RAID 1 PCIe M.2 NVMe Card?

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shadragon

shadragon

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Howdy,

I'm looking ahead for when the AMD Zen chips come out later this year and am building up a gaming PC list of components to buy when that happens.

One part I'm almost certain I'll be getting is a NVMe M.2 SSD for the OS, probably a Samsung 950 512 GB. If at all possible, I'd like to run this RAID 1 with another 950, but don't want to tie up two PCIe slots.

Does anyone know of a PCIe host card that can mount 2 x NVMe SSD's and support RAID 1 operation between them?

Cheers.

Shad.
 
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RAID 1 is mirroring not striping like RAID 0. It does not provide faster reads one bit. Also the two drives are using the same PCIe lanes.

Second you give that card a lot of credit thinking it will allow the 2 drives to bypass the system bus and just write back and forth to eachother. Unless you got one with an onboard raid controller it needs to pass through the system bus, you are effectively halving the lanes that go to each drive by using 2 in 1 PCIe card.

You would need a card with onboard RAID, of which I've only seen one that claims it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1JM2CZ0247&cm_re=m.2_pcie_adapter-_-9SIA1JM2CZ0247-_-Product

However looking closely at the specs I am not sure if it is even onboard...
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Rogue Leader

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The problem with this is you will be cutting the speed of the drives in half (m.2 is still limited to 4 pcie lanes), so in your attempt to mirror them you will lose performance.

On top of that you're using RAID1 in the case of a failure but its a tremendous waste of money. The failure rate on these things is next to 0, you are better off just backing up your data regularly, it will be a boatload cheaper and you won't lose performance.
 
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shadragon

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Huh? Numerous errors here.

RAID 1 has slower writes, but typically faster reads. The only thing you lose half of, is capacity for using the two drives to store the same data as one.

Putting two M.2 SSD on the same interface card lets them transfer data between themselves at the speed of the internal card bus which would be independent of the PCIe slot and much faster than PCIe. Yes, the 950 is limited to x4. On a PCIe v3 slot with an M.2, that's 2.5 GB/s throughput. I can live with that.

When failure rates hit 0, I'll stop using RAID. Until then "close to 0" is still a chance of failure.

I'll do a separate backup as well and I'll worry about the costs.

 
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Rogue Leader

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RAID 1 is mirroring not striping like RAID 0. It does not provide faster reads one bit. Also the two drives are using the same PCIe lanes.

Second you give that card a lot of credit thinking it will allow the 2 drives to bypass the system bus and just write back and forth to eachother. Unless you got one with an onboard raid controller it needs to pass through the system bus, you are effectively halving the lanes that go to each drive by using 2 in 1 PCIe card.

You would need a card with onboard RAID, of which I've only seen one that claims it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1JM2CZ0247&cm_re=m.2_pcie_adapter-_-9SIA1JM2CZ0247-_-Product

However looking closely at the specs I am not sure if it is even onboard or that its just saying it supports it working through the system bus.

So no, there aren't any errors, IMO a fool and his money are soon parted, this will work likely using any PCIe adapter but not as well as you would like, and its a complete waste of money.
 
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marko55

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If Zen actually pulls off providing 64 lanes of PCIe then I wouldn't sweat eating up two slots as mobo manufacturers will probably be putting out boards with a lot of slots. I wouldn't worry about playing with adapter cards like you're referring to, but who knows, they may start coming out. I wouldn't use em anyway. Use m.2-to-PCIe adapter cards all day though. I've used 10+ of those and they work great.

I agree with the thinking of simply backing up your data on your OS SSD to cheap mass storage, either local to your machine (maybe on a RAID of spin disks) or to a NAZ. Much better investment IMO than eating the cost of a 2nd NVMe SSD, at least until the price of those comes WAY down.
 
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USAFRet

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I have my C drive (250GB SSD) backed up every night at 2AM.
All automated, takes 15 mins, writing to a 3TB WD Green.

I can go back to any image in the last two weeks.
Takes maybe 20 mins to reconstitute

With a viable actual backup, I see little need for a RAID 1.
 
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shadragon

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Hey Marko,

I'm pretty sure there are no cards out there as described. I did a comprehensive check before posting. There are RAID controller cards for SATA boards, but I'd be limiting myself there. I just wanted to reach out to the community and double check. Given the way I'm setting up my new PC (and the fact I have no idea what PCIe specs - type and number - the ASUS AM4 mobo to run Zen will even have at this point) I'm just trying to reduce the footprint of any install.

Backups will be part of my routine as well. Even if I lose a 950 I can still boot my PC in degraded mode and access my system. Even, if I can't, then I have HD snapshots at regular intervals. YMMV. Cheers.





 
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pete.3nt

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I'm here, of course, to find out about mirroring M.2 storage. I'll still be looking, might have to settle for regular SSD. Some useful comments:

In 2011, I built my current system (i-5 2500K), and it took me a year to marshall the time to get it into service. If I lost my boot disk, I would need either fool-proof bare metal restore, or a mirror. Both is clearly better. I have lost disks in the past, including an SSD that was DOA in 2011, and mirroring has saved my butt. In 2011, I had 42 applications to install or replace, and configure; it must be more, now. The value of the mirror is to protect the system configuration, which is far more valuable TO ME than the cost of a second SSD.

My 4TB data disk is also mirrored, to avoid having to download all that from IDrive. I also take local backups of everything, including a disk image of the boot drive. I must not lose my wife's terabyte of photos. (I won't trust Google Photo all on its own.)

USAFRet, a nightly backup to a second internal (or continually attached) disk is a nice thing, but it probably won't let you do a bare metal restore, should your boot disk fail. If having to reinstall is easy for you, OK.

HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: Neither the internal backup nor a mirror will help if your system gets infected, catches on fire, or whatever. You also need off-site backup. These days, that generally means a cloud solution such as IDrive. Best is to also have a disk image from which you could rebuild the boot disk, which IDrive will do.

Not everybody needs mirrored disks, but some do. It's typically a matter of your tolerance for configuration loss or temporary data loss.
 
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USAFRet

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Actually, it does.
I can recreate, on a brand new blank drive, the system as it was this morning at 1AM.
Or any day in the last 2 weeks.
Bare metal, no reinstall needed. No RAID needed.

Of course, this thread is two years old now, and I'm probably the only one reading this.

Read here for a comprehensive backup situation:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html
 
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macdiva

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Ok so this is my question: I already have a 2T external hdd in an enclosure with cooling, for major backups. I have a WD blue 1 T hdd as my main drive inside my computer. I’m going to be moving to an SSD probably SATA for software but I have a lot of photos and video (I do photo restoration). What do you think about a 2 hdd configuration inside the computer with raid1 just for redundancy?
 
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Rogue Leader

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This thread is almost old enough to go to Pre-school. Start your own threads please.

CLOSED
 
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