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Considering SSD raid0...A few questions

B

bpizzle1

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 27, 2007
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I currently have a Crucial M4 128gb as my primary OS drive. I primarily use my PC for gaming, and I keep my most used games on the SSD as well. However, I am starting to get close to the SSD capacity. I began considering just getting another 128gb SSD since there have been awesome deals on nearly a daily basis recently, but as I looked into it more, I discovered that TRIM has been enabled on SSD raid0. As I understand it all I need is the following:

1) 7-series chipset (currently have Z77 mobo)
2) latest IRST drivers (easy to download)

Is there anything that I am missing there? Also, I am running a 2600k in the motherboard, is raid0 TRIM limited to having a IB CPU like the PCIE 3.0 stuff?

Would you guys recommend just picking up a second, dedicated gaming SSD, or going with a raid0 array?
 
I see no problem with it, I ran raid0 with a pair of 60gb for a good two years for a while. I've since got rid of those, but I didn't have any problems with the raid itself (I also make weekly OS backups, so it was a pretty non issue if I had to reinitialize anything)
 
Just be sure you have a way to back it up or image it regularly. A raid zero is dead with a fault on either drive and SSDs are (for now) a bit less reliable over time than spinny disks. You may double your space and (not quite) double your speeds, but you also double your risk of failure (actually a bit more than double...but its not worth going into the reliability math here).

This advice is not really unique to a SSD Raid0. Its good advice to do a regular backup and/or image of any disk. Its just a bit more important with SSD as your system disk - and doubly important if you do a 2xSSD raid0.
 
Personally with SSD's as a boot OS volume I haven't seen significant speed differentials going from single to RAID0. If you do decide to RAID0 the 2 128GB SSD's spend another 80 bucks and get yourself an external 750GB-1TB hard drive so you can have at least 2 generations of full backups of your boot volume.
 
I personally love RAID 0 on my SSD's. My setup is quite absurd, but after my PSU failed, I thought I may have lost my RAID as a result. I didn't, but by the time I'd discovered this, I had 3 SSD's. I only store my OS and Crysis on it, and I personally don't care if they die on me, because if they do I can upgrade to an SSD config a little less extreme.
 
hotcrandel said:
I wouldn't bother with RAID0 with ssd's. Is a single SSD not fast enough already?
Click to expand...

Please leave the [H] and go to weenie ass panzy forums... kthxbai.


I personally have always run two (or more!) SSDs in RAID0 since I bought my first set of Intel G2 drives some years back. ALWAYS with no problems and ALWAYS with a noticeable performance improvement. There is even a marked decrease in boot time versus a single SSD compared to two of them striped.

Some people say the performance difference is all about benchmarks only, I beg to differ but even if that was the case so what? Those of us who have been in the hardware enthusiast scene often do things to tweak out every bit of performance - even if it leads to no perceptible difference in every day usage.

The issue of TRIM and the lack thereof with SSDs in a RAID array has been blown way out of proportion. Yes, there is an issue (write amplification, etc) but it's not as bad as some people would make it out to be - especially if you take appropriate measures to minimize writes to the array. (Disable hibernation, keep apps from using the SSDs as scratch, and don't fill the array completely up)

I've been running a set of Crucial 256GB M4 drives in a RAID0 array for several months not with nary a sign of performance issues either reading or writing. Before that I ran a set of OCZ SSDs, before that Intel 80GB G2s... never had an issue.

And now we are starting to see TRIM actually being passed to SSDs in a RAID array thanks to recent RST releases (although you still need a Z77 motherboard to take advantage of it). Since the OP meets that requirement he should be golden.

As far as RAID0, SSDs, and reliability... well... RAID0 inherently doubles the 'risk' of data loss no matter the type of drive being used. But with SSDs (barring cable failure or controller failure) even with that risk being doubled I personally see it as waaaay less risky than an array with two mechanical drives.


To the OP: Do it. Grab another matching SSD and don't look back.

I would advise you to perform a secure erase on the existing SSD just so when you create the array both SSDs will be on completely equal footing so to speak. But even this isn't totally necessary...
 
RAID0 on SSDs is great.

I've been RAIDing SSDs for as long as I've been using them.....@ 4 yrs.

But, you MUST have a back-up and I'm not talking about system restore. :)

Go for it. I'm sure you'll be pleased.
 
How are you guys dealing with TRIM for the arrays? From what I have seen/read, an array built through a RAID controller appears as a SCSI device and ATA commands can not be passed/sent to it? If an array is built with software RAID, can the TRIM commands still be sent to each drive?
 
Well, Amazon solved my issue for me lol. They are running a deal today for 120gb Kingston HyperX 3k's for $60 shipped (no MIR). At that price, I ordered 2 to give RAID0 a try. I think I'll end up selling my M4 to recoup some of the money since it's only a few months old.
 
How are you guys dealing with TRIM for the arrays?
Click to expand...
I have never done anything.

GC will do 90% of TRIM's job.

I used to do the trick of leaving 15% unpartitioned during the install to give the drives' GC more "breathing room" to do it's job a little faster but that's when SSD tech. was in it's infancy.

While TRIM is more effective it's no deal breaker and has become a great "buzz word" for those that have limited knowledge about how SSDs work.

PS.....There are new tools for TRIM in RAID but I'm not sure if your set-up is capable. I just don't know enough about it.

There are threads explaining the situation so just do a search or maybe someone will jump in. :)
 
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