2 x 256GB vs 1 x 512GB in my situation

kemperkipie · Dec 2, 2014

I want to upgrade my SSD from my current Corsair Force 3 240GB. This SSD is just annoying me with it's performance compared to other SATA3 SSD's. I've tried several setups and it turns out the SSD just doesn't deliver the performance.

To upgrade, I want to buy 2 x Samsung 850 Pro 256GB or 1 x Samsung 850 Pro 512GB. I have an Asus Sabertooth Z77 as motherboard, which supports 2 x SATA3 SSD in RAID-0.

I will use the SSD('s) to run my operating system (Windows 8.1 Pro x64) and will install all kinds of programs and games on it. Occasionally I will install a Virtual Machine to either test some things, or use it for my study (I will run important VM's from my ESXi 5.5 server, which has better redundancy like RAID5 and redundant PSU).

The SSD('s) volume will regurally be backed-up to my local server.

I could safely say, that if my setup was to crash, I would not lose important data. However, I do not want to re-install my Windows every month because my RAID keeps crashing.

So far, I guess you would all point me towards the 2 x 256 in RAID-0.
However, I have experience with my laptop's RAID-0 which doesn't really encourage me. In this case, I have 3 x 256GB mSATA EVO's, where the RAID volume regurally broke up. For some reason it kept kicking out 1 disk, which destroyed the RAID-array and didn't let me fix it. It also happened when I set up 2 disks for RAID-0 and left out the one that kept getting kicked out.

On this day, I run my SSD with the 3 SSD's seperate, with the boot-SSD on RAPID-mode. This gives amazing benchmarks scores, but I doubt it is faster than RAID-0 in regular usage. This setup was also an emergency solution, because I needed the laptop for school purposes as well.

TL;DR
I want to buy a new SSD
what should I buy
- 2 x Samsung 850 Pro 256GB in RAID-0
or
- 1 x Samsung 850 Pro 512GB with RAPID-mode

ahnilated · Dec 2, 2014

I wouldn't do SSD's in raid 0, Unless you are loading massive files almost constantly you won't see the benefit. I did it and it has more problems then it is worth imho. I would just get one large SSD and use it.

Hawkeye22 · Dec 2, 2014

I'd go with the one large drive. You may also want to read this article.

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

dgingeri · Dec 2, 2014

I agree with the others here. There really is no performance gain from RAID 0 for SSDs, where the lack of TRIM would actually hurt performance.

However, I can tell you there is a bit of a performance gain when using multiple drives in certain conditions. I run one 256GB 840 Pro drive for my OS, one 500GB 840 EVO for my games, and an old 64GB Intel drive for my temp files.

Moving the temp files off the OS drive gives a significant performance boost during boot, since the IO from those temp files is separated to a different controller, and boosts the life span of the OS drive by significantly reducing the number of writes to the drive.

Moving the games and apps from the OS drive also gives a boost for game performance because the IO for accessing OS files for DirectX and the game files can happen in parallel. With Samsung drives, you can also boost the game loading process by using the Magician software and enabling Rapid mode on the games drive, leaving OS files off the memory cache and leaving more room for game files. The EVO is slower on writes than the Pro, but games won't be doing much writing. The read speed between the two is nearly the same, but the EVO is a lot cheaper per capacity.

I highly advise a similar setup to what I have. After years of research, I think I found the most optimized SSD config for games. Get a 256GB 850 Pro for the OS and a 500GB 840 EVO for games, and then put your temp files on an alternate drive of some kind.

kemperkipie · Dec 6, 2014

dgingeri :

I agree with the others here. There really is no performance gain from RAID 0 for SSDs, where the lack of TRIM would actually hurt performance.

However, I can tell you there is a bit of a performance gain when using multiple drives in certain conditions. I run one 256GB 840 Pro drive for my OS, one 500GB 840 EVO for my games, and an old 64GB Intel drive for my temp files.

Moving the temp files off the OS drive gives a significant performance boost during boot, since the IO from those temp files is separated to a different controller, and boosts the life span of the OS drive by significantly reducing the number of writes to the drive.

Moving the games and apps from the OS drive also gives a boost for game performance because the IO for accessing OS files for DirectX and the game files can happen in parallel. With Samsung drives, you can also boost the game loading process by using the Magician software and enabling Rapid mode on the games drive, leaving OS files off the memory cache and leaving more room for game files. The EVO is slower on writes than the Pro, but games won't be doing much writing. The read speed between the two is nearly the same, but the EVO is a lot cheaper per capacity.

I highly advise a similar setup to what I have. After years of research, I think I found the most optimized SSD config for games. Get a 256GB 850 Pro for the OS and a 500GB 840 EVO for games, and then put your temp files on an alternate drive of some kind.

I think I'm going for 2 x 256GB, but it doesn't have to be RAID-0. However, I could still try RAID-0 anyway, but this setup gives me more possibilities. I could manually split the load over the disks, games on one, OS on the other.

Thanks for the advice

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2 x 256GB vs 1 x 512GB in my situation

kemperkipie

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