Help for RAID0 with two X25-M G2 80gb

[[ITA]SEREUPIN80]

Hello! I follow this great website since 2005 but only today I have decided to register here and try to ask your help to this great forum..


I have:
- two ssd Intel x25-m 80gb G2
- asus P5E with rampage formula bios (ICH9R)

I would like to make a raid 0, but reading and reading in google, I noticed that there are problems, especially, if I am not wrong, with the TRIM.

My question is if sombody can help me to understand and if it is possible, to help me to configure this RAID 0. My father gifted me the second ssd yesterday, and it would be very sad to cannot use it properly


so, if you have advices, you are welcome!


thank you so much

 

[Burner27]

You will lose TRIM support if you RAID these drives. No RAID controller to date (I think) can pass the TRIM command to the drives. But that shouldn't stop you from RAIDing. SSDs have their own 'garbage collection algorithms' that work similiarly to TRIM (almost) and should keep the performance degradation to a minimum. If you make a RAID array of those 80GB drives, just leave about 20% of the total raid volume as free space. In other words, 2 x 80GB drives would yield a 160GB RAID array - subtract 20% from the total space (32GB) and make the RAID array a 128GB partition when configuring it through the Intel Matrix RAID utility beforehand.

Then install windows using the latest IRST drivers on a USB/CD Rom during install.

 

[Spikesoldier]

yes when you go to RAID you lose TRIM. shouldnt be that much of a loss though.

burner - i can understand leaving 20% free space on the ssd's as breathing room. but i dont see the benefit of making that breathing space an unused and unformatted partition instead of just not manually using it as one 160GB partition.

 

[[ITA]SEREUPIN80]

thank you both for yours help! I appreciate very much it..

Before to post here, I spent last 3 days to find information and reading about raid, trim, and so on..

I understand definetely that I cannot have hope to have the trim function in raid array.. some people often advice to just make an image of system every two months, make a secure erase, and then mount again the system image.. it can helps with the degradation...

other people, wich are using raid for 1 year or more, told me just that it is too much exagerated the "voices" about the degradation of performance, because they didn't do nothing erasing without to lose nothing.. the ssd are the same of the beginning..

so, it is usefull also to read about to "save" the 20% of free space, or to install the latest drivers of intel rapid storage during the windows installation and not after to have already installed win7 (what is the difference between to install during installation and later ?)

about the 20% of free space, it means that I must create the "partition" for the array of 128GB ? or it means that I can just create the array with all the available space (149gb) and when I will use the windows, i will have just to be carefull to leave at least the 20% of free space, differently of now with my single ssd where I have only 10gb free

ps: why intel spent so much money and advertising for so beautiful and fast products as SSD are, but they "forget" to make possible the RAID using as for mechanical hard disks ?! I am not expert, but from my point of view it looks very strange, or better, something that we can't call "make things with brain"

Many people used and use raid, so it was normal to guess that people will use the same configuration with SSD. So why they didn't write proper drivers for make it possibile?! it will be possible in the future?! or they just hope that people don't use the raid configuration with their ssd ?

thanks for your helping!

 

[razel]

ps: why intel spent so much money and advertising for so beautiful and fast products as SSD are, but they "forget" to make possible the RAID using as for mechanical hard disks ?! I am not expert, but from my point of view it looks very strange, or better, something that we can't call "make things with brain"

HardOCP once asked Intel engineers about this years ago. They said SSDs are already massively parallel. By design SSDs are esentially a highly optimized RAID of flash chips. I'm sure that Intel sees very little benefit RAIDing SSDs.

I've pondered RAIDing SSD and scoured benchmark off review sites and come to the same conclusion. RAIDing SSDs really only removes the SATA interface speed barrier that they hit when run sequentially. Other aspects such as latency and random reads don't benefit much and alot of the times it actually becomes the worst of the two drives.

RAID was designed during the rotational HDD days and is the perfect solution for getting MUCH more out of them. You get less benefit with SSDs.

Mind you, I said less... not none. In other words it's not worth the trouble, but it sure is fun to get that 1GB per second number when you benchmark.

 

[[ITA]SEREUPIN80]

HardOCP once asked Intel engineers about this years ago. They said SSDs are already massively parallel. By design SSDs are esentially a highly optimized RAID of flash chips. I'm sure that Intel sees very little benefit RAIDing SSDs.

I've pondered RAIDing SSD and scoured benchmark off review sites and come to the same conclusion. RAIDing SSDs really only removes the SATA interface speed barrier that they hit when run sequentially. Other aspects such as latency and random reads don't benefit much and alot of the times it actually becomes the worst of the two drives.

RAID was designed during the rotational HDD days and is the perfect solution for getting MUCH more out of them. You get less benefit with SSDs.

Mind you, I said less... not none. In other words it's not worth the trouble, but it sure is fun to get that 1GB per second number when you benchmark.

thank you again for share your point of view, it is interesting...


anyway, i still have doubts on this argument.. I mean that if we talk about raid 0, ok, it can be fun.. nothing more.. but we know perfectly that there are other kind of raid, for the example a simple raid 1 can be used not for fun, but just for make safe our data.. so, why don't support this kind of important configuration with a proper driver wich permit to be optimazed with trim and other usefull functiones?! I still cannot find a logical answer.. or maybe I can find it, and the answer could be that it is not easy to realize this kind for driver because it is very complex..

" who will live, will see " we say where I live.. I mean that we will see what will happen in the future..

 

[Emulex]

o/s level software raid-1 supports trim - since each drive is seen by the o/s as an individual drive. trim is coming - just be patient it will come since ich is software raid anyways - they just need to tweak the drivers a little bit.