SSD RAID

[cyberslag5k]

I'm very excited about the prospects of SSD, and while I'm not planning on buying one until at least this summer, I'd like to know two things:

1. Does striping them offer the same performance benefits that striping two (or more) HDDs? And how do those benefits scale with adding more drives?

2. What do you need to RAID two SSDs? Just a motherboard that supports SATA2 RAID? And is it easy? At what point do you need a RAID controller?

Thanks!

 

[cyberslag5k]

Bump.

 

[Ritorix]

Take a look at this beast...
http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/

And if I can steal an image...this compares load times of RAID 0 SSD vs a normal WD Raptor. They used a hardware controller. The only thing they didnt do that I would like to see, is compare RAID 0 SSD vs RAID 0 normal drives, apples to apples.

 

[cyberslag5k]

Thank you for your response.

That's a great chart. I remember seeing a picture of that 9 drive array but I hadn't seen the article (or I didn't read it). It seems like a two drive array is pretty worth it.

As far as controllers go, how does that work? Will a modern mobo be able to stripe two SSDs right out of the box? And what all is involved in setting up the array. I can't say I've ever actually done one.

 

[J-Will]

Thank you for your response.

That's a great chart. I remember seeing a picture of that 9 drive array but I hadn't seen the article (or I didn't read it). It seems like a two drive array is pretty worth it.

As far as controllers go, how does that work? Will a modern mobo be able to stripe two SSDs right out of the box? And what all is involved in setting up the array. I can't say I've ever actually done one.

The mobo will not know the difference between a ssd and a normal hdd. It will use both as the same type of device. What will change is the amount of time the hdd takes to access data.

I think that chart shows that 2 ssds in raid 0 is not worth the price tag at all. I would stick with just one SSD (if you are sold on solid state). You do not see much decrease in speed with a second drive.

I am personally not sold yet. The prices are high, and the technology is still maturing. If/when I do decide to go the SSD route, I will probably pick up a small drive and just use it as an OS drive.