RAID0 SSD for Boot drive?

[CyberKP4]

Originally I was looking at getting one of these.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R480/

I've had great history with the company in the past and I've always gotten quality products. This card utilizes two blade style 240gb SSD cards in a RAID0 format for a 480GB total capacity. Simple plug and play operation. Also, there is the option to upgrade to larger capacities as memory becomes cheaper by changing the blades. Only problem is the $765 price tag.

Can I simply get two SSD drives and set them up at RAID1 and have similar performance/reliability? Keep in mind having a RAID10 setup will already be installed on the computer.

I'm not even sure it it's possible or which SSDs would be a good option. I was looking at a couple of these...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233343

What do you guys recommend?

 

[drescherjm]

What do you guys recommend?

Avoid RAID 0 with SSDs unless you purchase a $400US+ LSI 926X + Fastpath or similar Areca HW raid card that is optimized for raiding SSDs.

Can I simply get two SSD drives and set them up at RAID1 and have similar performance/reliability?

I think you mean RAID0. Although that certainly is not for reliability. But yes you can spend a $700 or so and get about the same performance and size with more flexibility and room to grow in the future using an LSI 9260 4i + FastPath + 2 x 256GB SSDs.

 

[CyberKP4]

Yep, sorry RAID0. Thanks for the advice. The more I read, the more I think I'm going to stick with the Accelsior card.

 

[Draugauth]

I'll be honest. I use R0 with SSD's all the time on my gaming systems. They work awesome and give me over 1GB read speeds and nearly 1GB write speeds. Kind of nice seeing Win7 Pro start up faster than it takes me to grab a soda from my mini fridge and put a warm one in. Ok well almost as fast /lol

btw that is with the onboard raid controller and not an add in raid controller.

 

[drescherjm]

They work awesome and give me over 1GB read speeds and nearly 1GB write speeds.

This looks great in benchmarks however it will not help for most applications since most applications do not read or write in large chunks.

 

[Aesma]

RAID0 on Intel SATA3 ports in fine, no need for a LSI card for that setup. However you can only get 2 Intel SATA3 ports at the moment.

I wouldn't buy anything not common SSD wise, and certainly not anything PCIe based, that would most likely end up performing less well than two common SSDs in Intel RAID0. Furthermore you lose trim for good with such a card.

Why do you have a RAID10 if it's not for the system ?

 

[CyberKP4]

The RAID10 set up is for the client side of my photography work. Nothing but my pictures and catalogs go on it.

Aesma, I got the asus p8z77-v premium mobo. Will I be able to run a bootable RAID0 setup from two ssd's and still have the separate RAID10 setup for my working files?

 

[Draugauth]

This looks great in benchmarks however it will not help for most applications since most applications do not read or write in large chunks.

It does help with gaming where you do have to load zones and areas along with textures etc quickly to reduce downtime if you're impatient like I am /lol

 

[NoxTek]

This looks great in benchmarks however it will not help for most applications since most applications do not read or write in large chunks.

I disagree.

RAID0 with SSDs has consistently made a positive difference in almost every situation I have tried it in. Boot time, modern game loading time, Photoshop, and just about every video editing suite out there.

This goes for the 2x80GB Intel G2 drives I had a few years back, the 2x Vertex 3s I had afterwards, and the 2x 256GB Crucial M4 drives I have now.

Of course you're eventually going to run into write performance problems without TRIM (unless you're lucky enough to be using the newest RST drivers on a 7-series chipset with an OS that supports it with the wind blowing in exactly the right direction)....