Two 250GB SSDs or one 500GB SSD?

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CTrap33

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Apr 16, 2013
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Considering difference between brands a wash, is it better to buy two SSDs and run them in RAID or just one bigger capacity drive?

Normally, I would think to go with the bigger drive but there are some good deals to be had currently with the 250GB drives (around $70-80 per with rebates) but not too many with 500GB drives (most around $180-$200+).

I understand that RAID really only has noticeable benefits when queuing up multiple read/writes, but my question is, how is capacity shared?

So if I have two 250GB drives in RAID, do I essentially have 500GB or is more like two 250GB partitions? I have a custom build with a 4770k used for gaming and autocad, but my single 250GB drive is almost full with games.... so do you recommend getting another 250GB or selling the one I have and getting a 500GB...

Also, do the SSDs need to be the same make/model/capacity to run in raid?

THanks alot.
 
Solution
techgeek
If you set them up in RAID 0 (striped), you will have one volume of 500GB. If you set them up in RAID 1 (mirrored) you will have one volume of 250GB. The benefits to RAID 0 is speed of course, the downside is if one drive dies your data is gone. RAID 1 has the advantage of redundancy, so if a drive fails, your data is still intact and can pop in another drive and the controlller / software will rebuild the array. The downside to RAID 1 is that you get half the storage space.

With any RAID, you'll have less problems if the drives are exactly the same.

My recommendation is to get the larger drive. Sure having a RAID 0 SSD setup will be insanely fast, but since SSD's by themselves are already fast, I'm not sure how much you'd notice...
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techgeek

techgeek

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If you set them up in RAID 0 (striped), you will have one volume of 500GB. If you set them up in RAID 1 (mirrored) you will have one volume of 250GB. The benefits to RAID 0 is speed of course, the downside is if one drive dies your data is gone. RAID 1 has the advantage of redundancy, so if a drive fails, your data is still intact and can pop in another drive and the controlller / software will rebuild the array. The downside to RAID 1 is that you get half the storage space.

With any RAID, you'll have less problems if the drives are exactly the same.

My recommendation is to get the larger drive. Sure having a RAID 0 SSD setup will be insanely fast, but since SSD's by themselves are already fast, I'm not sure how much you'd notice it. Also the chances for problems increases with RAID.
 
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CTrap33

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Apr 16, 2013
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Thanks, this is all very good information.
So I forgot to mention that I also have a 1TB HDD, a caviar blue, that holds my music and other files. I could easily back up to that daily/weekly in case I lose an SSD. Really, the price on these 250GB are drawing me in. I can get each for $80. I have no idea why the larger drives aren't the same or even cheaper per gig. All signs are pointing to grabbing two 250GB and running them in RAID 0 that way I'll have 500GB which should hold all my games and any other applications easily for the next few years.
 
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