1 vs. 2 SSDs for everyday usage

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I bought 2 Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 120 GB drives about 3 weeks ago. I put them in my laptop as a RAID 0 array without trying them individually. There is no question that they are fast as is. But I got to thinking. I am only using 65 GB. I could split them, keep one in the laptop and return one of the the 320 GB WD Scorpios for a storage drive, and put the other in my desktop, keeping the existing WD Caviar Black array for storage. This would allow me to have an SSD as a boot drive in each machine and likely have enough storage on the SSD that it wouldn't be a problem.

If I do this, am I going to miss the speed of the array in the laptop? I know I will gain TRIM by splitting the array, so I am seriously considering it. I hate the thought of reloading everything again, but that's the price you pay. What would you guys do?
 
umm raid 0 in a lappy is gonna be suxors probably anyway. most lappies are limited to sata 1 speeds, regardless of whether or not its chipset can do sata 2.
 
Computurd said:
umm raid 0 in a lappy is gonna be suxors probably anyway. most lappies are limited to sata 1 speeds, regardless of whether or not its chipset can do sata 2.
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This is true as my netbook does this exact thing. It peaks around 150MB/s read speeds, but it has all of the features of SATA II and AHCI.

OP, I'd just swap the other out if you can. This way TRIM will be enabled.

One SSD is more than fast enough for almost all applications, and for a laptop, having two in RAID 0 is super-overkill and may not even see full potential due to the weaker chipsets.
 
, and for a laptop, having two in RAID 0 is super-overkill and may not even see full potential due to the weaker chipsets
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BIG +1 there...also consider that your proc on that thar non-beast probably cant hang with the I/O anyways :)
 
Thanks for the replies. I hadn't posted back because my laptop was down. I went ahead and separated them. I was getting the full speed from the RAID, but felt that it was probably a better use of the drives to split them. I have 1 SSD and a WD Scorpio 320 in the other bay and it seems just as fast this way. Now I can start backing up the desktop machine in preparation for putting the other SSD in that. I have used RAID 0 for years on mechanical drives, but with SSDs I really see no point. I'd rather have the TRIM support.
 
I'd much rather have an SSD boot drive in two separate systems than RAID 0 in one and a HDD as the boot drive in the other. Makes the OS experience soo much snappier IMO. I don't think you'll miss the speed of the RAID 0 that much, plus you'll gain TRIM support as Red Falcon pointed out.
 
After 2 days of using it I'd definitely say I don't miss the speed of the RAID 0 as it really doesn't feel any slower.
 
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