I have run two RAID 10 arrays of SSDs (with hardware controllers) in my main desktop for several years (since 2009). I am trying to decide if I should continue this architecture for my next new machine.
1. One RAID 10 is for the OS, and the other is for data. They are 240GB and 120GB in size respectively. Originally the idea was that the RAID provided uptime for the OS in the event of a disk death, and some performance throughput for OS work. The other RAID was meant to provide mainly performance gains for data being read/written to the OS, and all data is saved there.
2. However, I'm not sure if this logic is necessarily sound. I no longer work with large video files (which I used to), so I'm not sure if any advantage is gained by having two RAID 10 systems like this.
3. The OS RAID 10 still makes sense to me from an uptime standpoint, as if a drive dies, I can power down, replace the drive and go back online immediately. (I also use the superb new Casper 8 to maintain a bootable backup which can boot immediately back into the OS). I can even use a hotswap drive if I don't want to power down (though I'm not sure if I set this up correctly...eek).
4. The RAID 10 for data makes LESS sense to me after years of use, as I'm not sure it brings anything the table for its (extreme) cost. Last time I benchmarked it, I can't remember what it was, but it lagged significantly behind the OS RAID (I was told it was the different RAID controllers and the different SSDs - fair enough).
5. On top of ALL of this - the RAID Controller card runs software always in the background to perform then needed operations to read/write from the RAID. This uses CPU cycles, and tends to create a lot of system lag because I have a lot of background data--sync going on between the OS and the data RAID, so it's constantly reading/writing.
6. The Data RAID 10 (as one would hope) does read/write faster than an independent IDE drive just connected via SATA to the system, though the delta in speed doesn't seem particularly astounding to me, and I'm wondering indeed, whether my overall average performance would simply be better served by having a single Data SSD that is backed up live with another one as a clone (something I do anyway currently).
7. Yes my machine has 13 disk drives attached to it not including external ones.
I'd love to hear some expert opinions on this whole matter - Thanks!
1. One RAID 10 is for the OS, and the other is for data. They are 240GB and 120GB in size respectively. Originally the idea was that the RAID provided uptime for the OS in the event of a disk death, and some performance throughput for OS work. The other RAID was meant to provide mainly performance gains for data being read/written to the OS, and all data is saved there.
2. However, I'm not sure if this logic is necessarily sound. I no longer work with large video files (which I used to), so I'm not sure if any advantage is gained by having two RAID 10 systems like this.
3. The OS RAID 10 still makes sense to me from an uptime standpoint, as if a drive dies, I can power down, replace the drive and go back online immediately. (I also use the superb new Casper 8 to maintain a bootable backup which can boot immediately back into the OS). I can even use a hotswap drive if I don't want to power down (though I'm not sure if I set this up correctly...eek).
4. The RAID 10 for data makes LESS sense to me after years of use, as I'm not sure it brings anything the table for its (extreme) cost. Last time I benchmarked it, I can't remember what it was, but it lagged significantly behind the OS RAID (I was told it was the different RAID controllers and the different SSDs - fair enough).
5. On top of ALL of this - the RAID Controller card runs software always in the background to perform then needed operations to read/write from the RAID. This uses CPU cycles, and tends to create a lot of system lag because I have a lot of background data--sync going on between the OS and the data RAID, so it's constantly reading/writing.
6. The Data RAID 10 (as one would hope) does read/write faster than an independent IDE drive just connected via SATA to the system, though the delta in speed doesn't seem particularly astounding to me, and I'm wondering indeed, whether my overall average performance would simply be better served by having a single Data SSD that is backed up live with another one as a clone (something I do anyway currently).
7. Yes my machine has 13 disk drives attached to it not including external ones.
I'd love to hear some expert opinions on this whole matter - Thanks!