HDD Configuration Advice

Collider

Senior member
Jan 20, 2008
522
7
81
Looking to breathe some life into my trusty X58/Hahalem build.

The configuration is listed in the signature, and I have 2 x 120GB Corsair SSDs.

The Intel 80GB G2 I have now just isnt enough any more for OS/ProgramFiles, and the 120 doesnt have much room for growth - but I happen to grab them both at $50 ea. from newegg.

Here are the options I'm considering for OS/Apps:

1) 2 x 120 Corsairs in RAID-0
- from what I know I'll loose TRIM, any workarounds for my x58 chip set?

2) 1st Corsiar 120 SSD for OS = C-DRIVE, 2nd for ProgramFiles = D-DRIVE
- I'm theorizing that this setup should improve in Windows performance over a single large SSD due to fact IO requests won't be bottlenecked by single device - performance gain would be during start-up or opening apps when its likely that OS files and ProgramFiles data being hit concurrently
- Has anyone tried this or can comment if my logic is sound?

3) last option would be to just go grab a 240GB SSD

4 ) and the very last option I guess would be to go PCI-E SSD card route, not the most desirable as I wont be able to reuse this SSD in a laptop lets say but if the ROI on performance gain is worth then why not.

Ideally I'd also like to get some more disk I/O performance out of this board, as x58/i7 is still a powerhouse IMO even for my usage patterns (development & gaming) plus when I purchased I looked for D0 so I will be getting good OC out of this build.
 
Last edited:

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
24,165
1,809
126
Just use one 120 GB SSD for the boot drive, and be done with it. You get to keep TRIM too. You can use the second one for data.

If I were buying new, I would have just bought a 250 GB Samsung 840 Pro.
 

Collider

Senior member
Jan 20, 2008
522
7
81
Just use one 120 GB SSD for the boot drive, and be done with it. You get to keep TRIM too. You can use the second one for data.

If I were buying new, I would have just bought a 250 GB Samsung 840 Pro.

I have other drives for storage (HW config in the signature)

I have: 2 x WD Blacks 640GB in RAID-0 for games and work files, and another 2GB for storage.

Yeah, 120GB for OS/Apps wouldn't be enough for my usage patterns, so I'd have to go one for OS and separate for ProgramFiles.

just wanted to see if anyone can confirm performance benefits.

if no one replies - I'll likely do it over some weekend and post benchmarks to share.