RAID N00b Question

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EmperorK

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Hi guys. I have good experience in building basic desktop PCs. Simple case of buying a mobo, cpu, HDD and/or SSD, memory, optical drive, maybe a gfx card etc etc, and plugging it all together in a case and then installing Windows.

I understand that the main RAID types are the backup version, or the use both drives to double up speed version, or use 4 drives to combine both versions... and then there are more RAID system types beyond this. Those are are RAID 1, RAID 0 and RAID 10 as far as I am aware.

Can you guys please help a n00b like me in building the speed boost type? I am a little confused. Some sources say I can just throw in a SSD/HDD the same type as the first SSD/HDD (on a new build) and then go into BIOS and somehow tell BIOS that I want to use them in a RAID configuration. Other sources say I need to buy a physical, tangible RAID controller which somehow or another 'makes' my computer a RAID mode machine...

...so what is the real answer? What methods do I use to build what is basically just a basic desktop PC but with a second storage drive, the same type as the first, used in the speed boost type RAID configuration.

..thanks to all of you in advance!
 
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USAFRet

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What are you actually trying to achieve with this RAID setup? It appears 'speed'.

SSD + HDD in RAID 0 (striped) is less than optimal. You're dragging the speed of the SDD down.
SSD + HDD in RAID 1 (mirror) is also bad. Losing the speed boost of the SSD, and reducing the size of the HDD down to whatever the SDD size is.
SSD + SSD in RAID 0 (striped) is no faster than a single SSD of twice the size. ex 128+128 is no faster than a single 256.

Two separate drives. SDD for boot OS and some applications, HDD for mass storage.
Why increase complexity and probability of fail for no real performance increase?
 
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iiTzzDeFuze

iiTzzDeFuze

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SSD will be faster than 2 HDD on RAID 0 but it cost more and has a less storage than an HDD. The question is, what will you be using this drives for? cause not every RAID is suitable for anything, like Important files would be good to put on RAID 1 not on a RAID 0 with a chance of failure and data loss, while os boot time will be good to put on RAID for its speed.
 
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MC_K7

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RAID 0 is the one that gives you performance.

RAID 1 is the one that gives you back-up (mirrors the other drive).

Not sure exactly what you want to do? What type of drives do you plan to use in RAID 0? Because since the coming of SSDs, RAID 0 has become a lot less interesting than it used to... My advise would be to avoid RAID 0 if possible. Or here are some setups you could consider:

- 1 SSD as your main drive (for OS, software and games). And a secondary HDD to store data.

- 1 SSD as your main drive as above. And 2 x HDD in RAID 1 (mirror) to store your data more safely.

For me there's no point in using 2 x HDD in RAID 0 for performance, because just 1 x SSD will give you better performance in most situations. There's no point either in using 2 x SSD in RAID 0 because you probably won't notice any difference compared to using just one. As mentioned in Tom's following article, 2 x SSDs in RAID 0 might give better numbers in benchmarks, but you'll have a hard time noticing the difference in real life scenarios:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

And to answer your other questions about motherboards, most of them have built-in RAID controllers. Getting a separate RAID card will probably give better performance though. Check your motherboard manual and read reviews about its onboard RAID controller (if you got one) to see how well it's doing compared to the rest.
 
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EmperorK

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I was wanting to build 2 SSD in RAID 0... but would I really not notice the difference? For example at work, I have built a few with Samsung 840 pros, and granted, though the boot times are extremely quick, under 10 seconds, there may be, for example, situations where I may be transferring several gig of photos from one location to another, or perhaps even to and from the server... now assuming every computer, including server had RAID 0 SSD configuration as opposed to just one SSD in each, would I not notice the difference? Granted, RAM comes into file transfers a lot, and I accept that stuff like boot time would simply be capped by other hardware anyway, but for situations like that, is it not worth it?
 
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popatim

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Your motherbd probably has built in raid and you would enable it under the sata type setting in the bios.

Speed is raid0 with a minimum of 2 drives. Data is physically split between the drives in the raid which are accessed in parallel for nearly lineral speed increases. IE - 2 drives gives you twice the speed, 3 drives=3xSpeed... The main drawback of raid 0 is with each drive you add to the raid0 you increase the risk of the raid failing. If the raid truly does fail then you lose all your data. Sometimes a drive not designed for operating in a raid environment will drop out of the raid causing it to fail but a reboot usually re-sync's the raid0 and gets you back to a working state again. Theres no guaranty though so performing backups is key to using raids.

If you plan on booting from this raid you will need to reinstall windows and, well, everything. After you set the bios to raid mode and begin to boot up you will be prompted to press a key combo to enter the raid bios. Once in the raid bios add the drives you want to be in the raid, set the parameters (usually just go with defaults), name it, and initialize it. Reboot to the windows install disk and when prompted "Where to install to" you will notice that no disks are listed. Thats because you now need to click the "Load Drivers" link and install the raid drivers. Then you can select the raid and continue installing windows. Please note that enabling raid mode in the bios usually adds about minute to the boot process.

If this raid will not be your boot drive then after setting the sata ports you'll be using to raid mode you can just use the windows utility to setup raid. If after setting the controller to raid mode, you cannot boot up anymore might require you to add the boot drive as a single drive. How you do that varies with the chipset so we'll help you if you actually run into this.

Before you begin make sure you have your important data backed up in a couple of different places *just in case*
 
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USAFRet

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For instance:

realworld_Win8andPhotoshop-after-startup.png
 
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MC_K7

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Didn't you read the article I posted in my first reply? Tom already evaluated your question:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

And if you think that transferring photos is slow at your workplace, it's certainly not because you "only" have 1 SSD in your machine. Your SSD is probably waiting after other stuff, like the network or server being busy. The bottleneck is most likely not on the SSD side, so adding another one would not speed your photo transfer at all. However, on your servers you could put many SSDs in RAID 5 or RAID 10 and it would speed things a lot, although it would cost a lot of money, most enterprises don't have the money to do so.

But for a home machine, I really don't see any interest in putting 2 x SSDs in RAID 0, it would be a waste of money in my book. You'd be better served by putting the money elsewhere, like buy yourself a better CPU or a better graphics card if you play games, or get a better power supply, a nicer monitor, etc...
 
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Sakkura

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Yes it does. It just took a while for Intel to add support for it on their chipsets (first the 7 series, then eventually the 6 series).
 
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USAFRet

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I stand corrected.
Still...not a wise idea, TRIM or no TRIM.
 
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EmperorK

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Apologies, I just read the article. The bottom line seems to be that 90% of applications make little or no difference and in a few odd cases, RAID is in fact slower, but for the transfer of large amounts of data, it can be noticable that a RAID set up is faster... is that correct?
 
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USAFRet

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From the article:
"If you're planning an upgrade and want to know whether to buy a couple of 128 GB drives and put them in RAID 0 or just grab a single 256 GB SSD, for example, the answer still seems clear enough to us: just grab the large drive and use one."
 
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EmperorK

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Yes I saw that, but that seems to be the general analysis as a whole. For argument's sake, (I'm just trying to get clarification), if transferring lots of data was something that was done quite often, then the RAID configuration would be noticably more suitable?
 
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USAFRet

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What specific part of that article, or elsewhere, points you to thinking that RAID0 will be significantly faster for that specific use case?
 
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EmperorK

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Well I am just a n00b, but:

'For enthusiasts, the truth often lies somewhere in between. A majority of the tasks we perform do tend to involve basic operations like opening Web browsers, editing images, composing email, and watching video. But sometimes we do need big performance from our systems: compiling a big project, moving tens of gigabytes of media files, or capturing uncompressed AVIs for FCAT analysis. In those instances, you want responsiveness on demand.

As we expected, twin SSDs in RAID 0 post phenomenal numbers when we hammer them with sequential reads and writes. Twin 256 GB 840 Pros nearly hit 1 GB/s in both disciplines.'

does not directly say it, but I read that as basically saying, '90% of the time, you won't notice any difference, but if you do something hardcore like transfer lots of data, or better yet, transfer lots of data while doing other mid-range tasks, or perhaps render a video etc, then you'll notice it.'

am I wrong to summarise it like that?
 
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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For big sequential transfers, yes, RAID0 would yield a substantial performance boost. But it costs a lot more and isn't going to help in most real-world situations.
Unless you have some particular usage scenario in mind that requires maximum sequential performance, I wouldn't recommend going RAID0.
 
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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DDR3-1600 dual channel can transfer at 25600 MB/s, the DMI will bottleneck it to no more than 2500 MB/s AFAIK (minus anything used by USB ports etc). Two SSDs in RAID0 should not run into a bottleneck. But of course, you don't do sequential transfers to/from RAM for long...
 
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MC_K7

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Exactly what I was going to say!

EmperorK: When you do your big transfer at home, what media are you using? From what are you transferring exactly? The problem is that most other media used will be slower than a SSD. Bluray drive or DVD will be slower, USB keys will be slower, external or internal HDD will be slower, even if you use USB3, transfer over wifi will be slower, etc... Bottom line, pretty much everything is slower than a SSD. The transfer can only go as fast as the weakest component, so you end up with the SSD waiting after other components most of the time, not the other way around.

For instance, even if you have a SSD with over 500mb/s of write speed, if you are transferring from a HDD that is reading at 150mb/s, then the whole transfer cannot go faster than 150mb/s.
 
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