SSD/Raid 0

[m33pm33p]

Trying to decide with an extra $100.00 laying around if Id be better off setting up another 500GB hard drive for RAID 0, or should I go ahead and get into a smaller SSD with the cash and keep the 500GB drive Ive got now for storage. All Id be using the SSD for is loading the OS and possible a couple of the games that I play (FF XIV specifically right now). Ive been reading up but still not to informed on both of them to know If Id be getting enough of a bang to go with the SSD over the raid 0 setup. Any help?

 

[dmoney1980]

Trying to decide with an extra $100.00 laying around if Id be better off setting up another 500GB hard drive for RAID 0, or should I go ahead and get into a smaller SSD with the cash and keep the 500GB drive Ive got now for storage. All Id be using the SSD for is loading the OS and possible a couple of the games that I play (FF XIV specifically right now). Ive been reading up but still not to informed on both of them to know If Id be getting enough of a bang to go with the SSD over the raid 0 setup. Any help?

for $100, you wont get much space (32GB, maybe a 40 GB drive) which will be just enough for the OS and a couple of apps, maybe a game or 2 without leaving much room for anything else. If you could spring another $45 on top of that you can get yourself a 60-64 GB drive which might suit your needs

 

[m33pm33p]

Currently looking at

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139133&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Solid+State+Disk-_-Kingston+Technology+Corp.-_-20139133

After MIR would put it just at $100.00. Not sure about kingston though. Heard some good and some bad about them.

 

[FishAk]

For the price difference, I wouldn't bother with the Kingston drive. Sure it would be much faster than any spindle drive in a RAID array- especially for an OS- but for the price, I would go for the performance of a SandForce based drive.

Alternatively, you could wait till the end of this year when Intel puts out their 3rd generation drives- forcing all prices down for current drives.

 

[m33pm33p]

Yea, was looking around more and for about $20.00 more I can pick up a much more reputable drive. I might just end up waiting till the end of the year to see if prices drop.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

I've been a long time RAID0 user. I use SSD now, and frankly, I won't go back to RAID0. I only use RAID1 here and there at this point. RAID0 is dead to me. Big hard drives are fast enough these days that the speed of RAID0 just isn't needed like it was a few years ago for various tasks. And RAID0 on smaller drives just for `speed' is not fast. It's just a way to get bigger singular hard drive space. The access time is worse than a single drive though. If you use your RAID0 for Windows/Games, you're hurting yourself. It doesn't speed up anything. Windows & Games use small file operations, and RAID0 very much is slow at this. RAID0 is fast with large file throughput. Copying massive 6GB files left and right? RAID0 can do that, handily. You want a disk that has virtually no access time and has the highest 4kb to 1Mb read/write times for your operating system and games. The SSD is that. Not RAID.

Just browsing your pictures & thumbnails on your SSD is ridiculous. You feel it. Everything loads very fast. All operations on the OS just zip on by. If you're wanting a whole system boost, get an SSD. If you just want more space, get a normal HDD. But forget RAID0 all together regardless--it's just not worth it for OS/Games, it's slower than a single 7200rpm HDD because it kills access time and slows down small file read.

Very best,

 

[Tim]

I've been a long time RAID0 user. I use SSD now, and frankly, I won't go back to RAID0. I only use RAID1 here and there at this point. RAID0 is dead to me

Why forget about Raid0? You can Raid0 two SSD's or more, and they scale really good!

Forget about Raid0, my arse!

 

[sub.mesa]

All modern SSDs use 'RAID0' or interleaving already. the Intel SSDs have 10 parallel channels; the equivalent of a 10-disk RAID0 setup. That is how NAND scales performance in both sequential and random I/O.

But RAID on Windows means using unsophisticated drivers; only the Intel onboard RAID would be decent, and Windows software RAID0 seems to perform properly as well; though it doesn't allow you to boot from it.