SSD Raid 0 Setup

Hi guys. :hi2:
I jz bought mine a plextor ssd.
After installed the ssd in alienware m17xr3, what should i do next in order to setup Raid 0?
Hope u guys can show me step by step. noob here

 

Enter Bios ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ootaBL7xdBs

try this as well

 

I would NOT recommend doing Raid-0 on an SSD configuration. In pretty much every test I've ran on my machines (unless it was a DEDICATED RAID card, not onboard) it actually hinders performance.

 

True ! i was thinking about writing this, i do not use Raid on my SSDs as well, SSD in Raid 0 is only for benchmarking in my opinion

 

That is untrue, my Alienware M17x R2 setup with 2 x Intel 320 series 160 GB SSDs defintely had a performance boost with RAID 0 on every level, 4k, sequential, bear in mind this was in my R2 with SATA 2 SSDs...



That and my OS booted in less then 10 seconds, everything was so responsive on a different level.

You would need to enable RAID as your SATA HDD operation, usually for most computers/mobos it is Ctrl + I to enter the RAID controller, then create the RAID 0 volume. Note it WILL erase everything on both drives. Make sure you have the RAID drivers for your laptop on a flash drive just in case (some Windows 7 discs don't have all the RAID controller drivers on 'em) and reinstall Windows.

 

I believe (from what I've read) there is an issue with older systems not supporting TRIM, which will eventually result in decreased performance. If I'm not mistaken, RAID 0 will accelerate this process.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not entirely certain of this myself.

 

What raid level should i choose?RAID 1 (Mirror) or RAID 0 (Stripe) ?
What is the suitable strip size?
How to enable trim?
What other things should i change other than enable trim ?
If i set the bios at Raid instead of AHCI, is my second drive automatically run as raid too?
Can i perform defragment on the ssd in the future?

my system :
-Intel Core i7 2860QM
-2GB DDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M
-16GB corsair vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
-First drive : 256GB M5P Plextor ssd
-Second drive : 1TB Seagate Momentus (SpinPoint M8)

 

RAID 1 is mirror, is only for data redundancy. It offers no performance boost over a normal setup, but if 1 SSD should fail, you would have an exact copy of your OS/programs/settings on the other SSD. However this does not stop OS corruption, viruses, etc. RAID 0 gives you performance, aka striped. Your data is stored on both drives, combining them. However if 1 drive in the RAID 0 array should fail, you lose all of your data. But the results sometimes is dramatic, your read/write speeds should dramatically improve. What you want is up to you, if you don't care about data, RAID 0 SSDs will make Windows MUCH snappier then a single SSD.

TRIM should automatically be enabled, if not, run command prompt as an administrator and run "fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0"

No, as I said above, changing your SATA operation to RAID will only allow you to access the RAID utility, you must create the array inside of that utility.

I would highly not recommend defragmentation on an SSD, it adds unnecessary writes onto your SSD, and most SSDs either have a built in garbage collect command or the controller manages some form of garbage collect (Intel G1 SSD, Samsung RBX and older SSDs).

 

Press CTRL+I during the startup. Here is more info.

 

I guess i'll choose Raid 0 striped.
If i format my second drive, will i lose data on my first drive?u stated that if 1 drive in the raid 0 array should fail, you lose all of your data.
How frequent ssd may fail if set up as raid 0?just to make sure i'm alert.
If raid 0 corrupt, will it effect my 2TB external drive also?or it will just effect only first drive and second drive.
I don't get it.what this is supposed to mean "No, as I said above, changing your SATA operation to RAID will only allow you to access the RAID utility, you must create the array inside of that utility"

This is too much for me to process.
Based on the link u gave,
To enable the SATA RAID Setting in the BIOS,i don't see the word 'RAID On' in the bios. What i did, under advanced option/sata operation, i selected RAID not ATA or AHCI.Is it sufficient?
Under IDE configuration/HDC configure as, should i change it to Raid also instead of IDE & AHCI?
Should i be doing these two "Delete a RAID Volume with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager OROM & Migrate to a RAID 1 from a RAID 0 Array with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager OROM" ?

 

waiting for answers