I plan on running two Vertex SSDs in RAID 0-What do I need to know?

[tboo]

I just purchased two OCZ Vertex 60gb SSD drives & plan on running them in RAID 0 on either Windows 7 RC or Vista 64 bit. What do I need to know to get them to run properly? Ive run RAID 0 setups for years, but from what I understand setting up SSDs in RAID 0 is a little different.

Thanks

 

[ochadd]

OCZ Support link

OCZ Support forum has loads of info on the subject. Align the partition to 128k most likely and disable defrag and indexing. That should get you most of the way there.

 

[tboo]

Originally posted by: ochadd
OCZ Support link

OCZ Support forum has loads of info on the subject. Align the partition to 128k most likely and disable defrag and indexing. That should get you most of the way there.

Thanks for the link. It looks like the major work is if I am using XP. RAID 0 on Vista & Win7RC is setup pretty much the same way I would set up my velociraptors.

 

[alcoholbob]

Partition alignment is not necessary if you are running Vista or 7.

 

[jimhsu]

And neither is disabling page files or indexing if you don't have a JMicron SSD, according to the Windows 7 blog. Since page files contain mostly small (4K) random reads and large (>128K) writes, there's a performance advantage for leaving it on a SSD. Really, if you aren't running a server, there isn't much to tweak for a modern SSD like the Vertex or X-25M aside from updating your firmware (and disabling defrag).

 

[tboo]

Thanks for the input!

 

[sgrinavi]

I run a pair of 120 GB vertex's in RAID 0 on Win7 . The system sets up most of it for you, disables indexing and aligns the partitions. You will want to minimize the small writes to your SSD by setting up a RAM disk for your temp files.

Other than that I just followed the OCZ forum guide. It takes about 10 minutes to set it up.

 

[tboo]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi
I run a pair of 120 GB vertex's in RAID 0 on Win7 . The system sets up most of it for you, disables indexing and aligns the partitions. You will want to minimize the small writes to your SSD by setting up a RAM disk for your temp files.

Other than that I just followed the OCZ forum guide. It takes about 10 minutes to set it up.

The OCZ system setup guide says to run diskpart. Do I have to do that with a RAID setup?

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: tboo

Originally posted by: sgrinavi
I run a pair of 120 GB vertex's in RAID 0 on Win7 . The system sets up most of it for you, disables indexing and aligns the partitions. You will want to minimize the small writes to your SSD by setting up a RAM disk for your temp files.

Other than that I just followed the OCZ forum guide. It takes about 10 minutes to set it up.

The OCZ system setup guide says to run diskpart. Do I have to do that with a RAID setup?

If you are using Windows 7 then it does it for you when you create your partitions through their install program before installing the OS. I have seen recommendations both ways in Vista and XP, yes, you need to align your drives. It can't hurt and only takes a couple minutes.

 

[tboo]

I got everything up & running no problem with Windows 7. Its was probably the easiest install I ever did.

 

[imported_Akai]

I recently picked up 2x80Gb Intel X-25Ms off the forums, im not quiet ready to run Win7 yet so im going to stick with Vista64 for now (few of my components arent working too well in Win7 yet)

Im looking to set these up in Raid 0.. ive done a search and cant find much of a guide for setting these up in Vista64. Any recommended settings? Ill align the partition to 128k and disable defrag/indexing but any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

 

[lopri]

Please excuse my ignorance and also I do not mean to thread-jack. Just a quick question: What exactly is this "align partitions" thing? What does it do and how is it done? I have no experience of SSD yet and it got me curious. Thank you.