Have around $200-$250 to spend on SSD, 2x30GB RAID0 or 1x larger one?

NoxTek

NoxTek

The Geek Redneck
Joined
May 27, 2002
Messages
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I'm pretty sure I know my answer already, but here's the question anyway:

I'm about to come into a little spare cash and I'd really like to go SSD for my OS and swap file. My question is what configuration should I be looking at for the best performance with the least hassle? I'm trying to decide on buying two small SSDs (30GB) and doing a RAID0 setup for Windows 7 and it's swap file plus my most used applications, or spending the money on one larger SSD (80 - 120GB) for the same purposes.

From what I've gathered there can be some notable performance degradation issues with RAID0 and SSD because currently there is no driver that can support the TRIM command with a RAID setup, so data tends to get 'fragmented' much faster (even though we're talking about NAND flash here). RAID0 and reliability issues are mostly not relevant since SSDs are basically running transparent RAID0 across several banks of NAND flash anyway.

A single larger drive would still give me night and day performance when used as an OS/APP drive, and would have the added benefit of TRIM support (given the right drivers are installed) for less performance degradation over an extended period of use. Plus there is at least a percieved decrease in worry since no southbridge supported RAID0 will be involved.

I may also be able to swing something like buying an 80 - 120GB SSD for my OS drive, and then buying a 30GB one for putting the Windows swap file on and various other tasks... worth it?

What would you recommend? This would be used for the system in my signature, by the way.


Also, another question. How are SSDs for video editing duties? An 80 - 120GB drive dedicated soley to video editing (similar to how one of my trusty WD 640GB AAKS drives are dedicated to that purpose now) has me drooling a bit. Would there be increased reliability issues or even decreased lifespan issues in using an SSD for this type of duty which would be long, sustained writes of huge files most of the time.

Thanks a bunch for any and all input and suggestions, [H] brethren!
 
Oh an lastly what SSDs would you guys recommend, both in the 30GB and 80 - 120GB recommendation. Bang for buck and budget are a big concern here, but not at the cost of too much performance.



I almost have myself talked into spending around $400 on TWO 80GB - 120GB SSDs, one for Windows and one for my video editing jobs.


I've been in the IT industry for almost 20 years now and I've not been this excited and intrigued about a new technology since the debut of the first 3D cards back in the mid to late 1990s. The idea of a 'drive' that uses nothing but flash memory and no mechanical parts is just awesome and I've been waiting two years for the prices to come down to something reasonable so I can buy - and that time is now. :D
 
Best performance? Two Intel X25-V 40GB in RAID0.
Least hassle? Not using RAID but just a single large SSD like Intel X25-M 80/160GB.

In the absence of TRIM you need to reserve space unused. If you care about performance, two Intel X25-V 40GB in RAID0 with one 60GB partition makes sure that 20GB is reserved for the SSD internally; 10GB per drive. That means 25% capacity is dedicated to the SSD. This setup would not need TRIM at all. But it does mean you 'lose' 25% of usable capacity. It will be faster than a single 80GB drive however, and random read performance would be sky-high.
 
Still on the fence, now I'm seriously considering the 160GB X25 G2 drive from Intel, even though that's way beyond the budget I initially set for myself.
 
I got the intel 80gb G2 and it's awesome. I've already thought about running 2 in Raid0 but I think i`m going to wait tell price drops so I can run stripe + mirror so if one dies I can rebuild the array w/out having to restore from backup. Since my machine is something I use daily to work from raid0 seemed like to much risk/hassle to deal with.
 
ToddW2 said:
I got the intel 80gb G2 and it's awesome. I've already thought about running 2 in Raid0 but I think i`m going to wait tell price drops so I can run stripe + mirror so if one dies I can rebuild the array w/out having to restore from backup. Since my machine is something I use daily to work from raid0 seemed like to much risk/hassle to deal with.
Click to expand...

Got the same drive. It's totally awesome for a boot drive. Snappy OS, and quick bootup times.

OP, right now I wouldn't bother raiding SSD drives as they don't seem to want to work all that well with raid 0 and they are already blazing fast.

What I'd do is get an 80gb SSD boot drive so you can have your OS and main applications on that. They will load lightning quick. Then you get say a pair of 1TB or 2TB Caviar Black drives and put them in Raid 0, so that your storage drives are fast as blazes and have the capacity to hold whatever projects you want.

Intel x25m g2 80gb drive = $225 at newegg
2x 1TB Caviar Black = $240 at newegg

Add some coupons and bing cashback, and you can have that storage setup for under $450 shipped, maybe even under $400.
 
sub.mesa said:
Best performance? Two Intel X25-V 40GB in RAID0.
Least hassle? Not using RAID but just a single large SSD like Intel X25-M 80/160GB.

In the absence of TRIM you need to reserve space unused. If you care about performance, two Intel X25-V 40GB in RAID0 with one 60GB partition makes sure that 20GB is reserved for the SSD internally; 10GB per drive. That means 25% capacity is dedicated to the SSD. This setup would not need TRIM at all. But it does mean you 'lose' 25% of usable capacity. It will be faster than a single 80GB drive however, and random read performance would be sky-high.
Click to expand...

I don't understand the rationale behind this. If you reserve 25% of the drive, doesn't that mean the drive would reach it's allowed capacity before overwriting deleted blocks sooner and run into the speed degradation sooner?
 
You are not the only one who doesn't understand the rationale of reserving 20% of the drive.

From what I've read though this is no REPLACEMENT for the TRIM command, your drives will still degrade in performance over time (and hence the array will too), just not nearly as fast as if you setup the RAID0 using 100% of the capacity. It's got something to do with the wear leveling algorithm the drives use.

After 20+ years of thinking the 'platters on a spindle' way, it's hard to change the way you think about a drive. In fact it isn't a 'drive' at all, it's a solid state 'device'. I wish when they were coming up with the acronym they hadn't used the word 'drive' at all.
 
I love the SSD for my os drive. freggin quick start up and response time(in spec). however that being said, i would also agree with everyone before me and would only use it as a boot drive due to the degradation.
if your writing like 5+ gigs a day, your SSD will probably only last 5 years but if your barely writing to it, then it will last a long time. mine is solely my os drive and i have like 2 games i play frequently on the drive for faster load times, but that is it
 
Corban227 said:
I love the SSD for my os drive. freggin quick start up and response time(in spec). however that being said, i would also agree with everyone before me and would only use it as a boot drive due to the degradation.
if your writing like 5+ gigs a day, your SSD will probably only last 5 years but if your barely writing to it, then it will last a long time. mine is solely my os drive and i have like 2 games i play frequently on the drive for faster load times, but that is it
Click to expand...

In 5 years I would hope SSDs would be bigger and cheaper where current SSDs are obsolete in the same way hard drives 5 years ago (SATA just came out, IDE was still the norm) are now obsolete due to storage space and speed, for the most part.
 
yes i know. i was just trying to make the point of people talk so much about an ssd's life, when in reality its going to be so long your going to replace it before it dies anyways
 
Corban227 said:
yes i know. i was just trying to make the point of people talk so much about an ssd's life, when in reality its going to be so long your going to replace it before it dies anyways
Click to expand...

Well I'm not talking about life, I know the mechanics of it and I also know that there are some built in redundancies in the unlikely event that a 'sector' on an SSD dies or becomes unwriteable. My concern is mostly over performance degradation in general usage as an OS drive in RAID0 and how saving 20% of the capacity of the drives helps that in the absence of the TRIM command.

Hopefully TRIM enabled RAID drivers will be out soon and this whole topic will be a thing of the past.
 
OK here's another idea I've been tossing around, and I may need to ask this in the networking subforum.

How fast is gigabit Ethernet? I mean I know theoretical speeds and the math works out to around 125MB/sec but I'm sure there is some overhead there or something.

I'm thinking maybe there is a way I can put my three WD 640GB AAKS drives in our NAS box, pick up a cheap TrendNET 8-port gigabit switch and a gigabit NIC for ye old file server, and then have nothing but a large SSD (or two smaller ones in RAID0) in my main rig.

I can install my most used apps like Photoshop, Sony Vegas, etc and my Steam directory to the SSD setup, and then install other stuff to a mapped network drive off the file server. I'm drooling thinking of how much heat that would eliminate from my main rig - these 640GB AAKS are awesome but they do put off a fair amount of heat, and I have three of the beasties.

Am I dreaming?
 
You should buy a switch that supports 9K MTU aka Jumbo Frames; you'll need that for max throughput on gigabit.
 
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