Can I do raid 0 with different SSD brands?

Currently i've got a corsair force gt 120 SSD that's basically out of space. I've been shuffling games on and off of it for the last few months.

I'm thinking about adding another for RAID 0 since Z77 supports raid trim now but finding one used has proven more difficult than i expected. Do I have the option of adding say, another 120gig SSD based on the same controller but a different brand? Or should I stick it out and try to find another identical drive? Sell the corsair and grab a 256 or 2 identical 120's for raid 0?

I plan on keeping this setup for at least another 3-4 years since we're still on SATA 3 for haswell and intel's next cpu isn't due for 2 years anyway.

It doesn't even have to be based on the same controller. The only factors that matter are benchmarks really. RAID is only as fast as your slowest drive, so make sure it has similar performance to the Force GT.

I've run multiple raid situations with all sorts of different brand/generation SSD's.

Phog said:

It doesn't even have to be based on the same controller. The only factors that matter are benchmarks really. RAID is only as fast as your slowest drive, so make sure it has similar performance to the Force GT.

I've run multiple raid situations with all sorts of different brand/generation SSD's.

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Yeah i was thinking that if i went for raid it would be with a drive with the same controller and nand so the performance wouldn't be drastically different.

in general, a single drive is going to be easier to deal with, and there's currently almost no drives or drive densities where double the space is costing more than double the original drive. it's less cabling and fewer points of failure. if you're intention was to go RAID-0 then if one drive died, you'd be hosed the same as if your single drive died.

There's very few usage cases where RAID-0 on SSDs makes enough sense to be justifiable, to be honest. that being said, there's nothing wrong with simply wanting to do it, but if you're asking for advice, mine is simply "don't."

Today's Amazon prices:

Samsung 840 Pro 128GB $133
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB $233
Two 128GBs would cost $266

Samsung 840 120GB $98
Samsung 840 250GB $169
Two 120GBs would cost $196

Crucial m500 120GB $121
Crucial m500 240GB $187
Two 120GBs would cost $242

Just sell the F120 and get a 240GB drive.

I'm running a RAID 0 with 2 OCZ's and a Corsair. It should be fine.

It's the same as a mechanical HDD array.

The controller doesn't care how the data was processed only that's it's there.

You're over-thinking the whole simple situation.

evilsofa said:

Today's Amazon prices:

Samsung 840 Pro 128GB $133
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB $233
Two 128GBs would cost $266

Samsung 840 120GB $98
Samsung 840 250GB $169
Two 120GBs would cost $196

Crucial m500 120GB $121
Crucial m500 240GB $187
Two 120GBs would cost $242

Just sell the F120 and get a 240GB drive.

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Yeah I understand the costs of current 120's vs their 240gig counterparts, but I think you're missing 2 things.

1, i've already got a drive, so using raid 0 nets me dbl the space AND more speed. From what I've read about SSD raid 0 its a pretty substantial upgrade in total read and write speed.

2. Your price advantage for the 240 assumes I can get 100+ for my used drive. I doubt I could get more than 80-90 for it. So it would more or less even out.

If you regularly back up your drive (which you should be doing anyway, doubly so if you use raid0), I don't see any issues with it. Wastes an extra sata port in the case and all that, not the end of the world, doubles your risk for failure, negligibly increases latency and on most controllers gives a healthy boost of throughput so no deal breaker cons, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

From what I've read about SSD raid 0 its a pretty substantial upgrade in total read and write speed.

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You are reading from the wrong places. RAID0 has if anything a small negative impact on 4K reads and writes but you probably will not notice that. It does improve large sequential reads and writes but how often do you read and write large files sequentially? How often do you copy GB files on your SSD array?

drescherjm said:

You are reading from the wrong places. RAID0 has if anything a small negative impact on 4K reads and writes but you probably will not notice that. It does improve large sequential reads and writes but how often do you read and write large files sequentially? How often do you copy GB files on your SSD array?

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Well if i'm reading from the wrong places, where should I be reading from? You didn't give me anything to go on here.

I do keep all my pics, music, and other stuff on a regular hard drive and both are backed up via whs, so data loss shouldn't be an issue for me.