less, like GNOME dash, a search option is there to locate the preferred applications.

Pear OS comes with a whole lot of flexibility to change the look and feel, via My Pear 6. It has several options to tweak the desktop and dock appearances.

However, the theme option is still empty and hopefully by the time the Pear 9/10 is out, we'll get to see some aesthetically pleasing themes.

Further, somehow the hot corners didn't work for me in Pear OS 8. They worked for me in the previous two releases of Pear on the same laptop.

In overall, if you are looking for a Mac OS X look alike Linux, Pear OS is a tough competitor to Elementary OS. Simply put, the interface is very sophisticated and looks gorgeous enough to draw attention of on-lookers.

Applications

Pear OS basically provides very few applications pre-installed. It has been the case with all the releases that I have used. Anyway, it is kind of better for the users with stable internet connection to install their preferred packages instead of the OS developer choosing what they should be using. Below is a list of the limited applications that Pear OS provides:

• Office: Document viewer, Pear Contacts
• Internet: Firefox 25, Empathy IM, Thunderbird, Pear Cloud
• Graphics: Shotwell Photo Manager
• Multimedia: Brasero, Musique 1.2.1, Screenshot
• Accessories: Calculator, gedit, terminal, Clean my Pear, MyPear6, Pear PPA Manager

There is no proper word or spreadsheet processing application and required to be installed from the Ubuntu repositories. I installed LibreOffice 4 and it worked well with Pear.

Internet section is the richest in Pear OS and comes with Firefox as the default browser. Multimedia codecs and Adobe flashplugin gets installed during the OS installation. I could watch my favorite YouTube movies without any issue post installation.

As regarding to the other applications, I discuss them in the following sections on the merits and demerits of Pear OS 8.

Settings are integrated and similar to GNOME or Unity settings. Pear OS also comes pre-installed with a few Pear OS specific settings options like My Pear 6, Clean My Pear, etc.

Installation

Installation is simple and similar to Ubuntu Raring. No surprises there and it is a step-by-step process which starts with selection of language, followed by keyboard type and language, location and time zone, hard drive where to install Pear and finally user ID creation.

Repositories

Pear OS 8 sources it's applications from Ubuntu Raring and other third party repositories. As mentioned earlier, Pear Software Center and Synaptic Package Manager are the default interfaces to download packages.

Performance

I must say Pear OS 8 is very smooth to use. Doing away with the fancy effects have actually resulted in an improvement in performance and smoothness of use. At steady state, the 32-bit OS consumes about 1-10% CPU and 190 MB RAM with task manager running on Asus K54C. Under similar circumstances on the same laptop, Pear OS performed way better than other GNOME 3 distros that I have used in 2012-13.

Operating System	Size of ISO	Base	Desktop	Linux kernel	CPU Usage	RAM usage	Size of installation
Pear OS 8	1 GB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.6.3	3.8.0	1-10%	190 MB	3.67 GB
Zorin OS 7	1.5 GB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.6	3.8.0	1-10%	195 MB	8.60 GB
Antergos 2013.08.20	671 MB	Arch	GNOME 3.8.4	3.10.0	1-10%	207 MB	3.6 GB
Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS	693 MB	Ubuntu	Unity 5	3.5.0	1-10%	230 MB
Pear OS 6	862 MB	Ubuntu	Pear Aurora 1.0.5	3.2.0	1-5%	235 MB
ROSA 2012 Fresh Gnome	1.1 GB	Mandriva	Gnome 3.6.2	3.6.10	1-10%	235 MB
Linux Deepin 12.12.1	1.2 GB	Ubuntu	GNOME 3.8	3.8.0	1-10%	240 MB	4.0 GB
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS	741 MB	Ubuntu	Unity 5.20.0	3.8.0	1-10%	250 MB	3.06 GB
Ubuntu GNOME 13.10	919 MB	Ubuntu	GNOME 3.8.4	3.11.0	1-10%	256 MB	3.37 GB
Elementary OS Beta 1	651 MB	Ubuntu	Pantheon	3.2.0	1-5%	270 MB	2.87 GB
LuninuX 12.10	1500 MB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.6	3.5.0	1-5%	280 MB
Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS	730 MB	Ubuntu	Unity 5	3.2.0	1-10%	280 MB
Ubuntu 13.04 Gnome	1 GB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.8	3.8.0	1-10%	280 MB
Zorin 6.4 Educational	2 GB	Ubuntu	GNOME 3.4.2	3.2.0	1-10%	285 MB	5.6 GB
Fedora 17 Gnome	677 MB	Fedora	Gnome 3.4.1	3.3.4	1-10%	296 MB
Fedora 19 GNOME	964 MB	Fedora	GNOME 3.8	3.9.8	1-10%	297 MB	3.28 GB
Zorin 6 Core	1.4 GB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.4.1	3.2.0	1-10%	300 MB
Fedora 18 Gnome	932 MB	Fedora	Gnome 3.6.2	3.7.2	1-10%	310 MB
OpenSUSE 12.2 Gnome	704 MB	OpenSUSE	Gnome 3.4.2	3.4.6	1-10%	310 MB
Pear OS 7 (64 bit)	1.1 GB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.6	3.8.5	1-5%	315 MB
Ubuntu 13.04	835 MB	Ubuntu	Unity 7	3.8.0	1-10%	320 MB	4.98 GB
Pinguy OS 12.04	1.8 GB	Ubuntu	Gnome 3.4.1	3.2.0	1-5%	325 MB
Hanthana Linux 19	4.4 GB	Fedora	GNOME 3.8.4	3.11.2	1-10%	335 MB	11.74 GB
Ubuntu 13.10	939 MB	Ubuntu	Unity 7.1.2	3.11.0	1-10%	360 MB	3.70 GB
Sabayon 13.08 GNOME	1.8 GB	Gentoo	GNOME 3.8.3	3.10.0	1-10%	363 MB	6.13 GB
Ubuntu 12.10	790 MB	Ubuntu	Unity 6	3.5.0	1-10%	412 MB

My Experience with Pear OS 8

Following are the good and not-so-good experiences that I had while using Pear OS for a week or so on both the laptops:

Best of Pear OS 8

Here I am highlighting the features of Pear OS 8 that I really liked during my usage:

My Pear 6: As I highlighted in the section on Aesthetics, it is a handy little application to tweak Pear OS appearance. Good job by the developers!

Clean My Pear: I like this application for the ability to clear cache and free up a lot of space. It acts like Janitor and provides flexibility of system wide clean up, only internet cache clean up and trash clean up, etc. It is a handy option for users unfamiliar with a great deal of technicalities.

Automatic Updater: The update manager is added to the start up and provides options to view the packages to be updated, update via synaptic, install update and finally, if you are in the middle of something and not really interested to update, quit update. It is simple and intuitive.

Pear Cloud: It is a virtual storage space similar to Ubuntu One and gives 2 GB space for free. It requires creation of login profile and is good to access files from any computer. However, if you already have a dropbox account, you may not be interested in Pear Cloud.

Pear OS Software Center: It is good to see Pear OS acknowledging it's roots and retaining the Ubuntu Software Center. The previous app center was too much Mac-ish for me and the present one is a more familiar interface.

Synaptic Package Manager: Another utility application and works faster than Ubuntu Software Center. It is the best package manager I have used. But, it may be a daunting initially for Linux novices to use Synaptic.

Pear OS PPA Manager: Adding and managing PPA's in Pear OS is very easy using the PPA manager. I really like the intuitive interface and simplicity that it provides. Pretty handy for new Linux users.

Installing Nvidia drivers in Pear OS 8

It is similar to Ubuntu Raring and involves the following steps:
Add Bumblebee ppa and install bumblebee with nvidia drivers from the terminal

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus linux-headers-generic

Reboot and run optirun ls -l from the terminal to check if it looks like the screenshot below. If you get the output as shown here then bumblebee is working and the laptop heat will come down drastically.

You can now selectively choose the programs for which you need to run nvidia.

Bugs that I noted

Pear OS 8 comes with a few bugs that I noted while using it.

Issue with Root log in: On my first attempt I was unable to login as root and it won't accept any password. So, I went back to my user ID login and created a password for root login by running the following command at the terminal:

sudo passwd root

This would prompt to enter and re-enter the root password that I would like create. And it worked!

Curious case of VLC player: In root login, I could see a VLC player but was not visible in the dash. I re-installed it again from my user ID login. Still, VLC won't show up. So, I started VLC from the terminal and pinned it on the docky. Thereby, I could actually run VLC player and play my desired media files.

Issue in accessing USB drives: Somehow, I was not able to transfer files to any USB drivers. They were all in FAT-32 format (works with all operating systems including Windows and Linux). I tried changing permissions from root login, ran chmod command as root, etc. etc. But, nothing worked. Even the shared folders in LAN were not accessible. Possibly a bug and normally it doesn't happen with me with any Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian spin.

Pretty slow Musique: Musique 1.2.1 is the default music file player and it took ages to load my collection of about 2 GB music files. Other players that I have used are 100 times more faster than musique. However, on clicking a single file, it played quite well. Further, using the preset options in equalizer, I could modify the effects that I wanted. It is a versatile player no doubt but I need faster import of media files.

Irritating language download options in live boot: Every time I did a live boot of Pear OS 8, an irritating language pack download option would automatically start. I don't expect any download to start in live boot and manually I had to kill it. Possibly it can be done away with in live boot and kept for post installation to do things.

No hot-corners for me: As I mentioned earlier, the hot-corners for easy access of dash or open applications didn't work for me.

No option to select user wallpapers: With Pear OS 8, I was stuck with the system wallpapers only as there was no option to include any folder in the Select Background entry. It is a bug for sure and I hope the developers correct it as soon as possible as it seriously limit customization options for the users.

French language in some applications: Some apps like Pear contacts still bear the French language.

Overall

Pear OS 8 presents an unique combination of aesthetics and functionality. The present version is the best Pear OS I have used, if I discount the bugs that I discussed above. However, the users on Pear OS 6 may have little incentive to upgrade to Pear OS 8 as this edition has barely 3-4 months of support. So, they may be better off waiting for the Pear OS based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to release. Looking at the present improvements and refinement that I noted in this version, I can expect a great LTS release from Pear in the pipeline.

One thing here, I didn't experience similar bugs in Pear OS 6, except for the launcher breaking down occasionally. Was this release a bit rushed? Not sure. Anyway, the users who are interested to try out Pear OS 8, please go ahead and experience Pear. It may not be exactly Mac but the closest Linux can offer to Mac OS X. Pear OS 8 is available in both 32 and 64 bit versions and they can be downloaded from here.

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Micron P420m Enterprise PCIe SSD Snap Review

The Micron P420m is an enterprise application accelerator that ranges up to 1.4TB in total capacity that leverages the PCIe interface and is uniquely offered in both a half-height, half-length (HHHL) and 2.5" form factors. Micron has opted for 25nm MLC NAND for the P420m to meet not only mainstream market requirements for performance and reliability, but also to provide a more cost-effective and higher capacity offering than their P320h which is paired with SLC NAND. The other core difference between the P420m and the P320h is that Micron has added capacitors to protect in-flight data in the event of an unplanned loss of power. The additional data protection feature keeps the card powered long enough to flush all writes to the NAND, giving enterprises one more layer of data protection. The HHHL card interfaces via PCIe Gen2 x8 to achieve sequential read performance up to 3.3GB/s with writes up to 630MB/s and random reads up to 750,000 IOPS and 95,000 IOPS for write activity. The 2.5" interfaces over PCIe Gen2 x4 for up to 1.8GB/s and 430,000 IOPS, respectively.

At its core, the Micron P420m features the same custom Micron/IDT ASIC controller as its sibling the Micron P320h PCIe and the same RAIN architecture (redundant array of independent NAND). RAIN provides device-integrated algorithms that use RAID5 across flash channels, enabling Micron to deliver greater performance, reliability and data integrity. RAIN also guarantees continuous drive operation even after a channel failure by kicking off an automatic background rebuild when a failure is detected. RAIN is entirely automated and runs entirely in the background without degrading system-level performance.

The application accelerator market at large offers a wide scope of options in terms of capacity and performance, but one feature that can be overlooked is power consumption. Some solutions draw so much power and expel so much energy that in-host cooling is a serious concern. The P420m on the other hand is well within the PCIe spec and is rated at just 8W in standby (7W on the 350GB 2.5"), with active power ranging up to 30W depending on capacity, form factor and performance tuning options. The 2.5" form factor is rated at 14W for 350GB and 22W for 700GB. The HHHL form factor is rated at 22W for 700GB, while the 1.4TB model is quoted at 25W with power throttling turned on and 30W without its activation.

As noted, the Micron P420m is available in both HHHL and 2.5" PCIe form factors. The 2.5" PCIe form factor continues to be unique to Micron, though others have shown demos of the technology. Dell has created a backplane for their 12G PowerEdge servers for the drives that allows them to be mounted in groups of four in traditional front-facing drive bays. Of course being able to access the drives via front of server without having to power down the system and remove the lid to service the drive is seen as a substantial benefit by some. It also helps that Micron's 2.5" PCIe drives are by far the fastest storage available in that drive size, as seen in our 2.5" P320h review.

The 2.5" ships in 350GB and 700GB capacities, while the HHHL is available in the 700GB and upper-echelon 1.4TB capacities. The HHHL cards provide endurance of 5 PBW (700GB) and 10 PBW (1.4TB). Our review units are four 1.4TB capacity cards.

Micron P420m Enterprise PCIe SSD Specifications

• Capacities
• 700GB (MTFDGAR700MAX-1AG1Z)
• Sequential Read: 3.3GB/s (128KB, steady state)
• Sequential Write: 600MB/s (128KB, steady state)
• Random Read: 750,000 IOPS (4KB, steady state)
• Random Write: 50,000 IOPS (4KB, steady state)
• 1.4TB (MTFDGAR1T4MAX-1AG1Z)
• Sequential Read: 3.3GB/s (128KB, steady state)
• Sequential Write: 630MB/s (128KB, steady state)
• Random Read: 750,000 IOPS (4KB, steady state)
• Random Write: 95,000 IOPS (4KB, steady state)

• Ready Latency: <100 data-blogger-escaped-br="" data-blogger-escaped-s=""> Write Latency: <13 data-blogger-escaped-br="" data-blogger-escaped-s=""> Interface: PCIe Gen2 x8
• Power: 30W maximum, 8 idle
• Form Factor: HHHL
• Dimensions: 68.90mm x 167.65mm x 18.71mm
• Operating Temp: 0°C to +50°C
• Reliability and Endurance
• Uncorrectable bit error rate (UBER): <1 data-blogger-escaped-1017="" data-blogger-escaped-bits="" data-blogger-escaped-br="" data-blogger-escaped-per="" data-blogger-escaped-read="" data-blogger-escaped-sector=""> MTTF: 2 million hours
• PBW: 5 (700GB), 10 (1.4TB)
• OS Compatibility
• Microsoft: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x86-64), Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V (x86-64), Windows Server 2012 (x86-64) SP128, Windows 7 (x86-64)
• Linux: RHEL Linux 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 (x86-64), SLES Linux 11 SP1 and SP2 (x86-64)
• VMware 5.0, 5.1 (x86-64)
• Open source GPL (Kernel Rev. 2.6.25+)

Design and Build

The Micron P420m is a half-height, half-length x8 PCIe application accelerator that features a single controller mounted onto the mainboard, with daughter boards attached to house more MLC NAND and power-fail capacitors. As with its top of the line, SLC NAND-based P320h sibling, the P420m follows the universal HHHL spec, enabling installations for just about any open server PCIe slot.

The power-fail capacitors are new to the Micron P420m to help ensure data integrity in the event that power is lost, as Micron enabled write-back caching leveraging DRAM on the P420m. The P320h had its default configuration set to write-through, although users could (at their own discretion) enable write-back caching for increased performance. Since the default conditions changed to help drive greater performance from the new MLC platform, Micron opted to ensure reliable performance regardless of the conditions of the installed environment.

The top of the card features an adhesive black plate with Micron P420m branding. This plate also serves to protect the top layer daughter board with its power-fail capacitors, as well as the controller's heat sink. That controller is a Micron/IDT ASIC controller that was also found on the Micron P320h. As for NAND, Micron includes 64 of their own Micron 31C12NQ314 25nm MLC NAND packages. That comes out to 2048GB or raw capacity, which is then over-provisioned down to 1.4TB available.

Testing Background and Comparables

The Micron P420m Enterprise PCIe SSD uses a Micron/IDT ASIC controller and Micron MLC NAND with a PCIe 2.0 x8 interface.

Comparables for this review:

• Fusion-io ioDrive2 (1.2TB, 1 x Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA controllers, MLC NAND, PCIe 2.0 x4)
• Huawei Tecal ES3000 (1.2TB, 3 x Proprietary FPGA controllers, MLC NAND, PCIe 2.0 x8)
• Intel SSD 910 (800GB, 4 x Intel EW29AA31AA1, MLC NAND, PCIe 2.0 x 8)
• LSI Nytro WarpDrive BLP4-400 (400GB, 4 x SandForce SF-2500 controller, Toshiba eMLC NAND, PCIe 2.0 x8)
• Micron P320h (700GB, IDT Controller, SLC NAND, PCIe 2.0 x8)
• Virident FlashMAX II (2.2TB, 2 x Proprietary FPGA controllers, eMLC NAND, PCIe 2.0 x8)

All PCIe Application Accelerators are benchmarked on our second-generation enterprise testing platform based on a Lenovo ThinkServer RD630. For synthetic benchmarks, we utilize FIO version 2.0.10 for Linux and version 2.0.12.2 for Windows. In our synthetic testing environment, we use a mainstream server configuration with a clock speed of 2.0GHz, although server configurations with more powerful processors could yield even greater performance.

• 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2620 (2.0GHz, 15MB Cache, 6-cores)
• Intel C602 Chipset
• Memory - 16GB (2 x 8GB) 1333Mhz DDR3 Registered RDIMMs
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit, Windows Server 2012 Standard, CentOS 6.3 64-Bit
• 100GB Micron P400e Boot SSD
• LSI 9211-4i SAS/SATA 6.0Gb/s HBA (For boot SSDs)
• LSI 9207-8i SAS/SATA 6.0Gb/s HBA (For benchmarking SSDs or HDDs)

It's worth noting that the comparables we've selected are largely MLC-based drives, with the exception of the SLC Micron PCIe drive. That said, not all PCIe drives are created equally both in terms of performance targets and price. Specific applications require specific storage needs, thus we've opted to standardize the comps on NAND type rather than number of controllers, etc.

Application Performance Analysis

In the enterprise market there is a huge difference between how products claim to perform on paper and how they perform in a live production environment. We understand the importance of evaluating storage as a component of larger systems, most importantly how responsive storage is when interacting with key enterprise applications. To this end, we've rolled out application tests including our proprietary MarkLogic NoSQL Database Storage Benchmark and MySQL performance via SysBench.

In the MarkLogic NoSQL Database environment, we test single PCIe Application Accelerators with a usable capacity greater than or equal to 700GB. Our NoSQL database requires roughly 650GB of free space to work with, evenly divided between four database nodes. In our testing environment, we use an SCST host and present each SSD in JBOD (while some PCIe SSDs leverage software RAID0), with one device or partition allocated per database node. The test repeats itself over 24 intervals, requiring between 30-36 hours total for the SSDs in this category. Measuring the internal latencies seen by the MarkLogic software, we record both total average latency, as well as interval latency for each SSD. - source

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