need SSD advice

And any other help anyone might care to add about RAID configuration. I'm about to order a new Dell m6400 and it has two drives. After trying to evaulate RAID and all the different types and stuff that I think I'll just have a SSD main drive for programs and the OS and a spinning drive for storage. I mirror my drive with Acronis regularly so can't see much benefit from Raid 1 and the performance advantage from a Raid 2 setup isn't worth the complications involved. But I'm an idiot on the subject and don't even know what all the other Raids are about. Since there's so many available, and they all claim to be the best, I need advice on exactly which brands are really the best. I've read posts by people that really know something about SSD, and it's an expensive option so I want to know something about the best and the biggest available. Any and all suggestions would be welcome.

 

for a two-disk setup, there's not much RAID.

these are the options:

2 disks, each on it's own (one for system, one for data, as you suggested)
2 disks in raid0 => twice the troughput, if one fails, all is lost
2 disks in raid1 => half the storage, if one fails, nothing is lost
2 disks in jbod => both disks combined as if they're one. else, no gain. (no 2x speed. no added security)

But yes, I support your idea. ssd for system, disk for the rest is a good option. of course, two huge ssd's in raid0 may give highest performance (with a good backup solution), but this is quite hw dependent. maybe your system can't even get the full boost of a raid0 with two ssds?

i personally use mtron 3500 disks and can really support them. a 64gb ssd from mtron + a 500gb harddrive sound like a nice combination. other options are available, too