Question 2 500 GB SSDs vs 1 1TB SSD for upcoming build?
- Thread starter HomerJS
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damian101
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- Aug 11, 2020
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Do you plan on putting the two 500GB drives in RAID0?
Otherwise you'd definitely be better off with the 1TB drive in my opinion. But I also doubt doubling the bandwidth with RAID0 will make any perceivable difference in everyday applications.
Otherwise you'd definitely be better off with the 1TB drive in my opinion. But I also doubt doubling the bandwidth with RAID0 will make any perceivable difference in everyday applications.
damian101
Senior member
- Aug 11, 2020
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I just noticed that those SSDs are PCIe 4.0 ones. I hope you want to buy those for an x570 motherboard.
Buying two SSDs still doesn't make sense though. Such fast SSDs will only become relevant when games with Direct Storage support will come to PC, and that won't work when the drives are behind a RAID volume.
Also, are you sure you'll be able to fit all your games with operating system on1TB? Assuming you want to buy those for a gaming PC.
I personally wouldn't buy PCIe 4.0 SSDs yet, too expensive and not much benefit in the vast majority of applications.
Buying two SSDs still doesn't make sense though. Such fast SSDs will only become relevant when games with Direct Storage support will come to PC, and that won't work when the drives are behind a RAID volume.
Also, are you sure you'll be able to fit all your games with operating system on1TB? Assuming you want to buy those for a gaming PC.
I personally wouldn't buy PCIe 4.0 SSDs yet, too expensive and not much benefit in the vast majority of applications.
- Feb 6, 2002
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My plan was to get an ASUS x570 mobo. Wasn't going to do RAID just a question of 1TB vs 2 500GB.
I don't really have a cache of games yet. Plan on flight sim and car racing for now. There are cheaper options for SS. I chose Samsung 980 PRO because it was rated the best. 970 EVOs are even cheaper $130 1TB
Assuming RAID0:
2x drives = 2x the failure rate
2x drives = less future expandability
2x drives = raid -> no SAM transfer from drive
2x drives = ?software? raid = cpu load
2x drives = May require special drivers to boot windows. May complicate recovery of data on drive failure. May require special driver to read from Linux.
2x drives != 2x speed
speed difference is imperceptible in daily usage
not worth the trouble
With the prices being a close as they are, your better off leaving an empty NVMe slot for future expansion.
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- Sep 13, 2008
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Also, keep in mind that with a lot of NVMe drives, the larger capacity variants are a bit faster than the ones of lesser capacity, assuming you are comparing in a non RAID/striped situation.
You're getting twice as much for TBW as well 150, 300, 600 for 256GB, 512GB, 1TB on the 980 Pro.
- Sep 28, 2005
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i can play the black cat on your statement here, as its pure objectional to what your trying to do.
(NON nVME route in regards to R0)
2x drives = 2x failure... actually no... that's not statistics works in this type of situation.
As if 1 drive from both sets fail, your data fails anyhow.
So failure rate is the same on both sets, as your waiting for any one drive to fail.
I would say at worst, you got 1.5x and not 2x... but at least in a drive fail situation, since u have a extra, you can float your system on that
spare until your RMA or Replacement comes in, while you can not do that on a single drive.
Raid 0 on SSD's does have 1 big advantage, in that it spreads data across all drives, which means you get a much higher write endurance on the array.
4x drives are SATA6G. What else are you going to do with SATA? Your not eating PCI-E lanes using SATA.
4x drives = no SAM transfer... I do not think this applies to SATA drives, and only applies to nVME's.
4x drives = software.... are you really going to get picky with cpu load with today's processor that's not a laptop? How many people can you think of that will really need that 8-10core processor?
4x drives = windows 10 should pick up everything though uefi boot. The only issue is on a intel platform where VROC key is required for nVME.
4x drives is definitely not 4x speed, but its alike 3x well, it saturates the SATA6G lane. Whats even wonderful on top, it puts it close to real world difference between a single nVME in game loading time. SSD RAID 0 is fast, fast enough that latency issues which are typically seen on spinners are not even noticeable.
They fit nicely in something like this:
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Buy ICY DOCK Quad Bay 2.5" SATA/SAS SSD/HDD Trayless Hot-swap Dock/Mobile Rack for 5.25 Drive Bay - flexiDOCK MB524SP-B: Hard Drive Enclosures - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases
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So its totally YMMV, what is your objective in the storage you are going after.
And how you are going after it.
nVME's are great, but so are 10G network cards, RTX 3080, possibly a streaming caption card, and other cards which all use PCI-E lanes.
Homer what is it your trying to do with DATA?
I typically only recommend 1 nVME or 2 at most.. thats 8x pci-e lanes in a board limited by like 24lanes total.
Then i usually recommend stuffing the SATA ports, and using RAID to compensentate in storage capacity / speed.
If its gaming objective... get 1 single fastest largest nVME for boot.
Then get 2-3 largest possible you can find on deal SATA SSD and RAID 0 them.
Game load time and play difference is almost zilch on 3 x SSD Raid0 and you really want to keep your game drive off your main boot drive.
My recommendation:
980 Pro - boot drive.
3 x https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Powe...d=1&keywords=1tb+gb+ssd&qid=1607321005&sr=8-5
For 2.7TB of storage R-0 @ 270 dollars, which should be excellent for gaming.
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In RAID 0 it is exactly that.
2x the drives = 2x the things to go wrong. If any drive in RAID 0 fails, the entire array fails, data is forever gone, and function is lost until repaired.
Look at it this way:
There are say 10 points of failure on a single drive. They each have 1/100th chance of occurring. That gives the 1x drive system (1/100) * 10 = 1/10 chance of failure of the system.
Now lets say you use 2x of those drives in RAID 0, each with 10 points of failure, each with 1/100 chance of occurring. This gives you 20 points of failure, for a (1/100) * 20 = 2/10 chance of failure of the system.
It is exactly 2x probability of failure.
-----------------
4x drives = 4x chance of failure in RAID 0
Why not switch to RAID 5 at that point? At least that way a drive can be lost and the system can still function.
We all make our own choices. To me, if I am going to have my CPU involved, I would at least have RAID5 redundancy, at least that way I get something for losing a thread.
That looks very cool!
Depends on the system. Many systems can have NVMe drives installed without sacrifices.
- Sep 28, 2005
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Actually its not really 2x, because if you look at both scenarios, if any disks die, you lose everything.
Single nVME dies, you lose all data.
1/2 SATA drives drive you lose all data...
The odds of any of the 2 dying is not double.
It would be 1:1:1 but i said 1.5x just because you have 1 extra device running power though it.
But regardless, you lose a disk in any scenario its bye bye data.
I am not really a fan of RAID5 because URE. Well on SSD URE is sort of moot, but still, Raid5 is slow.
As long as were not talking important family pictures, or things you need to take to work or court, or things you should be backing up, Raid 0 is fine.
If its critical, then i am all for RAID 1/6/10, or even better, move to FREEBSD and get on RAID-Z.
What is being stored again is important.
If its a game drive, then i can care less if i lose everything.
Steam backups saves in cloud, so does Epic and Origin. I can always redownload it off the cloud.
Raid 0 will however help save your downtime. You can get the working drive to Raid itself or use the drives in solo until your replacement or RMA arrives.
This is not something you can do on a single nVME.
And yes depending on the system.... however most boards only have 24 pcie-e lanes total, unless we step up to enthusiast tier.
GPU = 16x unless u want to run it at 8x @ the cost of 5-10%fps.
Board = 4x i believe it uses this for nic, sound card, usb.3.1
That means you add an nVME, under most gamer boards you just cap'd your PCI-E.
Its so sad.. i used to be a GHZ counter.... counted every last GHZ my cpu could clock, now i am a PCI-E lane counter.... it seems i will never be happy with enough PCI-E Lanes unless its on a EYPC with 128 lanes.
Why do you recommend games not be installed on the boot drive? I have my Samsung 850 EVO 2TB SSD with a 125GB Windows (OS and basic programs) C:\ partition and a 1875GB Data (games, music, and work files) D:\ partition and I saw no difference in performance compared to having my boot drive on a separate SSD. When I upgrade to an NVMe drive, I plan on getting a 2TB one and partition it the same way.
- Sep 28, 2005
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It makes your life a lot easier.
When you need to format, you do not touch your game drive, which you can just migrate your library over after new install.
I am a fan of isolate everything, and let everything on its own life support.
If my game drive dies due to me excessively writing save files, then i will just replace the game drive, and i do not want the hassle of a entire downtime on my main system boot drive.
I always need to find a way to run my system under life support should that happen, and not be too compromised.
Lastly, i come from a time where everything was laced with malware, so it was customary practice to also isolate your main drive with game drive.
That way when a malware except a ransomware, was to claim your system, you could just nuke one part of it, and leave the rest.
If using just a single drive, you can just partition the drive as a separate partition for the OS and a separate partition for data and that leaves the data partition untouched if reformatting the OS partition and reinstalling Windows on the OS partition. Now I have gone back to having the OS/basic programs installed on a separate SSD. A Samsung 860 EVO 250GB SSD as my OS drive and my Samsung 850 EVO 2TB SSD as my data/games drive. As to how I aquired the Samsung 860 EVO 250 GB, my workplace gave me an almost new 860 EVO 250 GB SSD for free recently that was pulled out of a 10 year old PC they want to get rid of. Work also offered me the rest of the PC for free as well if I wanted it but I wanted just the SSD. I plan on replacing the 860 EVO 250 GB with a 970 EVO Plus or a 980 Pro 250 GB NVMe in my next build as an OS drive and leaving my data/games on the 850 EVO 2TB and maybe replacing that one with either a 970 EVO Plus or 980 Pro 2TB (not released yet).
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- Sep 28, 2005
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letting your wife borrow your car does not mean you have a second car.
This is sort of what your doing.
1 physical drive for 2 logical sources is what im trying to pull you away from.
This way when you do have a failure on that physical, you only lose 1 logical, and not both.
I understand what you are saying. Still you can't choose which SSD will fail first. It could be the SSD that has just the OS installed, or it could be the SSD that has your data files stored. If a person owns 2 cars, he can't choose which vehicle will have mechanical issues first, provided that he uses them both equally and takes care of his cars.
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- Sep 28, 2005
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yeah but big difference is the fact you can take the other car out while the broken one is getting either replaced or debug'd, and not have downtime.
IF you have a plethora of systems, so one system down does not mean much, then yeah igmore what im saying.
But my spare systems are just debug / test benches, and could never replace my main. This is why my main has backup's on backups if one system should fail.
Makaveli
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2002
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+1 for also keeping your Games drive and OS drive separate.
My 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive for boot and 1TB x2 Samsung 860EVO in Raid 0 for the games drives.
I was recently having an issue trying to update windows from build 1909 to 20H2. And because I don't have everything installed on the same drive I was easily able to do a fresh reinstall of windows while leaving the Raid 0 array in tact, After booting up 20H2 I just had to reinstall the AMD raid drivers and the Array was visible and accessible. Then took a few mins to just reinstall the steam and epic launcher and point them to the drives and it found everything. So I didn't have to redownload 1TB+ in games again.
I never recommend people keeping everything on one drive.
As for SSD's failing in Raid 0 I still have two intel 160GB drives in Raid 0 that are running after 10 years of use.
My 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive for boot and 1TB x2 Samsung 860EVO in Raid 0 for the games drives.
I was recently having an issue trying to update windows from build 1909 to 20H2. And because I don't have everything installed on the same drive I was easily able to do a fresh reinstall of windows while leaving the Raid 0 array in tact, After booting up 20H2 I just had to reinstall the AMD raid drivers and the Array was visible and accessible. Then took a few mins to just reinstall the steam and epic launcher and point them to the drives and it found everything. So I didn't have to redownload 1TB+ in games again.
I never recommend people keeping everything on one drive.
As for SSD's failing in Raid 0 I still have two intel 160GB drives in Raid 0 that are running after 10 years of use.
- Sep 28, 2005
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You act like nVME's are that much faster in gaming in real world....
They aren't.
R0 SSD's are pretty darn close.. and thats with 2, where your not physically cap'd on the transfer of the full 6G.
Add another one in a trinity, and there is where you start seeing the 6G cap, and also where you start seeing them get not that far behind the nVME.
But here is a video of nVME vs 2xSSD R0 vs single SSD.
I really recommend that third SSD if you can fit it tho.... i personally run these in R0 as well as my brother:
Another thing is in R0 you also double the life of the SSD, as writes are even across all disk. That is another plus for me for Raiding SSD's as save files add up, and they add up fast.
AAA titles eating 140GB... meh... i wont start bat an eye until i start seeing dev's hit 500gb per game, which then i think i will start a lynch mob at the studio.
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