I run 2 60 gigs in RAID 0 and my load times are usually 3-4 seconds faster than the rest of my group's who swear they are too expensive for the bang that they give. They are right but I enjoy those 3-4 seconds of a beather.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
As the above poster said about TRIM. You'll lose TRIM, have RAID 0's faults (if one drive fails everything fails), and you'll need a motherboard with SATA 6 GB/s transfer.
most new SSDs use internal RAID 0 anyways, and they are close enough to the limitations of SATA II bandwidth as it is, theres little to gain to slap two together, better off getting 1 bigger one.
Sequential reads and writes scale well (often perfectly) with RAID 0. But sequential reads and writes aren't that important, and even hard drives are good at those.
Random writes also scale well with RAID 0. Losing TRIM support due to RAID 0 could make some RAID 0 setups actually perform worse here than a single drive, though. That should really only happen with some older SSDs that aren't very good.
Random reads don't scale with RAID 0. And this is a big deal, because random reads are usually the storage bottleneck. That said, one good SSD offers plenty of random read performance as for it to not be a problem.
There are a handful of SSDs that do use an internal RAID 0, most notably OCZ's Colossus, Z-drive, and RevoDrive. But there aren't really that many of them, and they don't make any sense for most people.
Originally posted by Benthon As the above poster said about TRIM. You'll lose TRIM, have RAID 0's faults (if one drive fails everything fails), and you'll need a motherboard with SATA 6 GB/s transfer.
Although from what I understand an SSD will fail bit by bit over time rather than a single crash like a magnetic so you should see it coming and save data.
I worked a bit with raided SSDs. Raid 5 is the best performance and safety combination.
But for some reason have I had huge problems with my raids since I changed from Intel to AMD, something with the AMD drivers messes up with the SSDs and it is a lot of work fixing it again, unlike it was with Intel.
So I can't recommend it with a AMD processor, at least not together with W7.
Although from what I understand an SSD will fail bit by bit over time rather than a single crash like a magnetic so you should see it coming and save data.
Hard drives do that, too, but both have very aggressive error correction to usually prevent data corruption. The difference is that in addition to magnetic media slowly losing its charge, a hard drive also has physical moving parts that can abruptly fail, while an SSD does not.
Hard drives do that, too, but both have very aggressive error correction to usually prevent data corruption. The difference is that in addition to magnetic media slowly losing its charge, a hard drive also has physical moving parts that can abruptly fail, while an SSD does not.
SSDs main advantage is however that they are silent, cold, fast and uses less power.
But it is right that SSDs have less moving parts, I think however that heat is a bigger disadvantage that kills many SATA drives.
I read about what TRIM means and it looks to be too important to consider RAID 0 for SSD's atm, so I will likely just buy 1 SSD unless things change when I buy a new pc next year.
SSDs main advantage is however that they are silent, cold, fast and uses less power.
But it is right that SSDs have less moving parts, I think however that heat is a bigger disadvantage that kills many SATA drives.
It's not that SSDs have fewer moving parts. It's that they have no moving parts. Whether this matters depends on what you're doing with it. In a desktop, the main advantage of no moving parts is silence. In a laptop, the jostling around (especially if you drop the laptop) can be a much bigger problem for moving parts.
But yes, the speed is the main advantage for an SSD in a desktop, followed perhaps by the silence. In laptops, the low power draw, low heat output, and physical durability matter, too.
Hard drives actually aren't bothered by moderate heat the way that a lot of other components are. Hard drives often work best at significantly above room temperature, as the extra heat helps with lubrication for the rotating platters. Obviously, you don't want hard drives to get too hot, but they don't put out enough heat themselves to get too hot. The only way they get too hot is if you're blowing hot air from other parts at the hard drive or go out of your way to insulate them.
It's not that SSDs have fewer moving parts. It's that they have no moving parts. Whether this matters depends on what you're doing with it. In a desktop, the main advantage of no moving parts is silence. In a laptop, the jostling around (especially if you drop the laptop) can be a much bigger problem for moving parts.
But yes, the speed is the main advantage for an SSD in a desktop, followed perhaps by the silence. In laptops, the low power draw, low heat output, and physical durability matter, too.
Hard drives actually aren't bothered by moderate heat the way that a lot of other components are. Hard drives often work best at significantly above room temperature, as the extra heat helps with lubrication for the rotating platters. Obviously, you don't want hard drives to get too hot, but they don't put out enough heat themselves to get too hot. The only way they get too hot is if you're blowing hot air from other parts at the hard drive or go out of your way to insulate them.
0 is less than a few but I expressed myself somewhat clumsily.
But heat can kill harddrives, Maxtor are pretty famous for doing that if you put them too close to eachother, I killed one that way myself even if it was 10 years ago. I don't think it is possible for a single harddrive to kill itself with heat but several put very close together can die. And as I said, this is mostly common with old Maxtor drives they tend to generate a lot of heat.
I am however more worried about a few drives heat making the other components heat up.
The reason I myself have 4 raided Intel X-25 is speed. there are other bonuses.
SSD do probably have 1 weakness, they are supposed to be rather sensitive to magnetic fields. Can't say I know anyone that had any problem with it however so it is just hearsay, but so few people still have them so it might not be so strange.
I got my SSDs 1 1/2 years ago and never had any problems with them, besides with the raiding together with AMD.
Most likely your problem with a RAID array wasn't an AMD processor, but rather, the RAID controller. Do you know what RAID controller you had in an AMD system? Probably it was part of the chipset, rather than a discrete controller. The latter would have fixed the problem, but also would have been cost++.
Most likely your problem with a RAID array wasn't an AMD processor, but rather, the RAID controller. Do you know what RAID controller you had in an AMD system? Probably it was part of the chipset, rather than a discrete controller. The latter would have fixed the problem, but also would have been cost++.
That is a possibility. My guess have always been the AMD raid drivers.
The motherboard is a ASUS Crosshair IV (I have a AMD Phenomenah II x6 3,2ghz processor). I am not sure of the raidchip, I have the manual stacked somewhere and for once isn't google that helpful either...
Intel included this really nice program on my old MB but they took a bit too much for a hexa core and I would have been forced to change MB anyways. But the Crosshair IV isn't some cheap crap, it is one of ASUS better cards and one would assume they would have a good raid chip on it, my last card were a ASUS as well in the same price range.
Dang, I miss my old A-Bit cards, but the only of them I have been able to find lately are from that crappy Chinese factory they bought cheaply a while ago.
Comments
Yes it does, just like any other RAID 0.
Maybe you should expand your question a bit?
I run 2 60 gigs in RAID 0 and my load times are usually 3-4 seconds faster than the rest of my group's who swear they are too expensive for the bang that they give. They are right but I enjoy those 3-4 seconds of a beather.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
Keep in mind you won't have TRIM support in a RAID array consisting of SSDs.
As the above poster said about TRIM. You'll lose TRIM, have RAID 0's faults (if one drive fails everything fails), and you'll need a motherboard with SATA 6 GB/s transfer.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
most new SSDs use internal RAID 0 anyways, and they are close enough to the limitations of SATA II bandwidth as it is, theres little to gain to slap two together, better off getting 1 bigger one.
Sequential reads and writes scale well (often perfectly) with RAID 0. But sequential reads and writes aren't that important, and even hard drives are good at those.
Random writes also scale well with RAID 0. Losing TRIM support due to RAID 0 could make some RAID 0 setups actually perform worse here than a single drive, though. That should really only happen with some older SSDs that aren't very good.
Random reads don't scale with RAID 0. And this is a big deal, because random reads are usually the storage bottleneck. That said, one good SSD offers plenty of random read performance as for it to not be a problem.
There are a handful of SSDs that do use an internal RAID 0, most notably OCZ's Colossus, Z-drive, and RevoDrive. But there aren't really that many of them, and they don't make any sense for most people.
Although from what I understand an SSD will fail bit by bit over time rather than a single crash like a magnetic so you should see it coming and save data.
I worked a bit with raided SSDs. Raid 5 is the best performance and safety combination.
But for some reason have I had huge problems with my raids since I changed from Intel to AMD, something with the AMD drivers messes up with the SSDs and it is a lot of work fixing it again, unlike it was with Intel.
So I can't recommend it with a AMD processor, at least not together with W7.
Hard drives do that, too, but both have very aggressive error correction to usually prevent data corruption. The difference is that in addition to magnetic media slowly losing its charge, a hard drive also has physical moving parts that can abruptly fail, while an SSD does not.
SSDs main advantage is however that they are silent, cold, fast and uses less power.
But it is right that SSDs have less moving parts, I think however that heat is a bigger disadvantage that kills many SATA drives.
Thanks for the replies.
I read about what TRIM means and it looks to be too important to consider RAID 0 for SSD's atm, so I will likely just buy 1 SSD unless things change when I buy a new pc next year.
Its usually never a good idea to RAID SSDs. Not only is their the trim problem, there is also the lifespan problem.
It's not that SSDs have fewer moving parts. It's that they have no moving parts. Whether this matters depends on what you're doing with it. In a desktop, the main advantage of no moving parts is silence. In a laptop, the jostling around (especially if you drop the laptop) can be a much bigger problem for moving parts.
But yes, the speed is the main advantage for an SSD in a desktop, followed perhaps by the silence. In laptops, the low power draw, low heat output, and physical durability matter, too.
Hard drives actually aren't bothered by moderate heat the way that a lot of other components are. Hard drives often work best at significantly above room temperature, as the extra heat helps with lubrication for the rotating platters. Obviously, you don't want hard drives to get too hot, but they don't put out enough heat themselves to get too hot. The only way they get too hot is if you're blowing hot air from other parts at the hard drive or go out of your way to insulate them.
0 is less than a few but I expressed myself somewhat clumsily.
But heat can kill harddrives, Maxtor are pretty famous for doing that if you put them too close to eachother, I killed one that way myself even if it was 10 years ago. I don't think it is possible for a single harddrive to kill itself with heat but several put very close together can die. And as I said, this is mostly common with old Maxtor drives they tend to generate a lot of heat.
I am however more worried about a few drives heat making the other components heat up.
The reason I myself have 4 raided Intel X-25 is speed. there are other bonuses.
SSD do probably have 1 weakness, they are supposed to be rather sensitive to magnetic fields. Can't say I know anyone that had any problem with it however so it is just hearsay, but so few people still have them so it might not be so strange.
I got my SSDs 1 1/2 years ago and never had any problems with them, besides with the raiding together with AMD.
Most likely your problem with a RAID array wasn't an AMD processor, but rather, the RAID controller. Do you know what RAID controller you had in an AMD system? Probably it was part of the chipset, rather than a discrete controller. The latter would have fixed the problem, but also would have been cost++.
That is a possibility. My guess have always been the AMD raid drivers.
The motherboard is a ASUS Crosshair IV (I have a AMD Phenomenah II x6 3,2ghz processor). I am not sure of the raidchip, I have the manual stacked somewhere and for once isn't google that helpful either...
Intel included this really nice program on my old MB but they took a bit too much for a hexa core and I would have been forced to change MB anyways. But the Crosshair IV isn't some cheap crap, it is one of ASUS better cards and one would assume they would have a good raid chip on it, my last card were a ASUS as well in the same price range.
Dang, I miss my old A-Bit cards, but the only of them I have been able to find lately are from that crappy Chinese factory they bought cheaply a while ago.