Omg wow - so your apps load 5 secs faster...not exactly pwnage imo. :wanker: I have 5x 500GB SATA III HDD's for storage (non raid) and use an older and slower SATA II drive for my OS.....SSD's pwn alright - in benchmark scores. convert that in to RL and we're talking a few seconds difference.. If a few seconds is enuff to make people spend $x$ on SSD then fine, but as for me I'll stick with my lowly HDD's cuz I'm happy as larry..
Same, waiting for this technology to become more mainstream, more reliable and cheaper. I could buy one right now but the cost isn't justified imo, I'd rather spend the cash on another part which will actually boost my FPS and not my load times.
Could use some advice on SSD's. I'm putting together a new system and want to run SSD's. I was thinking of a single 120G for my OS and some apps, maybe a game or two. Or maya put 2 60G's in RAID0. But, for what I've been reading people say that they are still full of bugs. Some in the drives themselves others in the RAID array. Bios problems, driver issues, firmware updates...... are the performance increases worth the potential headaches?
RAID0 could be a headache if you have unstable power lines where you live or when updating the mainboard bios. Except those things i never had any issues with my 2 Intel G2 in RAID0 or even my old Hitachi HDD´s in RAID0. As i bought them i was using RAID0 for a couple of years without any hiccups and i decided to buy 2 80 GB drives and RAID them instead of buying a single 160 GB SSD. I never used TRIM on them and perfomance was always faster than a single 160 GB unit for which i would have paid the same price. Using those Intels almost about 2 years now and no problems.
I'm a newbie when it comes to setting up a RAID array, how would upgrading the BIOS effect the RAID setup? And as far a stable power lines, are you talking about downed lines, brown outs, or just surges( that reset cable boxes for instance)? would the unstable power just reset the system, would it mean loss of data or could it physically harm the SSD? Thanks for the input
Ive gone SSD and will never go back. People dont understand its not the load times. EVERYTHING is faster. EVERYTHING is peppier. If you dont know one then you will never know what your missing. I need to buy one for my laptop now. I ended up selling my raptor for an intel 510 and a seagate 1tb for music and movies. best upgrade ive done in a long long time. not sure why people are still in SSD denial
SSDs are not about space, they are about speed. Best configuration is 120GB or bigger SSD for OS, a few favorite games and software and then having a large HDD for all the rest of data that does not benefit from speed as much(music, movies etc).
I currently have a RAID 0 configuration with 2 250G HD. They´re fast but i also want to jump to the SSD bandwagon when i start a new build. I´m thinking on buying an SSD with 256G and then add another with the same capacity on a RAID 0 setup. Would this be a smart choice? Also, what are the best brands for SSDs? And their reliability on the long run? Do they last as long as mechanical HDs?
Read reviews to see what is best for you and your pocket. Its not possible to know how reliable they are other than user feedback. They havent been out long enough to establish any baselines.
If you update your motherboard BIOS it could mean that there is a BIOS upgrade to the integrated storage controller included in the main BIOS file. Maybe that will bork your RAID configuration and you lose your data on your RAID drives. That is not specific to SSD. It will also happen with normal HDD in RAID. If you have power loss and working on your computer with RAID setup it may result in degrading of your current RAID setup. Using RAID0 you will lose your data. Results of power loss are not predictable. Maybe your RAID0 array will be broken and your data is lost. Maybe you just have to reinitialze the RAID0 setup again and run Windows checkdisk to correct those errors and you can continue to use the RAID0. I have made an automated backup script for my computer that creates a backup of my files once a day on my data HDD. If something happens to my RAID0 i just reinstall Windows and get my backed up data back so that is no big issue for me. However i had to use that backup only 3 times until today. First 2 issues i had was when i updated the firmware of my SSD´s and once as i updated my mainboard BIOS. Intel clearly states that updating the SSD firmware could result in data loss so i did backup my data first. As i updated my mainboard BIOS it came with a new firmware for the ICH10R storage controller and i had to rebuild my RAID0 and lost all the data on it. What i lost in the end was some time to reinstall Windows thanks to that backup. Another option if you have sensitive data on your drives would be to buy 3 SSD´s and do RAID5. That will rebuild itself if data corruption occurs. Even after a power loss you can boot into Windows and continue working with your machine if you are on a RAID5. I tried that with 3 HDD´s once and even as 1 disk was broken i could use the RAID5 and boot Windows but it was very slow. That will depend on what you do with your computer and how much you are willing to spend. Just for a gaming machine RAID0 will be fine. If you have another HDD in your machine then i suggest you just configure your Windows task scheduler to do some daily backup to it and you will not lose a lot to any data at all if your RAID array gets corrupted. You can even cut the time for a reinstall if you use a disk image software like Acronis for example to do a full partition image of your fresh Windows install including Windows updates, drivers and your common apps. Copying a disk image from a backup HDD will be a lot faster than installing all that from the Windows DVD and the internet.
Wow, thanks for the info. I didn't realize that RAID arrays were so fragile. Even with HDD's. I'll come home at least once a month with the cable box flashing because it reset itself due to a power surge. So, looks like the extra speed increase wont be worth the risk. Running a new SSD will give me enough of a boost for now. Thanks again for the info
No, RAID arrays are not necessarily more fragile than JBOD. It's the RAID 0 arrays that always are... What do you mean? Harddisks are more fragile than SSDs are (in fact, the distance between the head and magnetic surface of a harddisk is much smaller than the thickness of a human hair). It's common knowlede SSD storage space is too expensive to entirely eliminate the need for harddisks, though. That's why the combination of both is feasible. One of the best ways (if not THE best way) to deal with the fragility risk issue is RAID 1 of course. However, it's also common knowledge RAID 1 will not protect data against viruses / hackers / user errors / software errors etcetera, so the combination of RAID 1 and backup strategies is also feasible. The combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 (RAID 1+0, a.k.a. RAID 10) tends to get rather expensive but luckily nowadays we've got Windows 7 software RAID that, unlike Windows Vista software RAID, has withstood even the most demanding reliability tests time and again. It IMO is THE best feature in all of Windows 7 because it allows you to mirror your RAID 0 cheaply and hassle-free. Arguably, redundant data is still relatively expensive but then again, you do get the added benefit of duplexing as a side bonus and besides, RAID 0 being more fragile than JBOD does not also mean JBOD is failsafe, by the way... On top of that, Windows 7 software mirroring, even though the feature is supported only by the Professional / Enterprise / Ultimate edition of Windows 7 so it's not really entirely free, can let you decide for yourself where a plex is to be stored (the outermost, faster performing zones of a harddisk versus its innermost, slower performing zones) as well as can let you decide for yourself which portion(s) of your RAID 0 will be mirrored and which one(s) will not. Duplexing not only adds more safety but at the same time also enables you to team up multiple controllers together, for extra performance as well as to give you a bigger total number of ports (read: disks) to work with whenever you've pulled the trigger on building yourself a decent RAID array.
Fragile was a bad choice of words. I thought that a Raid0 with HDD's is more stabile than SSD's, or should I say the newer SSD's with the sf-2200 series drivers. (those being the ones that I'm looking to upgrade to. Or at least I was until I found out they had bugs.) I assumed, wrongly, that all SSD's had these issues. Thus I figured, with an SSD's tendency to fail without warning, that was the reason for the RAID0's fragility. Or tendency to lose all data because it is built for speed without any backup. Basically working without a net so to speak. So the way to go if I really need that extra speed above an SSD's already. Would be to buy 3 SSD's and put them in RAID5 as ATT-USER suggested or a RAID 10. How many drives would I need to do that?
For RAID01/RAID10 you need 4 drives. RAID5 would be better. You can do RAID5 with at least 3 or more drives. If you add more drives to a RAID5 you will gain more speed and redundancy. The ideal amount of drives for RAID5 will be 5. You would have 4 drives for the data and one for hot-spare which will be used to automatically replace a failed data drive. Speed wise RAID5 with 3 drives will be the same as RAID0 or RAID01/RAID10 but you will only have the capacity of 2 SSD/HDD like RAID0. The capacity of 1 drive is lost for storing the parity. But if the RAID5 has to rebuild its data from parity it will be very slow except if you have a real RAID controller in your machine with an I/O processor on it and cache. I had RAID5 with 3 250 GB HDD´s and only the Intel onboard controller. Rebuilding the RAID5 did take about 3 to 5 hours but you could continue using it. However one of the HDD´s i had in the RAID5 was defective so i abandoned RAID5 as that HDD failed and returned to RAID0. I did not try RAID5 with SSD but i think that rebuilding on SSD will be much faster than with HDD and even usage whith one broken drive will be much faster than with HDD RAID5. Even faster with a good RAID controller. Example for a good RAID controller: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131004 For fragility i would say if you have only one SSD that one can fail too and you will lose all your data. So it is really not important if you have RAID0 and lose 1 SSD or if you have a single SSD. Your data would be gone in both cases. If you have RAID0 and 1 SSD fails you will always have one SSD you can reinstall to and continue using it until you get a replacement for the failed one.
Good post, I want to address one point. There is double the chance of drive failure in 2 drive RAID 0 over a single drive.
You are right. And in RAID5 with 3 drives you have triple chance of a failing drive. I think that the chance of 1 drive failing is slim. To have 2 drives failing at the same time is even more slim..... That may be the case if the drives overheat all at the same time or over time at the same amount. Or if you bought drives from a faulty production. Or if you have power surges. Those will affect all electronic devices in your household. With SSD i see that chance is even more slim than with mechanical drives as there are no mechanical parts like bearings or motors that can wear out. Heat also is no issue with SSD´s. Doing RAID on SSD´s is much more relieable than with conventional HDD´s. This also applies of course to the use of a single drive too. Here are some numbers on SSD and HDD failure rates (french site article from December 2010): http://www.hardware.fr/articles/810-6/taux-pannes-composants.html Newer article, same site as above from April 2011 (go back 1 page in the article to see the HDD failure rates): http://www.hardware.fr/articles/831-7/ssd.html You can also find failure numbers for other components in those articles. If you can´t read french use the Google translator. :nerd: I guess i was lucky to go with those Intel G2 SSD´s. LOL
SandForce is severely overrated IMO. The best of the best technology in this regard can be found inside the new Crucial M4 series SSDs.
I've been using SSDs at work for a few years, and I just picked up a set for myself. I went the route of grabbing a few smaller ones instead of a larger one. I basically have a bunch of partitions on 1TB drives, so I'm making each partition its own small SSD. I also got a small ssd dedicated to scratch space (photoshop temp files, etc). It will have way way way more traffic on it than the rest, basically isolating the wear and tear. I just wish I could set the windows registry to that drive too. If you ever log your registry, you'll see that apps are writing to it like CRAZY. Every other exe is hammering it with the most mundane crap like "keyX=3, keyX=3, keyX=3, keyX=3 ... and on and on and on". It's a lot of unnecessary wear and tear on a limited life device - practically enough to make me want to leave the OS on a hard drive. -scheherazade
Yes, that is the chance you take when using RAID0. If this worries you then look at other RAID levels such as RAID0+1,RAID1 RAID5 or others.
