Advice for installing SSD system

[yfaykya]

Hi all,
I am mainly a linux user but have a gaming system (using steam) based on a p5k premium and Q6600 o/c @ 3.2ghz with 4GB RAM.

I have 4 Intel SSD 160Gb X-25M G2s and wanted to know what was the best way to set up a rejig of my system. Should I use one big RAID-0 drive or keep them individual with TRIM support? The system is only used for gaming.

Any advice/gotchas?

Thanks.

 

[boochi]

Run 3 in RAID0 and the other by itself. Put the OS on the single and install the games on the RAID. You should not have many writes to the RAID but, will get some killer reads and fast level loads. The single OS drive will still have trim and will get the bulk of the writes. Just install the latest Intel RAID drivers (10.1.0.1008)

 

[yfaykya]

Thanks boochi - I will give that a go tonight.

 

[sgrinavi]

You're not going to use the speed of 3 drives in raid0 with that rig. I would go for 2 in RAID0 for the OS/programs then singles for the other two.

 

[yfaykya]

You're not going to use the speed of 3 drives in raid0 with that rig. I would go for 2 in RAID0 for the OS/programs then singles for the other two.

A little confused by this. You proposing installing the OS on a RAID0 device and therefore negating the benefit of TRIM? I was thinking of OS on single, program files on a RAID0 and one other loose one.

 

[Dark Shroud]

A little confused by this. You proposing installing the OS on a RAID0 device and therefore negating the benefit of TRIM? I was thinking of OS on single, program files on a RAID0 and one other loose one.

Just do what boochi said to. You're going to want TRIM on the OS drive and if something happens with the raid0 setup at least the OS will still boot normal.

Just in case you don't know get Intel SSD Toolkit to fine tune all of those drives.

 

[nanaki333]

Just do what boochi said to. You're going to want TRIM on the OS drive and if something happens with the raid0 setup at least the OS will still boot normal.

Just in case you don't know get Intel SSD Toolkit to fine tune all of those drives.

as long as you consolidate free space and clean the drive with AS cleaner, you can keep raided SSDs at optimal performance without TRIM. before i took out my G1 160s out of raid0, they still operated at peak efficiency with tons of life left in them.

 

[sgrinavi]

Just do what boochi said to. You're going to want TRIM on the OS drive and if something happens with the raid0 setup at least the OS will still boot normal.

Just in case you don't know get Intel SSD Toolkit to fine tune all of those drives.

That's what back-ups are for.

A little confused by this. You proposing installing the OS on a RAID0 device and therefore negating the benefit of TRIM? I was thinking of OS on single, program files on a RAID0 and one other loose one.

I've been running a Vertex 1 Raid 0 since shortly after the product launch. I have not had any issue with it, the speeds have not dropped and I have not had a failure.

Call me crazy, but I want the fast read speeds on the drive that I boot & load from, so I make that my RAID 0 drive.... I put my DL & internet temp files on another drive.

Either way you decide don't bother with 3 drives in RAID 0, you will not get any added speed (been there, done that) and it increases your probability of failure by 50%... (or 33%, depending on how you look at it)

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Use 3 of them and give me one, that sounds fair to ME.

 

[yfaykya]

Thanks all. I put the OS on one drive and steam onto a RAID0 of 2 of the drives. Feels very snappy. What tool should I benchmark with to give ye some feedback on speeds? I used AS SSD which has the RAID0 at 264/175 and the OS at 134/85 for sequential (while IO was happening to both - steam was downloading 2 games to the RAID0 at about 2MiB/s). Does this seem ball park for a fresh installed system?

Also what tool should I use to maintain the RAID-0 Array? I tried FreeSpaceCleanerFF but not sure this is the right way to go. Appreciate the feedback.

Thanks.

 

[boochi]

If you are using the RAID0 for games only, don't do anything. Other than installing the games you are not really writing that much to it. The os/system drive is getting all the writes and erases but it benefits from having trim. Run ATTO to do your benchmarks http://www.attotech.com/products/product.php?sku=Disk_Benchmark. However, benchmarking all the time wears out the drive.

 

[taltamir]

use one of them for games and OS. Sell the other 3.

 

[scbjmshpv]

use one of them for games and OS. Sell the other 3.

Small minded...

Use one as main OS and send me the rest will pay for shipping send you the PM of my address in sec :sneaky:

But seriously, go with what boochi said, if not then let me know about my offere (NO i wasn't kidding)

 

[nanaki333]

Thanks all. I put the OS on one drive and steam onto a RAID0 of 2 of the drives. Feels very snappy. What tool should I benchmark with to give ye some feedback on speeds? I used AS SSD which has the RAID0 at 264/175 and the OS at 134/85 for sequential (while IO was happening to both - steam was downloading 2 games to the RAID0 at about 2MiB/s). Does this seem ball park for a fresh installed system?

Also what tool should I use to maintain the RAID-0 Array? I tried FreeSpaceCleanerFF but not sure this is the right way to go. Appreciate the feedback.

Thanks.

as others have said, your OS drive is going to be the drive getting raped on the writes, which TRIM should take care of just fine. being that your games drive won't have much writing, the built in garbage collection will probably be enough. if you use something like freespacecleaner, make sure you use something like perfectdisk on the partition first with the "consolidate free space" option.