2 HDDs in raid 1 with Intel SRT

Computer is a prostar clevo P373EM. I am more concerned with data preservation so am going with 2 hdds in raid 1. Can I use a msata ssd as srt drive to speed things up?
Will a larger ssd be an advantage? I have no expierence with ssd or srt so I am a little confused

Mark.

 

Forget SRT and small SSD's - both are simply more trouble than they're worth.

SRT gives you a minimal performance increase 'overall' - it will feel fast only compared to a pure mechanical HDD.

A small SSD (for SRT or primary O/S use) is also a waste of money: they cannot give the performance of properly sized SSD (=240/256GB for Intel 520 Series, Sandisk Extreme's or Crucial M4's - for 512GB capacities the only SSD worth considering right now if you want/need the maximum sustained performance possible is the Crucial M4 again, yeah surprising, huh). Not only do they not give you the performance right out of the box that you're expecting; they also slow down as you fill them up too (to below HDD speeds, depending on your workflow). In addition; the small capacity SSD's simply wear out faster (especially as you have them filled up closer to 70% or more), become less reliable because of increased WA (write amplification) and the SSD working the GC harder than it should/could with more 'unallocated' space.

But... You have the option with that system to use a 256GB M4 mSATA drive. DONE!

Partition it to 100GB - leave the rest 'unallocated' and move your 'Users' folders to your RAID1 mechanical drives.

Now; enjoy your new platform no matter how you intend to use it.

Good luck.

 

Why would you make a 100GB partition? What purpose would that serve?

 

Because when tiller use SSD and fill them up more then 40%, they will get down to HDD speed.

 

baiii,


(btw, I think you're davepermen reincarnated).



No,
actually with small SSD's (128GB and smaller) and with my typical install (Windows 7/8 x64 and programs which is around 60GB) and my typical daily workflow (download, convert edit and otherwise manipulate RAW image files - around 20-250GB written each 'session' - depending on the amount of shooting/editing required by client) - those small SSD's give LESS THAN HDD performance.

But you're right; I do notice SSD's slowing down just installing Windows (right around the 25%-30% mark...).


Why would one want to partition their SSD?


Reasons:
To get the most consistent and sustainable performance possible.
To have the least WA possible.
To have the most reliability possible (with regards to premature nand failures due to artificially high WA factors).
To have the fastest GC routines the SSD is capable of.
To allow the firmware to keep the drive as 'healthy' as possible by rotating nand in an optimal fashion and not just because it's 'under pressure' (from the user's or the O/S's storage subsystem requests).


This was discussed in detail here - search for myself and davepermen for those dialogues.

To quickly bring everyone up to speed: even Anand has finally admitted that the venerable Samsung 830 and the newer 840 PRO could use a boost in consistency by leaving some nand as 'unallocated'. I have been saying that SSD's are LESS consistent than HDD's for years: only by leaving unallocated space via partitioning the drive from brand new did I finally see the promise that SSD's offer for my workflows (and that promise was 'faster than the HDD's you're using now' - which in my case was vRaptors - lots of them: yeah - desk tops).


And for miro_gt who is going to come down on me like a ton of bricks for recommending an M4:

Anand Lal Shimpi:

Yeah; nobody is perfect in this SSD ring.


Anand Lal Shimpi:

See:
AnandTech - The Intel SSD DC S3700 (200GB) Review


Anand Lal Shimpi:

See:
AnandTech - The Intel SSD DC S3700 (200GB) Review




Of course Anand is speaking about the Intel S3700 DataCenter SSD - but that doesn't take away from the fact that consistent performance is not what today's SSD's are all about. Far from it. When I see 14 SECONDS 'average response time' from my Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD in Windows 8, I have to lol... I don't think I ever saw a HDD with such 'scores' (but at least the SSD's are not staying at those high latencies!!!).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...ge/695375-intel-back-controller-business.html


More info from the link above (especially starting on page two/post 11).


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...l-back-controller-business-2.html#post8932856





Oh, I ran into a relevant post on 'overprovisioning' that is not one of mine:

See:
Over-Provisioning for SSDs



I found the posts I was thinking about:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/619685-ssd-provisioning.html



That is a short link (only ~45 pages... lol...), but the first few posts (mine) will show what partitioning an SSD (actually leaving it 'unallocated' - not simply 'free space') is all about.



Hope this answer this question fully?

Take care.

 

I was just kind of joking, I understand your viewpoint. small SSD do decrease to below HDD speed . But for vast majority people, HDD speed = slow access time/low random read/write rather then raw performance. A hammered SSD probably will still outperform HDD in access time/random read/write. Average people hardly even achieve 10-20GB read/write per day.

After all, it just different depending on different usage. So if someone resemble tiller's usage, tiller's suggestion would be golden. But for people come from HDD OS to SSD OS, it is a different scenario.

To the OP question, I have no clue if SRT work on 170em. RST may or may not improve performance depending what you storing on the raid1.

 

And I have yet to notice this "slow" performance even though my 512GB Crucial M4 has 160GB free of the 512GB and my 256GB has 140GB free.

tiller is usually referring to 15k RPM desktop enterprise drives and not your run of the mill 5400RPM or 7200RPM laptop hard drives. I would be hard pressed to go from a nearly full SSD to a 5400RPM notebook HDD and say they perform similarly. I know. I use a 5400RPM daily in my laptop for work. It's a far cry from a similar experience. Tiller is just a "sky is falling" user, and it's not even close to as horrible as it sounds. He is a user that fills his SSD constantly and on a regular basis. A user that would do much better using enterprise-class SSD's instead of consumer class but refuses to concede.

Will partitioning empty space help? Sure. Is it really worth the sacrifice of SSD space? Nope. The performance difference is minor and won't be recognized by most users.

Back at OP, imho you are really better off setting up a good backup solution over a RAID array. RAID 1 will only protect against a single drive failing, but it won't protect against corruption, viruses, or otherwise. IMHO you're better off with a good NAS or Windows Home Server setup that backs up your data daily. Only reason you'd want RAID 1 is if you do a LOT of work on a daily basis that would be hard to recreate. But if you have a WHS or NAS (both with their own backups) you have the best of all worlds. Sync your data to your NAS real-time even for certain directories so you minimize data loss.

But I don't see why RST won't work. RAID 1 is seen as a single drive, and RST is just a read/write cache. But to tell you for certain, I don't know.

 

This is bull.

I have a crucial m4 60GB and filled it with only 3GB spare and it still was much faster than a HDD.

 

No bull - keep reading...

 

Ok I see. I didn't mean to start any big controversy over this. I guess it's worth it to very specific workflows. I agree with several posters though that I don't write more than 15GB/day (unless I'm installing multiple games) and have never noticed slowdowns.