Best Raid-0 SSD's? 180-240gb per drive.

My new laptop will be receiving dual SSDs for RAID-0 and I have been out of the SSD market for a while.

I was either looking at this OCZ Agility 3 240gb

Buy the OCZ Agility 3 Series 2.5 SATA III SSD at TigerDirect.ca

OR

This Intel 520 series 180gb,

Buy the Intel 520 Series 180GB SATA III Solid State Drive at TigerDirect.ca

Thoughts? Thanks in advance

 

I'm running 2 of the Intel 520 180gb drives in RAID 0 on my W701 with no issues (128kb stripe size), didn't experience any issues during the setup process and been running flawlessly for the past 2 months or so now.

RAID 0 is advantageous for sequential transfer speed (for large files) but actually reduces small file read/writing speed from what I've read, so be sure you know what you're getting into when RAID-ing SSDs.

I've avoid OCZ like the plague, if you don't want to pay the Intel price premium (if it still exists) I'd look into other, much more reliable options such as Samsung, Crucial, etc.

Enjoy!

 

Ended up trying to save some money and went with the Samsung 830 128gbs, were on for $120 each. They use their own controller, and Samsung is usually pretty top-notch considering they use all their own parts. Ya from some reviews ive been reading the 4k speeds suffer slightly, using a 16k stripe size would probably offset this though. The sequential read/writes are already crazy high so if those take a hit at the expense of having better small file writes, well ill do that. Thanks for your input.

 

narsail,

Just as a warning, make sure you keep in the back of your mind how to run a Secure Erase at some point if you encounter write amplification problems due to the lack of TRIM for those drives over RAID.

Or perhaps you can leave the system idle for a long period of time to let the 830s GC utilities clean up deleted but non-empty pages.

 

I thought the new Intel RST drivers enabled TRIM on RAID machines? Or does this not apply due the controller being different? Confused :/

 

TRIM on RAID-0 does work, but only with the latest 7-series motherboards - it doesn't work with older boards:

AnandTech - Intel Brings TRIM to RAID-0 SSD Arrays on 7-Series Motherboards, We Test It

Your PC is new and should thus work with TRIM!

 

From my understanding, the new RAID drivers (see here - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=21407) only allow TRIM with the chipsets for supported boards. If you take a look at the valid product list on that link, you'll note it is only Desktop boards, and the P370EMs MB is not there.

Also, the P370EM comes the HM77 chipset. According to this article - Intel - H77 is on the list, but not the mobile version, HM77.

So, while I cannot comment if lappies with HM77 will or will not support TRIM over SSDs on RAID-0. It has not been confirmed the mobile version of H77 does support it. I'd like to see someone from Intel or a builder/reseller provide some concrete data on this.

 

Well, guess ill find out pretty soon if it works or not. Thanks for the heads up!

 

I don't know if TRIM is working?

But anyways this is the test I took today.



It is so crazy fast, the 4k read speeds are a bit low but to be expected in RAID 0.

 

The numbers/score look good considering this is the lower performing 128GB 830's you're running.

Keep in mind that if you actually use your array And fill it up to greater than 80% or so, you can really tank the performance of the slow GC'ing Samsung 830's.

At that point; a SE would be about the only way to bring them back to life.

Good luck and thanks for keeping us updated on your adventures with RAID0.

 

Ya np tiller, glad to see your still around.

I was thinking the same in regards to the numbers, I am running the array in a 32kb stripe by the way. Read some reviews on the stripe in RAID-0 for ssds, 32kb give you slightly lower sequential read/write for a more balanced setup. The bigger the files you will be moving, the bigger the stripe size should be.

4kb-16kb for OS, 32kb for a mix of OS/moving big files, 64/128 for large files.

 

narsnail,

If you're able to set up three RAID0 arrays (on at least six discreet SSD's) then I would agree that a system could be tuned optimally with the O/S set to 16KB stripe size, the temp/work array set to 32KB stripe size and the 'finished' data array set to 64KB stripe size.

However, with a single RAID0 array the best performance overall has always been 64KB stripe size in my experience and even the newer 'default' of 128KB stripe size is better than a 32KB stripe size (generally speaking).

See:
[M] RAID 0 Stripe Sizes Compared with SSDs: OCZ Vertex Drives Tested


While your 32KB stripe size setup might be giving you the best 'scores' in one or two disk access scenarios, overall it is slowing down your computing 'experience' on your system and you're simply not getting the best your Raided SSD's can offer.


As for making a 'more balanced setup':
Don't try to weaken the strengths of your SSD's to make up for (supposed...) weaknesses - if you want the highest real world performance possible your storage subsystem is capable of in RAID0, I suggest re-installing with 64KB stripe size.

(If you haven't already tested your specific scenarios to be better matched to the 32KB stripe size, of course).

Have fun with your new system!

 

All that article proves is exactly the point I was making. 32kb stripe has the most consistent random 4k read/write without stepping down to a 4/8k and losing the sequential/large read/writes. The RAID 0 array negates the low sequential write speeds of the 128gb 830s when they are singular( as compared to the higher capacity versions). I am mostly concerned with OS and small file performance, being able to transfer large files quickly is just a perk really, hence the more "balanced" setup. I cannot reinstall right now but I will definitely try a different stripe size to see if these drives are different from the Vertexes.

TRIM is also enabled on my system now, the new Intel RST drivers don't officially support mobile boards, either way it worked. So anyone with an HM77 chipset should be able to use TRIM .

EDIT: Hold the phone on TRIM being enabled, cannot really confirm, but I have seen no performance degradation to this point. Either the built-in garbage collection is working or TRIM is.