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    RAID on T420

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by hasaarin, Oct 5, 2011.

  1. hasaarin

    hasaarin Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi All,

    Quick question to clarify issue; I purchased a drive caddy for the T420, in which I placed a 500Gb 7.2k HD, to store files. In the Internal SATA port I have a Agility 3 120Gb SSd, that is simply amazing, and makes the whole system a real screamer. I thought about buying a second Agility 3, to replace the drive in the caddy, so I could create a raid0 for ultimate performace. I understand this would have to be done via software, but is it possible to have my windows 7 intalled on this software raid 0 system?

    Regards,

    Harry
     
    hasaarin, Oct 5, 2011
    #1
  2. Iucounu

    Iucounu Notebook Consultant

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    I have no idea, but I would certainly advise against it if it were possible. You're introducing another layer of complexity on top of drives from a manufacturer not known for good reliability. RAID 0 is not a great idea for a system drive, either, since it not only means that the failure of any drive's hardware fails the system, but that the failure of the controller can corrupt the data, and there's only one copy of it.

    What's your need for the ultimate performance, out of curiosity? Is it video encoding or something? Is the performance of a single SSD not enough for that? ???
     
    Iucounu, Oct 5, 2011
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  3. bogatyr

    bogatyr Notebook Evangelist

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    When using an SSD on SATA3, the drive may no longer be the bottleneck in your computer.
     
    bogatyr, Oct 5, 2011
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  4. ThinkRob

    ThinkRob Notebook Deity

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    Is it possible? Yes.

    Do you want to do it? Probably not.

    The Sandforce drives are new. They're immature. They have a pretty bad track record compared to Intel and Samsung drives. Add RAID-0 to the mix, and you've just doubled your chances of catastrophic failure.

    Plus, as bogatyr pointed out, you might not even be disk-bound anyways. Have you profiled your workload? Do you spend most of your time waiting for disk I/O?
     
    ThinkRob, Oct 5, 2011
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  5. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    Also for SSDs when you put them into RAID you lose TRIM so that is a double whammy on top of possibly losing all your data due to a bad drive.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Oct 5, 2011
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  6. Syntax Error

    Syntax Error Notebook Deity

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    RAID arrays work best with homogeneous drives, so in your case, you'll be limited to the lowest capacity drive which is your SSD while also being limited by the lowest I/O disk, which is the HDD.

    So in essence, you'd be adding complexity to the equation, lose 380GB of capacity, double your risk of data loss, and slow yourself down in the process.

    So, no, don't do it.
     
    Syntax Error, Oct 5, 2011
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