Engadget: TRIM or RAID 0? SSD owners will no longer have to choose

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Elganja

Elganja

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May 21, 2007
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/21/trim-or-raid-0-ssd-owners-will-no-longer-have-to-choose/

Owners of multiple SSDs will be familiar with this dilemma: do you opt for RAID 0 to put all those precious GBs to use, or do you go for AHCI mode in order to gain TRIM support and maintain performance over time? Well, the next release of Intel's RST should support TRIM for RAID 0, so switching to solid state storage will become an even smarter decision than it is right now.

[Thanks, Brian]

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Storage Review
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I'm curious what drives will be supported....
 
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groberts101

Golden Member
Mar 17, 2011
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Has nothing to do with specific drives(they all support TRIM nowadays) as it's the sata driver itself that will be the deciding factor to whether or not they pass the command through to the array members.

Intel has said the 11.5 series will enable that passthrough.. but then again.. we've been hearing that for quite some time already. Seeing is believing.

On the other hand.. garbage collection is quite capable for most any SSD firmware made these days for recovering dirty/deleted blocks if sufficient idle time is implemented. Both TRIM and GC are synergistic of course.. but I'll take GC over trim anyday of the week since I run my systems 24/7 anyways.

It's the guys running raids who just use the systems and then shut down/sleep/hibernate who will see the largest gains from these new raid-trimmed drivers since using that protocol will kill power to the drives and eliminate garbage collection from ocuring.
 
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Elganja

Elganja

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May 21, 2007
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groberts101 said:
Has nothing to do with specific drives(they all support TRIM nowadays) as it's the sata driver itself that will be the deciding factor to whether or not they pass the command through to the array members.

Intel has said the 11.5 series will enable that passthrough.. but then again.. we've been hearing that for quite some time already. Seeing is believing.

On the other hand.. garbage collection is quite capable for most any SSD firmware made these days for recovering dirty/deleted blocks if sufficient idle time is implemented. Both TRIM and GC are synergistic of course.. but I'll yake GC over trim anyday of the week since I run my systems 24/7 anyways.

It's the guys running raids who just use the systems and then shut down/sleep/hibernate who will see the largest gains form these new raid-trimmed drivers.
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yup and that fits me perfectly. I use my main computer for gaming only otherwise it is off.
 
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nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
3,772
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groberts101 said:
Has nothing to do with specific drives(they all support TRIM nowadays) as it's the sata driver itself that will be the deciding factor to whether or not they pass the command through to the array members.

Intel has said the 11.5 series will enable that passthrough.. but then again.. we've been hearing that for quite some time already. Seeing is believing.

On the other hand.. garbage collection is quite capable for most any SSD firmware made these days for recovering dirty/deleted blocks if sufficient idle time is implemented. Both TRIM and GC are synergistic of course.. but I'll take GC over trim anyday of the week since I run my systems 24/7 anyways.

It's the guys running raids who just use the systems and then shut down/sleep/hibernate who will see the largest gains from these new raid-trimmed drivers since using that protocol will kill power to the drives and eliminate garbage collection from ocuring.
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that's me all the way. my home machines take naps when not in use. my work ones are on 24/7.
 
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greenhawk

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Feb 23, 2011
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makes the choice of a RevoDrive or a normal sata drive a little harder now.....

Not planing on buying now, but then the "comming soon" approach to these changes (trim and raid) does make it something else to consider. Of course, if you buy big enough to start with (drive size), then raid might not be needed at all anyway or if like me, comming back in the future to buy a matching second item (raid or sli ect), just does not happen.

Of course, I could get a second SSD to match my current one, but getting a second intel G2 80GB seems a little pointless when eyeballing a 240GB unit.
 
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boxleitnerb

Platinum Member
Nov 1, 2011
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But honestly, with drives approaching saturation speeds of the SATA 6Gb interface, how does Raid-0 make sense? 2 Years ago, fine, but today?
 
Coup27

Coup27

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Jul 17, 2010
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boxleitnerb said:
But honestly, with drives approaching saturation speeds of the SATA 6Gb interface, how does Raid-0 make sense? 2 Years ago, fine, but today?
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So you can have 2 x saturated 6Gbps links into your computer giving you around 12Gbps (in theory).
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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Sep 14, 2001
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VirtualLarry said:
What about TRIM for RAID-0, when using software FDE?
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Whatever is doing the FDE would have to let the block layer know which blocks are empty so it can pass that down to the drive's firmware.

So on Linux that would be filesystem->dm_crypt->md->controller->drive/firmware and if one of those layers doesn't do TRIM you're out of luck. Depending on the order that you set it all up in anyway.

boxleitnerb said:
But honestly, with drives approaching saturation speeds of the SATA 6Gb interface, how does Raid-0 make sense? 2 Years ago, fine, but today?
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Or so you can buy multiple smaller, cheaper SSDs and RAID them to get a larger overall block device for your system.
 
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groberts101

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Mar 17, 2011
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Nothinman said:
Or so you can buy multiple smaller, cheaper SSDs and RAID them to get a larger overall block device for your system.
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yep.. not to mention that more channels are always going to be better when it comes to SSD's.

Saying that raid makes no sense just because the sata3 drives are getting so fast would be along the lines of saying that car with 400 horsepower is useless just because you can't use all that power all the time.

To each his own and I for one.. always want more from my engines and computers. Nitrous.. superchargers.. and riadcards.. ohh my! :cool:
 
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bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
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lsv said:
Let's get Trim passed on Raid 5 and then we're talking :)
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really? I was under the impression that implementations like RAID5 were specifically implemented for the sake of HDDs and their tendency towards mechanical failure. With SSDs you simply don't have that problem anywhere near the same degree, so unless you're running something that is mission critical to the extreme why wouldn't you just run all the drives in RAID0?

Of course a problem with Intel's implementation is that their controllers are still stuck with just 2 x SATA6 ports. X79 was supposed to changd things by adding up to 10 x SATA6 on its own 4x PCI-e 3.0 channel to the CPU (and of course cost $1000 for a baseline s2011 mobo and CPU), but Intel decided to back off such ambitious awesomeness. So this really only bodes excellent for those running just a 2 drive RAID-0 on the SATA6 ports otherwise we'll have to settle for multiple SATA3 drives. Several G2s or 310s or SandForce 1xxx drives would fit the bill.


The bittersweet part of this news is that it will help usher in a quicker end to SSD caching after less than a year with Z68. With SSD prices continually dropping, and RAID-0 making things even more cost effective in terms of capacity and performance, and of course the unfortunate and untimely HDD production problems I will soon have little need of my 64GB M4 cache accelerating my 1TB Sammy F3 if I can get a 2 x 240/256GB RAID-0 array for a reasonable amount. Such a setup would also allow me to bump up my current 3 drive HDD video capture array to 4 drives as I'd have 2 SSDs storing the OS and apps instead of 1 SSD + SSD and HDD cache. Although with only ~500GB for OS and apps I'd still need to juggle some games, but that wouldn't be too big of a deal.
 
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nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
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groberts101 said:
yep.. not to mention that more channels are always going to be better when it comes to SSD's.

Saying that raid makes no sense just because the sata3 drives are getting so fast would be along the lines of saying that car with 400 horsepower is useless just because you can't use all that power all the time.

To each his own and I for one.. always want more from my engines and computers. Nitrous.. superchargers.. and riadcards.. ohh my! :cool:
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a-men! you can never have too much power for daily driving or daily tasking! have fun waiting for your outlook to open all 7 seconds while i'm already replying to an email!
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
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Until data storage speeds equal memory bandwidth speeds and access times and start a new era of non volatile RAM and zero wait state computing and demolish the memory gap with nuclear fire, you can never have enough RAID.

I never want to see an hourglass or file access related progress bar again.

hddsucks.jpg


Personally I don't care if we don't see a faster processor for the nex ten years a long as the data storage device radically changes to keep up with what we already have.
 
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exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
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nanaki333 said:
a-men! you can never have too much power for daily driving or daily tasking! have fun waiting for your outlook to open all 7 seconds while i'm already replying to an email!
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Or 45 minutes to install Lotus Notes.... Not even joking...

Where I work, HDD access lights consume more power than the power LED they are on solid so much.
 
Shmee

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
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Sep 13, 2008
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cool, sounds like great news!
 
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