Solid State or SAS

[andrubruer]

I have already received loads of help on another forum discussing cases and the right one for the job. Now I'm second guessing my storage setup for my gaming rig that I'm about to begin purchasing pieces for and build. I originally wanted to go with the 60GB OCZ Agility EX series SLC solid state disk, as price is really not an issue, but speed and reliability are. For around the same price I can get 2 15,000 RPM Fujitsu SAS 73.5GB drives and run a RAID 0. I do realize that I'll have to get an SAS controller card as well...but I was just wanting some opinions on which setup may yield better performance and reliability. Thanks ahead for any and all replies.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The SSD is the faster of the two but, to my mind, it's real hard to justify buying any serious amount of storage with either. RAID just shows too little benefit in gaming, though it does get you to your desktop faster when booting. SSD has obvious benefits but ..... I can't forget how Intel just abandoned early adopters of the G1 series and just left em hanging. Trim is still a bit rough tho fixes are "promised".

My recommendation to my son was in building hsi rig was go w/ a single decent and quiet HD for now and grab an SSD in 6 months......by then, they should be faster, free of the bugs, new firmware, more competition and lower prices.

 

[andrubruer]

You're probably right. I think what I'm going to do is ditch the SAS idea, go with a WD Raptor and wait for the SSD market to become more competitive so we, the consumer, get the benefit. Thanks for the reply.

 

[sminlal]

In your first post you said "price is not really an issue", and in your second post you said "...wait for the SSD market to become more competitive..." - that seems a bit contradictory to me...

SSDs are NOT going to be competitive with hard drives on a $/GB basis any time soon (ie, not in the next 5-10 years). Both technologies are packing more data in every year for about the same price as last year. HDDs are way ahead, and they'll stay way ahead for quite some time.

If you want the performance, you're going to have to resign yourself to buying a relatively small SSD for the most-often-accessed files, and a larger HDD for bulk storage.

 

[andrubruer]

Price isn't an issue...but if something drops in price a little bit down the line...would you not wait a little longer? I realize they will still be expensive, so when buying a solid state drive, price really can't be an issue, but I'm sure they'll come down a tad in price in time. Thanks for your reply.

 

[r_manic]

Well, unless someone finds a way to suddenly make SSDs real cheap, there will always be something better, at a price just beyond your budget. If price isn't an issue, get what you really want now. Just make sure to spend on an established platform, to avoid Jack's left-in-the-cold scenario.