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To Raid[0], or not to Raid[0], is the question

F

fourty03

Member
Lol..

Hi fellas,

I have a question about RAID 0 and ssd. I read over and over and people have mixed opinions on it. I just about a second C300 64gb and raid0 them together.

I finally got passed the unsigned driver crap and installed WIN 7 onto the array.

Before I do the SLI hack on my 890 chipset, and start instaling programs back, I need some input on how I can tell if it's beneficial to keep the raid array or if I should break the array and run programs / OS on one SSD, and Games on the other.



My specs:

Phenom II X4 955
Gigabyte 890GPA-UDH3
(2) Crucial SSD's 64gb each {RAID0}
Win 7 Ultimate x64 on SSD RAID0
1 TB Samsung F3
(2)Palit 1GB GTX 460 (sonic) SLI hack pending today
8GB OCZ RAM

Thanks everyone :awe:
 
Doubling the chance of losing my data has made me avoid RAID0 up until now.

SSDs are still new enough to have quirks, so one quirk and you're trying to restore Win7 from your last image backup.

The main benefit I see is they act as one larger drive so they stay emptier (which helps SSD performance) and you don't have to worry about what to put on C: vs. D :
 
i've been running G1 intel 160GB SSDs since they came out well over a year now in raid0. never had a failure. going to upgrade when G3 comes out.
 
When the new SATA 6GB/s drives are out, why bother with raid? At that point they will be running faster than most systems can handle anyways. Double the change of losing the volume has kept me away (with SSDs). HDDs, on the other hand, I do try an use raid when possible.
 
Edrick said:
When the new SATA 6GB/s drives are out, why bother with raid? At that point they will be running faster than most systems can handle anyways. Double the change of losing the volume has kept me away (with SSDs). HDDs, on the other hand, I do try an use raid when possible.
Click to expand...

because it makes your epeen ginormous!
 
I have a 3x60GB SSD RAID0 configuration. I thought it was worth trying out, but honestly the performance gains aren't very noticeable in real-world use over a single SSD. I load Dirt 2 maps faster than anybody else, but that's about it. And I kicks all sorts of benchmark ass.

So if I were buying an SSD today, I'd get the largest single one I could afford. You'll save your SATA ports/bays that way, and thereby allow for a RAID1 or RAID5 configuration for your data drives down the road.

That said, as you already have the SSDs I'd put them in RAID0 so they appear as a single disk to the OS. It's much simpler to manage that way; you don't need to worry about where to put programs. I'm assuming your data goes on the F3.

As others have said, 2xRAID0 is twice as likely to fail as a single disk. But, it's exactly as likely to fail as either one of the two independent disks, and you've already got them.

If you're dividing your OS up into "System" and "Programs", are you going to avoid reinstalling if one of them fails? You can't in the case of the System disk; you shouldn't in the case of the Programs disk.

You'll lose TRIM, yes. You also likely won't notice due to the increased performance from RAID0.

It's very important to remember that no form of RAID is a backup solution; you should be backing up important data via system images/backups anyway.
 
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So the fastest SSD array I've used thus far has been an 8x 64GB Sandforce drives in RAID 0 when I was playing with the server array (only about 2.1GB/s in ATTO). Daily use I have used Indilinx 120GB RAID 0 drives for a long time.

First off, if you RAID 0, you lose TRIM, so just make sure your garbage collection is up to your usage profile and you will be fine.

As mentioned, you do need good backups. Destructive firmware flashes or a drive failure can be painful in RAID 0.

I will say this, with the gen-3 drives, I think 99% of users will not notice a RAID 0 difference. RAID 0 helps sequential I/O a lot but not as much for random I/O. Plus, even at a 2x improvement in a perfect world, it is nowhere near the difference between 4K speeds and access times of SSDs versus hard drives.
 
The minor gain in RAID 0 performance with SSDs does not justify the potential risk.
 
How about looking at it from this perspective: Most users want to try out an SSD, but are unwilling to take the plunge on a decent to high end 128gb SSD like the C300, but are more comfortable with say, a 64gb SSD. After a while using the drive, they discover that they truely enjoy the speed, but also realize that 64gb is pretty small if you like to play a game or two. The most cost effective option at this point would be to RAID 0 another 64gb SSD.

I am somewhat in this same situation, but I already have a 128gb SSD and want something larger. I didn't want to drop $400+ on a 256gb SSD, and RAID actually isn't an option for me because no one seems to carry my WD Siliconedge SSD... so I decided to get the OCZ 90gb Vertex 2 and use that as an OS SSD, and move the WD SSD to a game only drive. I may end up eventually getting another 1 or 2 of the OCZ drives depending on how well this one works and how cheap they are... The drive I am referring to is the Shell Shocker drive from Wednesday btw.
 
My 02.

Its obvious that you spend the high dollars getting the SSD, so if your afraid of losing your data when using RAID 0, then you should of invested in a low cost recovery solution also. I use RAID 0 on my 15k SAS drives, but I also use Symantec System Recovery to backup my data to a NAS device. I don't care to use SSD's because the cost vs the write speed are not justified. (Read is excellent, write speed bad)

--LANMAN
 
Don't mean to high jack this thread, but is it worth going 2xRaid0 Corsair Performance Series 3 256gb? I have a P67 chipset.
 
SnOop005 said:
Don't mean to high jack this thread, but is it worth going 2xRaid0 Corsair Performance Series 3 256gb? I have a P67 chipset.
Click to expand...

IMO, no. You'd be much better off doing 4 x 128GB RAID0 or, if you're crazy, 8 x 64GB to get the 512GB depth you need.. however, the more drives you add to a RAID0 array, the greater the probability of failure. Up to 4 drives should be no issue for a modern system though. At least, that's what I've heard and that's what I'm planning to do with my system when the Gen. 3 SSDs are out.

There was a guy on Overclock.net who had 4 C300s in RAID0 and a fifth one for his PageFile.sys... had speeds of near 1GB/s... was insane.. however, if you do that and don't get a good back-up solution, you're farked.
 
Baasha said:
IMO, no. You'd be much better off doing 4 x 128GB RAID0 or, if you're crazy, 8 x 64GB to get the 512GB depth you need.. however, the more drives you add to a RAID0 array, the greater the probability of failure. Up to 4 drives should be no issue for a modern system though. At least, that's what I've heard and that's what I'm planning to do with my system when the Gen. 3 SSDs are out.

There was a guy on Overclock.net who had 4 C300s in RAID0 and a fifth one for his PageFile.sys... had speeds of near 1GB/s... was insane.. however, if you do that and don't get a good back-up solution, you're farked.
Click to expand...


humm thats an interesting concept....too bad i only have 2 SATA3 ports on my board.
 
The way I see it your not really at risk of losing anything other than OS setup and programs which, if backed up, leave 0 risk.

Having said that, it would be a miracle for you to visibly see any difference between that RAID and a SSD alone. This is coming from a guy who has had the fortune to play with several diff RAID configs in he past few months. A few days back. I got over 2GB/s on a 8xRAID C300 setup.

Having said all that, I cannot see any diff in any of the ssds or ssd related setups in my system. Maybe there are some specific applications when you throw a RAID card in a serve sit but, for our use, the SSD is an amazing upgrade.

Still wont keep me from playing with RAID though!
 
i roll the dice on my three intel g1 drives. two of them are second-hand.

then again, i have all my data backed up to NAS so its just a matter of finding a replacement and loading an image in the case of a failure.
 
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