Dell Perc H310 mini mono vs H710 mini mono in IT-mode

[runevn]

I have a H310 and H710 and am planning to flash one of them into IT-mode to use for Truenas. My question is which one should I flash? Is there any performance difference between the two cards after being flashed?

I get that in Raid-mode there are some differences as shown in the table/screenshot. But what would you recommend? I have searched but can find any posts on performance difference. If I have overlooked a post please direct me to the post - thanks.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Arwen]

Without knowing the controlling CPU's speed on the cards, they are for practical purposes the same when running IT firmware. (Assuming either or both can run IT firmware.)

 

[Etorix]

Assuming both can run IT firmware, H310 is still the best choice because there's no use for the DDR3 cache of the H710 and any backup battery on the H710 would be a liability.

 

[firesyde424]

If I remember right, these are the exact same card, just that the 310 doesn't have a cache of any kind and is also missing some enterprise features. I don't think, for your use, one is better than the other. I would flash the 310 just because it's simpler and fewer things to deal with, should something not work right.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Is there any performance difference between the two cards after being flashed?

Only if you are using a large number of SSDs. You will definitely want to flash both of them though, as the stock queue depth on the H310 is low enough to be a (severe) bottleneck, and the H710 stock firmware is IR (RAID) which is a Bad Thing when paired with ZFS.

If you plan to run a 24-bay Dell R7x0XD system full of SSDs, use the H710. Otherwise, the H310 is probably sufficient.

Without knowing the controlling CPU's speed on the cards

H310 is a single-core PowerPC 440 @ 533MHz on PCIe 2.0 x8, H710 is a dual-core PowerPC 440 @ 800MHz on PCIe 3.0 x8. The difference is much more significant in IR mode where the card is handling RAID/parity calculations (and the lack of cache on the H310 basically cripples it there as well) but in IT mode it doesn't come out until you start really cranking up the IOPS or bandwidth.

 

[runevn]

Thanks for all the posts. I will go with the H310.