SSD's in RAID 0 on new build.

[MastaMcKay]

I bought two of these:

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3938566&SID=

These are for my first time build I am working on. Originally I was just going to set them up individually in AHCI mode, but now I'm thinking why not set them up in a raid 0 right from the start and have one solid 500gb raid ssd's and install my operating system onto that and all my games. Is there any reason I wouldn't/couldn't/shouldn't do that?

Assuming I can any advice as to how? Also, how big should each chunk of data be? I think you can choose anywhere from 4k to 192k or something to that extent.

Also in regards to garbage collection, or trim I've read it called, will this function in a raid 0 environment? Or will I need to do something special?

Edit:

In case this is important information I will be installing Windows 8 and my motherboard is this:

ASUS Maximus V FORMULA LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3938566&SID=

[chazus]

Honestly, unless you think you cant fit all your programs and stuff on one, I see no real reason to get two SSD's and raid them.

Yes, there are performance benefits, but nothing that you will see. The benefits would be from long transfers and processes, which normal computer users don't.. do. Also, if one drive fails, you lose everything (of course, this is the case with one drive too, but havent two increases that possibility).

Unfortunately, you already bought it. So.. uh.. I guess go for it?

[Deleted]

Perhaps to reach higher write speeds of 500mb/s which are the norm for most recent ssd's.
Higher read is just benchmark showoff. Also raid 0 would only give the storage equal to smallest drive iirc.

[chazus]

Also raid 0 would only give the storage equal to smallest drive iirc.

Raid0 = Striping, better speed, no redundancy
Raid1 = Mirroring, basically copying a drive on the fly

[Milkshake86]

Perhaps to reach higher write speeds of 500mb/s which are the norm for most recent ssd's.
Higher read is just benchmark showoff. Also raid 0 would only give the storage equal to smallest drive iirc.

two, 1tb HDD's in Raid 0 is equal to a faster 2tb.

[Biernot]

Raid 0 for decent/modern SSDs is unneeded and pointless. You won't see any performance improvements, and have additional hassle and risks.

[chazus]

The only situation where I have ever found RAID0 to be useful is in VERY specific applications.

I used to work for PC Club, and we had a contract with Lockheed Martin. One of their missile guidance control systems had a 7 Raptor SATA drive RAID0. Redundancy wasn't needed, nor was disk size. They just needed as much HDD horsepower as possible (I'm not entirely sure what the software they were using was). I believe video encoding and rendering can benefit from RAID0 as well, but CPU's are so powerful now that you get more mileage out of those, than a drive RAID.

[Zao]

I'm not a fan of RAID 0. It doesn't just have no redundancy, it actually increases your chance of a Disk failure, because if either one of those disks blows up you're screwed.
That's not as much of an issue with SSDs because they fail much less often than HDDs, but still....

And you don't really get an advantage out of it with SSDs. The R/W speeds of SSDs are so high that as a normal user you'll practically never notice the limit on them. They look nice on Benchmarks though.

[thunterman]

I don't get it, why does everyone around here say RAID configs are unsafe? I heard from other sources that its the opposite, RAID was supposedly better than a single drive, higher chance of recovery I thought, better performance e.t.c. I heard, RAID configs are near unbreakable, unless you do stupid things such as pull the plug while its writing, or maybe take a hammer to your drives..Like these morons they should just not have a computer.

[Zao]

That's the case for RAID 1 and "upwards". RAID 0 is a special case. It doesn't have any redundancy. It basically just treats your two drives as one and splits data among them (very simplified explanation). So of one of the goes kaputt you've essentially lost half your data and won't be able to use the good drive to recover stuff either.

Edit: If you're interested: the Wikiepedia entry on RAID explains it rather well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

[chazus]

I don't get it, why does everyone around here say RAID configs are unsafe? I heard from other sources that its the opposite, RAID was supposedly better than a single drive, higher chance of recovery I thought, better performance e.t.c. I heard, RAID configs are near unbreakable

Sooo yeah. You don't understand how RAID works. That is why you don't get it.

RAID 0 is striping the logical drive across multiple drives. There is no redundancy. If one drive fails, ALL data across ALL drives is lost.
RAID 1 is mirroring. It is slightly slower, as data is written identically to multiple drives (usually just 2). If one drive fails, the other seamlessly continues on, allowing you to replace the failed drive.

RAID 5 is using parity across multiple drives, so if one fails, data is retained. Minimum 3 drives.

RAID 10 is basically just striping two drives, and then mirroring those two drives to two more.

There are others in different ways, but those are the most common. Using a RAID in no way increases, or decreases the chance of a drive failing. The point is that two drives using one partition have, technically, a higher chance of failing than one drive over time.

[Evildeffy]

ATM SSDs are fast enough to let a normal consumer not notice any tangible difference between solo SSDs and those in RAID0.

However some people have bought SSDs @ 120/128GB at first and are now looking to expand their SSD storage by buying the same drive.
Or other people who bought 2 SSDs of the same make, size and brand when the 240 - 256GB Variants were over 2,5 to 3 times the cost of the 120-128GB variants.

For these people RAID0 is a definite viable option, however people like to exaggerate the "failure point" of RAID0, citing no redundancy.
However here's the thing: SSDs should never be used as storage of important files, which is a common knowledge thing and if an SSD blows up, you lose the data regardless.
You see unlike a mechanical HDD, once an SSD fails, data retrieval is basically impossible.

So yes, if you are 1 of the 2 category of people i mentioned earlier, RAID0 is viable and "safe" , the failure rate is far lower than people would have you believe here and even if it did blow up if you are capable of setting up a RAID0, you are capable of reinstalling your rig, provided you had the common sense not to store your files on the SSD barring Windows, games and programmes.

However since you've already bought them, you CAN RAID0 them since for Z77 chipsets TRIM via RAID0 is availible, believe it or not but in the situation you're in you're actually increasing the lifespan of those drives by RAID0-ing them because you'll be splitting all data equally.
Especially with the 840s which have TLC NAND, and have a lower endurace than it's previous brother the 830 or the bigger brother 840 Pro both of which use MLC Toggle NAND.

Had you been considering buying SSDs etc, and not be at the step that you are at, the recommendation would've been a single SSD, which is understandable.
But you're not, and in my opinion you should do w/e you like, RAID0 is 100% viable and "safe", and don't let the nay-sayers get to you.

Random fact before people start yelling at me:
All 5, 6 and 7 series chipsets have RAID0 TRIM capability, the Z77 is innate if you update the Intel Raid Option ROM to 11.X and the Intel RST drivers to 11.2 and up.
The 5 series (not X58 unfortunately) and 6 series require a modified updated BIOS which is rather easy to do to support TRIM in RAID0.

How do i know RAID0 is "safe"? I've used it for years on my OCZ Vertex Turbo drives when 240-256GB either didn't exist or were over 3 times the cost of 2 smaller ones, to this day i've yet to encounter issues aswell as having it set up for a great deal of friends and customers for the same reasons and they still have yet to come back to me with any issue.
And that's me on a X58 board that has no TRIM capability in RAID0, only Garbage Collection on SSDs.

[thunterman]

Sooo yeah. You don't understand how RAID works. That is why you don't get it.

RAID 0 is striping the logical drive across multiple drives. There is no redundancy. If one drive fails, ALL data across ALL drives is lost.
RAID 1 is mirroring. It is slightly slower, as data is written identically to multiple drives (usually just 2). If one drive fails, the other seamlessly continues on, allowing you to replace the failed drive.

RAID 5 is using parity across multiple drives, so if one fails, data is retained. Minimum 3 drives.

RAID 10 is basically just striping two drives, and then mirroring those two drives to two more.

There are others in different ways, but those are the most common. Using a RAID in no way increases, or decreases the chance of a drive failing. The point is that two drives using one partition have, technically, a higher chance of failing than one drive over time.

Ah so I'm thinking RAID1 and RAID5 then :P I was even considering RAID1, which I wont be bothering with now thanks to this information, when I run out of SSD room I will just have another 128gb SSD, and 3 separate drives. Wanted to RAID them together just so it appears as 1 256gb drive. Theres probably a way to do that without raiding them somewhere i'd imagine anyway :P

[cp1]

Motherboard based raid is a huge risk and I would never do it if your data is important to you.

[Deleted]

Motherboard based raid is a huge risk and I would never do it if your data is important to you.

how would you define raid 1 then?

[Evildeffy]

Motherboard based raid is a huge risk and I would never do it if your data is important to you.

Why do you even reply if you don't even bother to read.
Also ... No, raid information is retained even if you switch to IDE or AHCI to upgrade firmware.

Not to mention earlier SSD conditions.

I wonder though... do you thrive on self-opinions-stated-facts?

[chazus]

Motherboard based raid is a huge risk and I would never do it if your data is important to you.

Another case of 'herp derp I dont understand what 'raid' means'.
To be clear, RAID0 isn't 'dangerous' by any means. It is simply twice as likely for a logical drive to take a crap as a single physical drive. So, I mean, that may well be never. Or at least not in 5-7 years. It's the same concept of owning two cars doubles your chances of needing repair work in 10 years.

They aren't 'dangerous', it was just a point of being made that RAID0 with SSD serves no purpose, really. And the danger aspect isn't a Pro.. so obviously its a Con of some kind, even if minimal.

[Tahapenes]

RAID 10 is basically just striping two drives, and then mirroring those two drives to two more.

Nit, you just described RAID 0+1

RAID 1+0 is you first mirror drives (minimum of 4 drives total) then run a stripe across the the drives that are not mirrored together (so drives 1 and 2 are mirrored and drives 3 and 4 are mirrored, you then stripe drives 1 and 3 and drives 2 and 4 end up striped as well).

The big difference that shows up in how the redundancy works across the arrays. RAID 0+1, so long as you don't lose a drive in each stripe, you're fine, as soon as you lose a drive in each stripe, you have to rebuild and restore from backup. RAID 1+0, so long as you do not lose a mirrored pair you're alright, once you lose a mirrored pair however, you have to rebuild and restore from backup.

As to the question at hand, the only time it's advantageous to RAID 0 a pair of SSDs in a home computer is when the two SSDs cost less than the next level up (ie, 2 128G drives is cheaper than 1 256G drive, this is what I did when I got a pair of Crucial M4s 128G for $100 per when the Crucial M4 256G was running at $240).

[Ogretron]

As already mentioned, Raid0 with SSDs is pretty much useless in a normal home computer. You might gain a little speed, but it will be so small you wouldn't notice the difference. The downside is that if one of your SSDs go belly up, you lose everything (edit - you lose data on every drive that is part of the Raid0 because there is no redundancy. Thanks Evil, didn't know that needed clarifying). Not worth it.

Keep them separate.

[Evildeffy]

Nit, you just described RAID 0+1

RAID 1+0 is you first mirror drives (minimum of 4 drives total) then run a stripe across the the drives that are not mirrored together (so drives 1 and 2 are mirrored and drives 3 and 4 are mirrored, you then stripe drives 1 and 3 and drives 2 and 4 end up striped as well).

The big difference that shows up in how the redundancy works across the arrays. RAID 0+1, so long as you don't lose a drive in each stripe, you're fine, as soon as you lose a drive in each stripe, you have to rebuild and restore from backup. RAID 1+0, so long as you do not lose a mirrored pair you're alright, once you lose a mirrored pair however, you have to rebuild and restore from backup.

Actually no, RAID10 is exactly as he described.
You RAID0 some drives, then those RAID0 drives are mirrored, this is the effect of RAID10 or also known as 1+0.



Edit: Actually you're correct, i'm sleeping, my bad, the effect is however the same. They work seemlessly unless both (or more) of the same set are damaged.

---------- Post added 2013-01-06 at 02:43 AM ----------

As already mentioned, Raid0 with SSDs is pretty much useless in a normal home computer. You might gain a little speed, but it will be so small you wouldn't notice the difference. The downside is that if one of your SSDs go belly up, you lose everything. Not worth it.

Keep them separate.

You lose data regardless, SSD data retrieval is close to not happening. (i.e. impossible)

You have to see the situation and act on it, thus requiring to read the thread properly before replying.