1TB 960 Evo vs x2 500gb 960 Evo In Raid 0?

[Trollsies]

They are the same price, just wondering which is better. I store all my data on backups, so don't care about either of them failing and losing data. Anyways thanks!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Get the 1TB. Unless you're on an X99 platform, with a 40(48?)-lane CPU installed, and enough spare direct PCI-E lanes to go around, it won't make much difference.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Half the chance of failure with the 1 TB. Sure, you don't care about data loss -- but what about not being able to use the storage until you get a replacement? Also, unless you have continuous backup you will lose some data. I'd hate to lose a day of playing (for example) Fallout 4 just because the daily backup hadn't run yet. Or to have to re-download a full game from Steam.

 

[cbn]

Half the chance of failure with the 1 TB. Sure, you don't care about data loss -- but what about not being able to use the storage until you get a replacement? Also, unless you have continuous backup you will lose some data. I'd hate to lose a day of playing (for example) Fallout 4 just because the daily backup hadn't run yet. Or to have to re-download a full game from Steam.

Fallout 4 (if on steam) has cloud save.

But yes, you are right....the games would have be re-downloaded.

 

[TemjinGold]

Unless you just plan to run benchmarks all day, there's literally no benefit to going the raid route but you do get all the headaches of doing so.

 

[frowertr]

Christ, if you were going to run twin 960s, i'd run RAID 1. The speed of SSDs is so high you cant tell a difference from RAID 0 to 1.

 

[w3rd]

Raid was essentially for redundancy & for circumventing mechanical drives weakness in seek times and throughput. They are not needed today. Performance is a side issue. Forget the latest M.2, even older SATA2 drives have 60k IOPS and far outweigh the benefit of a raid array.

If you are min/max'ing and need space, buy two drives, just run them as two independent drives. Drive D:

C: OS
D: Games & Apps


Buying two M.2 512gb NVMe drives is better than having one 1T (in my opinion). It spreads the data out, thus spreads the heat out, and also utilizes a second controller as then data is directed & handling as efficiently as possible.

 

[TemjinGold]

Raid was essentially for redundancy & for circumventing mechanical drives weakness in seek times and throughput. They are not needed today. Performance is a side issue. Forget the latest M.2, even older SATA2 drives have 60k IOPS and far outweigh the benefit of a raid array.

If you are min/max'ing and need space, buy two drives, just run them as two independent drives. Drive D:

C: OS
D: Games & Apps


Buying two M.2 512gb NVMe drives is better than having one 1T (in my opinion). It spreads the data out, thus spreads the heat out, and also utilizes a second controller as then data is directed & handling as efficiently as possible.

Except one big drive tends to perform better than 2 smaller ones. While that may be negligible, having all your spare area in one drive, not using up your 2nd NVMe port (and many mobos don't even have a second), etc. are also reasons to keep it to one.

 

[w3rd]

Except one big drive tends to perform better than 2 smaller ones. While that may be negligible, having all your spare area in one drive, not using up your 2nd NVMe port (and many mobos don't even have a second), etc. are also reasons to keep it to one.

Illogical: He already states he is choosing between one, or two. Thus he has two M.2 slots.

One LARGER drive may internally work slightly faster, than a single smaller drive, but that means nothing when two drives are being accessed independently from each other. And again, the speed difference Someone would be speaking about vs single larger chip, is inconsequential.

Point is: Raid arrays in 2017 are for nostalgia.

 

[frowertr]

Illogical: He already states he is choosing between one, or two. Thus he has two M.2 slots.

One LARGER drive may internally work slightly faster, than a single smaller drive, but that means nothing when two drives are being accessed independently from each other. And again, the speed difference Someone would be speaking about vs single larger chip, is inconsequential.

Point is: Raid arrays in 2017 are for nostalgia.

RAID is nostalgia? Hmm. Cant say I agree at all. Depends on your need. If you need HA with minimum downtime RAID is required. Especially since your chances of drive failures increases as you increase drive count. So basically anything in a production or Enterprise environment requires RAID. Plus the speed of a screaming RAID 10 array with all flash drives is the cats meow man...

Now for home use that isnt mission critical, sure RAID just complicates everything. Just need good backups (which you should always have anyway regardless)...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Illogical: He already states he is choosing between one, or two. Thus he has two M.2 slots.

One LARGER drive may internally work slightly faster, than a single smaller drive, but that means nothing when two drives are being accessed independently from each other. And again, the speed difference Someone would be speaking about vs single larger chip, is inconsequential.

Point is: Raid arrays in 2017 are for nostalgia.

You do realize that the PCH on a modern mainstream chipset, limits overall bandwidth to PCI-E 3.0 x4, right? The same as ONE NVMe SSD. (All of the PCI-E fan-out lanes on the PCH, connect to the CPU via a DMI 3.0 interface, which is still PCI-E 3.0 x4 internally, essentially.

So, there's no point to multiple M.2 PCI-E SSDs on a mainstream platform chipset, RAID or no RAID.

 

[w3rd]

You do realize that the PCH on a modern mainstream chipset, limits overall bandwidth to PCI-E 3.0 x4, right? The same as ONE NVMe SSD. (All of the PCI-E fan-out lanes on the PCH, connect to the CPU via a DMI 3.0 interface, which is still PCI-E 3.0 x4 internally, essentially.

So, there's no point to multiple M.2 PCI-E SSDs on a mainstream platform chipset, RAID or no RAID.

You do realize, that EVERY NVMe stick, has it's own controller..?
So in theory (& logic) if TWO drives are running independently of the other, there is a potential for less congestion coming off each stick. Each stick runs cooler, as a result.

Personally, I would go two 512GB (non-raid), before I went one 1TB NVMe.
Not to mention, you can config your system better, using the C:OS on a Samsung Pro, while having the D:Games & apps on a cheaper EVO.



Lastly... Larry, if there was no point, then why are there Mobo's with two M.2 slots..?

 

[VirtualLarry]

You do realize, that EVERY NVMe stick, has it's own controller..?
So in theory (& logic) if TWO drives are running independently of the other

But NVMe drives are connected by PCI-E 3.0 x4 to the PCH (system chipset). And then the chipset (ALL of it's connections, SATA6G, USB3.0, etc.) is shoe-horned back down into a PCI-E 3.0 x4 (DMI 3.0) to connect to the CPU.

So you see, they're not totally independent, like they could be on an X99 motherboard, with it's copious CPU PCI-E 3.0 lanes.

Lastly... Larry, if there was no point, then why are there Mobo's with two M.2 slots..?

Convenience, marketing, and Optane.

Edit: I'll admit, having dual M.2 sockets, does make it easier to set up independent dual-boot OS configurations. In which case, only one of the two M.2 sockets would really be in use at any one time, thus no bottleneck.

I've got one M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4 (Adata XPG SX8000), and one SATA6G 2.5" (PNY CS1111) hooked up to one of my DeskMini rigs, and I use the separation of drives for multi-booting. (Windows 10 on the M.2, Windows 7 and Linux Mint on the 2.5" SATA.)

Alternatively, when Optane cache drives come out, then you could put the primary OS SSD onto one of the M.2 sockets, and then use the "Optane ready" M.2 socket, for the Optane cache drive, and use that to cache a large HDD connected to one of the SATA ports.

 

[w3rd]

Larry, you are being obtuse.

I am NOT talking about saturating the pci-e bus, nor did u even refute what I said. You just explained what M.2 & pci-e is and does.

Your rebuttal has exactly zero to do with data being pulled through the controller on the M.2 stick. Or having 2 different sticks controlling their own sets of data.

The pci-e bus doesn't care.


And context matters, you loose nothing going two independent drives, over one. You actually gain advantages to your system. Additionally two independent sticks are also recommended over using them in a raid.

 

[mxnerd]

Split OS and Game/Apps into 2 equal size disks/drives is just ridiculous because the OS drive will have a lot of unused space, totally wasted.

The advantage with one 1TB drive over 2 512GB drives is you just divide the 1TB drive into 2 partitions and you can adjust the size of partitions according to your needs.

You really don't gain any significant time savings or feel the efficiency in real life by using 2 flash type drives.

Keep mentioning the heat generated by flash types drive is even more laughable if compared to the heat generated by 3.5" drives.

If you are so worried about the heat, just add a fan.

No one in the survey agrees two drives is better than one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm just saying, on the mainstream platforms, where the M.2 PCI-E slots are all run through the PCH, there's ZERO performance improvements with two M.2 drives over just a single one, because the bottleneck is the connection between the PCH and the CPU.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Larry and others are going to know immediately what I'm going to say based on my current approach. I'd just say that for a general-purpose, high-end workstation, I don't think RAID0 is worth it anymore. RAID1 -- maybe -- but what you'd miss with RAID1 for redundancy is made up with a good incremental backup solution like Macrium Reflect.

Do you really USE all of a 2x8 16GB RAM configuration? Because you can use more of it to address storage access speed. Do you want to integrate large-capacity SATA devices? you can do that, and accelerate them.

With NVMe M.2 speeds for my OS, I can't resist caching the NVMe to 4GB of RAM. I'm caching a Seagate Barracuda 2.5" 5400RPM drive to a 100GB partition on the same NVMe. I was planning to buy a 1 or even 2TB SATA Crucial [or similar] SSD to supplement my NVME, but can't bring myself to pull the string. I don't have any storage problems that would resolve with a RAID configuration.

As for "wasted" NVMe space of an OS-boot-system, I'm not worrying about that either. I can't anticipate what other software I might install. I just planned to have copious storage of both SATA and NVMe flavors for two OS versions.