On-Board RAID sufficient?

[iiNrG]

Hi,

I was wondering if I could put 4 256GB SSD's (840 Pro) in RAID0 for 1TB total, using only the on-board RAID controller on my motherboard (I have an ASUS Maximus VI Extreme). Would they be bottlenecked, what would I need to buy if so, and what performance could I expect from 4x Samsung 840 Pro's. Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

Why are you looking to do this? For what purpose is it, and what do you hope to gain?

One SSD Vs. Two In RAID: Which Is Better?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

For regular desktop use, RAID is rarely desired or recommended. With SSDs, even more so.

 

[iiNrG]

I can see that it may be a little overkill to run 4 drives, maybe just 2 512GB's? I can still see some benefit in running 2 drives, even if the performance gain is mediocre. I want 1TB for my SSD's regardless, I think 2x512GB 840 Pro's would be faster than 1x1TB 840 Evo, surely?

 

[USAFRet]

I can see that it may be a little overkill to run 4 drives, maybe just 2 512GB's? I can still see some benefit in running 2 drives, even if the performance gain is mediocre. I want 1TB for my SSD's regardless, I think 2x512GB 840 Pro's would be faster than 1x1TB 840 Evo, surely?

Not 'surely', no.

If you want 1TB of SSD space, just get a 1TB SSD.

 

[leo2kp]

SATA3 supports up to 600mb/s bandwidth per port. I am not sure what the total throughput is capped at, but four drives might saturate the entire subsystem, which isn't a bad thing, but you might not get the full performance from all 4 drives. I would stick with two 512GB drives because you will surely get full performance from those two, and you have half the chance of one of your drives failing and losing all your data. I would expect over 1GB/s sequential read speeds with two drives, but your random 4k will remain the same as a single drive, regardless of how many drives are in your RAID array.

That being said, RAID will not reduce your Windows bootup time, and applications may not open any faster. RAID-0 does slightly increase latency. You will notice a difference in speed when reading larger files, but I don't think you would see an increase or a hit in performance doing anything else.