SATA II and SATA III SSDs in RAID 0 - is it worth it?

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Thu, 06/21/2012 - 12:34
LordReserei
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Posts: 19

Hi,

Short question - would it be worth putting a Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB SATA II (read: 250MB/s, write: 230MB/s) and an OCZ Agility 3 120GB SATA III SSD (read:525MB/s, write: 500MB/s) in a RAID 0 configuration, or would it be pointless?

I ask because I currently have the SSDNow V100 64GB in my system, and I'm looking into buying a OCZ Agility 3 120GB pretty soon because of how relatively cheap it is now (seen it as low as £71). RAID is something I've looked into, but have never done before.

System
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1090T BE 3.6GHz (OC)
RAM: G-Skill Ripaws 8GB(2x4) DDR3 1333MHz CL9
Video card: XFX HD6870 1GB GDDR5
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 Pro
Case: Cooler Master Elite 430
Case Fans: 5x 120mm
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master TX3 Evo
PSU: WinPower+ 800 Watt

Hard drives:
- Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB SATA II
- Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA II

Thanks in advance.

Windows 8 Pro 64-bit|Asus M5A97 R2.0|Phenom II x6 1090T BE 3.5Ghz (OC)|Kingston HyperX Blu 24GB DDR3 1600MHz|Gigabyte HD7950 Windforce 3X 3GB|OCZ Vertex 4 128GB/Seagate Barracuda 2TB|CoolerMaster Elite 430|CoolerMaster TX3 Evo w/ Blade Master fan.

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Thu, 06/21/2012 - 14:00
#1
eire1274
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Posts: 1033

Two SSDs that can't hit the SATA-III bus rate in striped will produce an improvement if they are on a SATA-III controller.

In your case, you have a SATA-III compliant controller, so, yes, you'll see an improvement, HOWEVER, it isn't going to be drive plus drive, and the improvement is going to be that much smaller thanks to the big difference between the drive speeds. PERHAPS you might get 600Mb/s if things sync up right, but I wouldn't bet for more.

Finally, with the issues with TRIM and overall SSD reliability, a stripe between two cheaper consumer SSDs is at risk, as a failed bit on one drive can quickly destroy the entire data set and volume. I wouldn't want to even try this outside of Enterprise SSDs which have internal data protection... but we are talking big money here.

Nick McDermott

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Thu, 06/21/2012 - 14:38
#2
spawnkiller
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Posts: 307

yeah, for me Raid on SSD isn't a good idea because (for the times) raid doesn't support trim and the ssd degrade slowly in every action they perform so for now i'd say, put windows in your new fastest drive and keep the old one for a portable drive (much more reliable than a HDD in portable configuration) anyway, the difference in 1 agility 500mb/s and Raid 600mb/s, except for the capacity, will be so small, i bet you will never see any with only your eyes and that performance will degrade because it lacks trim support for now...

Also like eire1274 wrote if your old kingston fail, the entire array is dead...

Gaming PC: MSI Z77A-G45 ::: Intel Core I7 3770k @ 4.83Ghz ::: EVGA GTX680SC Signature ~1300mhz Boost/7122mhz ram ::: 16GB 4*4gb G.Skill 2240mhz CL10 ::: ASUS Xonar DX ::: Crucial M4 128gb (windows) + Intel 330 180gb (Steam games) + 1TB Caviar Black (storage) ::: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold M1000 ::: Antec P280 ::: Noctua NHU12P SE2 ::: ASUS VE247H ::: Logitech G510 ::: Cooler Master Storm Sentinel II ::: Logitech X530 ::: Steelseries Siberia V-2 Black & gold edition

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Thu, 06/21/2012 - 16:02
#3
LordReserei
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Joined: 04/13/2010
Posts: 19

Whoa, thanks for the in-depth info. It's appreciated.

@spawnkiiler - yeah, I was thinking of using the 64GB as a portable drive. If not that, a dedicated drive for Ubuntu, or throw it in a hand-me-down rig I've been putting together with some spare parts from a previous build for my younger brother.

Thanks again. :)

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Sun, 06/24/2012 - 20:31
#4
spawnkiller
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that's nothing ;) was confused too and i'd buy a 120 ssd to replace a 320 HDD cause it's for my car's audio and sometimes the HDD skip and turn off (because it has protect system when shocked) and really... anoying !!! unplug and replug each time.... pain in the a** and really i'm happy with a ssd (had buy the intel 320 for fiability cause it was for "backup" with my PC HDD and always in car at the same time...

Anyway, all that to simply say you thanks you, and come again on 3dgameman.com... we are great guys and we're always here to help anyone who needs help !!! ;)

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