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Some Questions about SSD's

kithylin

kithylin

Member
Okay first i'll post my current configuration, then goto some questions about it.

Intel I7 920 (Overclocked @ 3800mhz)
Asus P6T X58 motherboard
4 * WD 160gb 7200 rpm 8mb buffer Sata-2 hard drives. (Onboard Intel ICH10R raid, Raid-0 (Striping))
2 * VisionTek HD4890 O.C. Video cards.

Now questions:

I'm considering going to SSD, only for boot/OS drive for windows, and i have a few things i'm not sure about and i'm hoping someone here can answer and help me understand better.

* The SSD option i chose, will use two in raid-0.
* The lowest i'll go for two of em is 16gb each.

1.) Smaller sized SSD's should be cheaper, in theory. So which is the fastest SSD right now?
2.) Would i see a performance increase in 2 ssd's vs my current 4 hard drives that are already in raid-0, for general OS functionality and applications?
3.) Would it effect SSD performance if i added two of them to the ICH10R chip with the other 4 mechanical drives, that are already in raid-0?
4.) If 4 is yes, should i consider a pci-e raid controller for the SSD's?
5.) Does this motherboard have enough pci-e pipes/bandwidth/whatever on the 3rd (4x) pci-e slot in the bottom, for a 4x raid card, if i'm already using two pci-e 2.0 16x video cards in the first two slots?

Thanks in advance if anyone takes the time to help me with this.
 
1. OCZ Vertex variants and Intel X-25s are generally the fastest, with the Intel drives ahead by a bit. Intel has apparently just released a new 40 gb drive, which is the smallest you'll find for them. I know OCZ has a 64 gb drive, but might also have a 32.

2. For sequential reads/writes, i.e. large files, probably not. For small random reads, yes, very much. Overall, you won't notice a large difference until you use an SSD for a while and try going back to the old mechanical drives, then you'll wonder how you ever survived.

3. Yes, but not how you're thinking. Currently the best drives out there support the TRIM command, which helps keep SSD performance at its peak. Right now, TRIM isn't supported in RAID, so putting two SSDs in RAID together will hurt your performance over a single SSD of the same size. Since you seem able to deal with a boot drive as small as 32 gb, I'd just get 1 drive of whatever size you want and stick with that. Smaller drives will be cheaper overall, but not cheaper per gigabyte, so you'll be getting more for your money with a larger drive (usually).

4. See above.

5. I have no idea. Not qualified to answer, lol.
 
kithylin said:
Thanks alot, that's some good info.

How do i know which SSD's support TRIM and which do not?
Click to expand...

Look at the controller. Generally everything with indilinx or intel supports some kind of TRIM (the Kingston is flashable according to reports.). Intel gen 1 drives are excluded. Sandforce (Vertex 2) also supports TRIM from initial reports. I don't think Samsung or Jmicron do.
 
trim is purely a function of the firmware

for example, I have a 2.5" SSD from Supertalent with a samsung chipset that supports trim

I also have a 1.8" Runcore SSD with the Indilinx chipset that supported trim (w/ firmware v 1819), but I was having compatibility problems, so they issued a revised firmware (1821) that solved my problem, but trim was no longer functional
 
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