Raid0

I am thinking about my next computer and I was wondering if it is possible to RAID together two x 1TB SSDs + a 1TB mSATA. Assuming of course that the next 17" supports 2 HDD slots + an mSATA. If I did it today I would go for the Samsung 840 Evos.

Also is it possible to RAID different size drives, for example 2 x 1TB SSDs + 512 mSATA?

 

You can RAID three 1 TB SSDs or 2 1TB and one 512GB but the 512GB would be limiting the speed of the bigger brothers so I would only do 3 of the same size, drive brand, etc.

Here are the benchmarks I did on my previous two 840 EVO 1 TB and 1 840 EVO 1 TB mSATA

Not worth it at all ,while sequential read/write went up significantly, the 4K speeds were actually lower than a single SSD! RAID is pointless for a normal or power user, they are only good in servers or for people who handle large databases or if all you do is copy large 10GB+ files from one partition to the other which I doubt you do. But everything was slower for me in RAID, even backing up my C: partition to the D: partition was 30% slower than that of single SSDs

Read this thread which shows you how 90% don't advice RAID on an SSD due to the lower 4K speeds and slower boot time due to the initialization of the RAID controller at startup:

1 Single SSD vs 2 SSD RAID-0

AS SSD Benchmark with IRST 12.8.0.1016 in RAID RDx3 (W8.1)




AS SSD Benchmark with IRST 12.8.0.1016 (W8.1)

 

Thanks Ferris. I'll probably keep the boot drive (mSATA) unraided and I'll think about the other two.

 

If you are planning to use the other 2 as storage then it's not recommended to use RAID 0 on them because the logical drive could fail and you could lose the DATA on it.

 

Unless you take regular backups or it's not critical information.

 

I usually take a back up of my C Drive every week and my data drive (which is mostly movies and games) every month so the risk of data loss is not a huge concern for me. What is important to me is the size of the drive and 2 TB is what I need now and it gives me some room to expand as well.

It is a shame that RAID0 with the three SSDs is actually slower because I was toying with the idea of partitioning the 3 TB drive with 500GB as the boot drive and the remaining as the data drive to give me even more room to grow ........ to provide that little bit more of 'future proofing'

I am not making any decisions anyway for another 5 months or so and I will wait until the 17" has had a refresh and see what the options are then.

Ferris - I just read the link you provided in your first reply and it is very a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing..

 

Well I was like you, when I had two 840 EVO 1 TB + the mSATA 840 EVO 1 TB, I put them in RAID, the only good thing about it was the fact that I now had a 3TB unpartitiond space so I could partition 120GB for the OS and the rest to put all my videos and other files on the other partition. While that sounds like a great convenience rather than having to connect an external 4TB HDD as I do now to store my videos.... I am a performance freak and RAID offered me absolutely nothing in terms of performance again....because of those low 4 K speeds and slower boot up time.....

On paper, it sounds great.....in real world, it's not bad....but not as you'd expect 3 drives working together to offer you in terms of performance

When 2 TB SSDs come out, I probably will get three 2 TB SSDs and still RAID them despite the lower performance just for me to get rid of my 4TB external HDD as that does slow my boot time as well due to Windows how it behaves, it seems to be checking the drive for boot files as well......wish I could figure how to skip that then my boot time will be the snappiest.

 

Something I had not considered before and was in the article, was the added complexity of doing a recovery with RAID0 and a partitioned drive. I have decided that my OS drive will not be Raided but the jury is still out on the data drive and I have a few months to see what new comes out and to make a final decision.

Thanks again for the valuable contribution.