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    SSD Raid 0 unsupported?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Janth, Mar 20, 2010.

  1. Janth

    Janth Notebook Guru

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    I've been reading up on this subject in preparation for my rig, but what I've read is that raid 0 SSDs dont have the supported firmware. Most of the pages I viewed on this subject are 6-12 months old though, has this problem been fixed? :confused:
     
    Janth, Mar 20, 2010
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  2. Judicator

    Judicator Judged and found wanting.

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    I'm not certain what you mean by supported firmware? If you're just asking if you can put 2 SSDs in RAID 0, then yes, you can (well, assuming your system supports RAID in the first place). The problem is that TRIM commands will not be passed to a RAID array, and many other commands (most of which don't work with regular HDD RAID as well) also won't get passed through.
     
    Judicator, Mar 20, 2010
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  3. Janth

    Janth Notebook Guru

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    thats what I meant, my bad, I meant the TRIM and raid 0 problem

    do you mean TRIM can never be passed through RAID? or is it something that can eventually be corrected?
     
    Janth, Mar 20, 2010
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  4. DR650SE

    DR650SE The Whiskey Barracuda

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    If thats the case, from which I've read before, then what is the point of SSDs in RAID if it's just going to slow the drive to a crawl?
     
    DR650SE, Mar 20, 2010
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  5. sgilmore62

    sgilmore62 uber doomer

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    You can run the Intel SSD toolbox on Intel G2 drives to restore performance with RAID AFAIK. Some other drives like Indilinx and Samsung have idle time garbage collection with wear leveling algorithms that maintain performance but there are some system compatability issues. Many notebooks are configured such that those drives controllers fail to ever see the drives as being idle.
     
    sgilmore62, Mar 20, 2010
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  6. Judicator

    Judicator Judged and found wanting.

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    Right now, because of the way (firmware, at least, we're not talking about hardware RAID on the notebook level) RAID is implemented, a lot of commands simply don't get passed through, such as SMART data, temperature data, and the afore-mentioned TRIM command. Now, given future RAID firmware and driver updates, it's quite possible that this will eventually happen, but for right now, we're still waiting.

    It's for those that really, really, want the fastest system possible. And if you have enough money to spend on RAIDed SSDs, you probably also have enough to backup your RAID array onto a storage device, drop the SSDs out of RAID, wipe them back to clean and full speed, and then re-raid them and re-image/restore your data back to the clean RAID array. It's a bit of work, but if you really demand top notch performance...

    Oh, and this is assuming that what sgilmore62 said about the toolbox for G2 drives, or the idle time garbage collection doesn't work.
     
    Judicator, Mar 21, 2010
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  7. H.A.L. 9000

    H.A.L. 9000 Occam's Chainsaw

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    Would the manual TRIM method (indilinx tool) work in RAID 0 even if the system tells the controller which blocks to clean?
     
    H.A.L. 9000, Mar 21, 2010
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