SSD on external firewire 800 enclosure - bad idea?

[PeeluckyDuckee]

Looked at the SSD install videos on the iMac and it feels out of my comfort zone. Now I am thinking about getting an external enclosure and slapping two 128GB SSDs in raid 0.

I am considering the OWC Mercury Elite Pro. Good or bad idea? Not sure how the SSDs will fare using firewire instead of SATA of the iMac.

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_elite_pro_dual_mini_review

The drives will be used to store a couple of games and editing short video clips.

 

[noblemo]

I think this is an important statement in the linked article:

Filling it with either SSDs or faster 7200RPM 2.5-inch hard drives, it can easily saturate your eSATA or FW-800 interface... something not every external enclosure can claim.

Current SSDs can saturate an I/O connection without the need for RAID. This set up only makes sense if you want the redundancy of RAID 1, or the additional capacity of two spindle drives. A Firewire connection can be maxed out using a single drive.

For maximum speed in an I/O limited system consider buying a reliable SSD rather than an enclosure with two drives. I personally lean toward the Samsung 830 or Intel 320. The Samsung 470 is available at affordable prices these days, too. Many posters also recommend the Crucial M4.

 

[zuffy]

I have the Intel X25-M 160GB in a USB 3.0 enclosure. While it is still faster than spindle drives, it's not as fast as it can be when it's connected in SATA.