RAID, TRIM, and SSD's

[Furtwangler]

So I aquired two SSD's last year, 128gb each. I thought it would be cool to raid them (I'm currently using my motherboards onboard controller and they are in Raid 1. (I want to cover my ass if they fail).

So a few questions on this:
1) am I retarded? I feel like Raid1 is the best scenario for redundancy, they are fast enough as it is.
2) Is TRIM really working? It's enabled in windows, and I updated to Intel's Rapid Storage Technology driver, but my motherboard (MSI P55-GD55) is still showing the old Intel® Matrix Storage Manager in the BIOS when I look at the drive configuration.

Is there a way for me to flash that to the rapid storage driver? or does it not matter?

I have the drives set to RAID mode on the motherboard as well, not ACHPI since I couldn't create the RAID1 volume on the former.

<3

[Jojimbo]

What are you storing on your SSDs? If it's just OS and a few games then it's not really worth the lose in performance and extra cost from using RAID 1 (if it fails w/o RAID then you would still have access to your HDD, provided you didn't software raid it in windows).

And afaik RST is a windows based driver that improves performance, while MSM would be the MB BIOS/controller driver that controlls the actual RAID volume (which would be based on your hardware and current BIOS ver, it's recommended you don't upgrade bios unless something doesn't work though). Even so, according wiki TRIM still isn't supported while the SSD itself is part of a RAID (it can be in raid mode in bios, so you can could have RAIDed HDDs + single SSD). While the SSD is in a RAID your only other option is garbage collection, which is supported solely within the SSD itself (most modern SSD do this pretty well I think, although it's not as good as TRIM).

[rezn0r]

i'd say wipe the system and reinstall on a RAID0 with 2 SSDs

[SephYuyX]

Why people use RAID on personal PCs is beyond me.

RAID0? Waste of extra space for no noticable difference in performace (especially with SSDs), higher fail rate, and more effort to backup.
RAID1? Better backup option, but slower, duplexing costs extra.


Your situation?
1 SSD for OS
1 SSD for Data
1 HDD for backups.

Once a month (or whatever) you take all of your SSD data and whatever you want from OS, and drag it over to the HDD as your backup.

[Isiolia]

There are performance differences with RAID0...just in throughput, not access speed, and access speed is what really makes SSDs attractive in the first place. RAID1 makes little sense for something that isn't mission-critical. Just run a backup script. Makes zero sense to do with SSDs at any rate due to the cost per GB.

As mentioned too, RAID volumes do not support TRIM. Good enough reason, IMO, to not just do RAID because it's there.

Usage would depend on how much data you have I guess. One for OS/apps, second for games (if applicable), or maybe certain types of data. Personally, I've not had trouble with OS/apps/documents on a single 120GB - games are on a HDD though.

[Arkanna]

One thing though: new SandForce-2281 based SSD's tout RAID support as a feature, and I remember reading a rumor saying that TRIM commands would soon be able to be passed through RAID drivers. Perhaps that's become a reality at this point?

[SephYuyX]

RAID support is in the near future, yes, else they will never break in to the business environment, but the cost will need to come down too.

Seperatly.
NetApp Filers with SSDs are hot stuff, but damn theyre expensive.

[Furtwangler]

At this point I may just have one for OS/Documents and one for everything else that isn't like movies etc. The point was that supposedly with intels new raid drivers, trim works. I guess there isn't too much of a point as long as I backup, which I was doing when I had them in raid0, and figured raid1 would just take care of for me.

[Arkanna]

At this point I may just have one for OS/Documents and one for everything else that isn't like movies etc. The point was that supposedly with intels new raid drivers, trim works. I guess there isn't too much of a point as long as I backup, which I was doing when I had them in raid0, and figured raid1 would just take care of for me.

That's a common misconception that I hear all the time. RAID 1 is *not* a substitute for a real backup. All RAID does is protect you from a drive failure. If you pick up a virus and it destroys your data, your RAID controller will duplicate that to the second drive just like everything else.

[Furtwangler]

That's a common misconception that I hear all the time. RAID 1 is *not* a substitute for a real backup. All RAID does is protect you from a drive failure. If you pick up a virus and it destroys your data, your RAID controller will duplicate that to the second drive just like everything else.

No I understand that. I was doing it because of all the hubub I've heard regarding SSD drives failing more than normal drives. This was purely from a hardware standpoint. I understand that data integrity wise there is no benefit.

[Xaijin]

Why people use RAID on personal PCs is beyond me.

RAID0? Waste of extra space for no noticable difference in performace (especially with SSDs), higher fail rate, and more effort to backup.
RAID1? Better backup option, but slower, duplexing costs extra.


Your situation?
1 SSD for OS
1 SSD for Data
1 HDD for backups.

Once a month (or whatever) you take all of your SSD data and whatever you want from OS, and drag it over to the HDD as your backup.

There are plenty of performance benefits to using raid for SSDs.
http://hardwareoverclock.com/speiche...alDiskMark.png

Only thing is the lack of TRIM support in raid.

Currently, your only option for TRIM on raid is to image your raid, break the raid, and then have TRIM do its thing. Re-enable raid, and then re-image.

[xopher]

Your situation?
1 SSD for OS
1 SSD for Data
1 HDD for backups.

More like 1SSD for OS, sell the other SSD and get some terabyte drives for data and backups.

[Boyiee]

I run my 2 SSD's in Raid0... Got OS apps and my 2 primary games installed on there. Barely enough room for all that, but just enough. I also have a 640gb 7200rpm for music/videos/bullshit programs etc, and a 150gb 10k rpm drive for steam and any other games (which is full).

Love the setup, couldn't be happier. Haven't had a single problem. I use a steam app that allows me to junction games around in a snap if I want to move one onto the SSD or off, works great. Had insane rebates on the SSD's when I got them, think they were 50$ off.

The 640gb drive I maybe have 200gb used on... I just don't store much stuff. I also have a unopened 640gb in my closet incase I ever need it. The best part about SSD's is reformating. I'm a reformat whore. If anything starts running slower, or acting weird; boom reformatted. Everything is reinstalled so fast on SSD's it is incredible.

[Purrrfect]

I'm a reformat whore. If anything starts running slower, or acting weird; boom reformatted. Everything is reinstalled so fast on SSD's it is incredible.

/guilty ;;

Also, I'm interested in this app for moving steam games... I've been manually copying to/from the steamapps\common folder.

[Jojimbo]

Steam Mover is the app he is using I presume. It automatically moves the game folder and creates a Junction Point for it. Some games cannot be moved (I think TF2 was an example) because they don't have their own subdirectory.

[rezn0r]

mklink /J ffxi D:\games\steam\ffxi

does the same thing, for example, in case anyone wanted to know

put quotes around games/paths that have spaces in them