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OCZ Vertex 60 x2 RAID 0

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Hello.

I am currently running Windows 7 on a 60 GB OCZ Vertex (OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5"). I now realize that I am running out of disk space on this drive and my plan was always to add a second drive to run in RAID-0 if that happened.

So before I go and purchase another one of these is there anything else I should consider? Will I need to seperately purchase a RAID controller? What steps do I need to take to get this setup? Is it more than the following:

- Completely format the existing 60GB drive (do i need to do this? What tool should I use to do so?)
- Plug the two drives into SATA 0 and SATA 1
- Check the bios and setup RAID 0 through that?
- Set the raid volume to be the default boot device
- install windows 7 to this device


Computer Specs:
- ASUS P6T SE Intel® X58 LGA1366 Mainboard
- Intel i7-920 2.66G 8MB 1366
- Windows 7 Ultimate

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I have two OCZ Vertex 30Gb's in Raid 0. You don't need a seperate raid controller the Intel controller will handle everything. You should go to the OCZ forums and spend a few hours reading. One SSD is handled by Windows 7 perfectly, once they are in Raid you need to maintain them yourself. By default with the latest firmware on your Vertex "Trim" is enabled, in Raid "Trim" doesn't work so you will need to manually do it's job. You might also want to consider a second larger hard drive for storage and make some changes in the Registry so when you install a progam it will install on the regular hard drive, saving your valuable SSD space. YES you need to prepare the drive you have now before installation, if it were me, I would prepare both of them, again you will find all of the guides you need over at the OCZ Forums, it is an excellent source of information and if you go with Raid you will need to be a "regular" there. You want to plug the drives into the lowest numbered SATA ports, they work better and plug them in one after the other. This guide is a good example of what will work, it has instructions for aligning the drives, from what I've read Win 7 handles it perfectly and I would skip it if you aren't comfortable with going through the steps, however it wouldn't hurt. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?...

My computer is similar to yours, Asus P6T, i7 920, two 30GB OCZ Vertex's Raid 0, two 300Gb WD Velicoraptors also in Raid 0 for my secondary drives, then a 1TB third drive as my reliable store everything important stuff drive on...... Much more but to make a point, I'm not sure I would go with two Vertex's in Raid 0 if I were doing it over again, there's a lot of maintance, the performace is great but it will turn your computer into more of a hobby then it is now. Trust me, there is a lot of tweaking you are going to have to do, trust me..... If you like a challenge, enjoy the reading, love the speed, go for it. If you aren't sure then get a second drive, rearrange how you have your programs installed and wait until OCZ comes up with Firmware that will handle Raid 0. If you do go for it, make sure you have the latest Firmware installed in both of the drives BEFORE you start your project.

Has the ASUS P6T SE an ich10r (R is important here)? Then, don't add anything.

If you had to add a Raid controller, rather buy a single bigger SSD instead and sell the older. Or don't Raid them. The controller would add its detection time to the boot process, and two Vertex in Raid probably won't improve the computer. More, you'd need a controller on a port capable of ~500MB/s in each direction, which needs 2 lanes Pci-E 1.0 on one Pci-E 2.0, and this is getting expensive. Raid integrated in the chipset avoids that.

You may also consider Windows' software Raid. No additional hardware needed. Check it for Seven, but at W2k and Xp Pro:
- It can't boot on the Raid
- But it can do everything else
- Uses little Cpu and is fast
- Can configure parts of a disk in Raid (see "dynamic volumes")
- Is really bothering after a crash

Maybe just add the second SSD as another drive (ie. not RAIDed). You're only booting off of one drive. The original drive can likely hold all your boot software. If you load the software that won't fit on the second SSD, it will load as fast as software on the first one.

Is there any advantage to having both drives act as a single drive. The % performance increase with RAID is probably a lot less noticable with SSD than it is with magnetics, and RAID adds it's own overhead. Also, if you don't raid, you can add a bigger SSD, if you think you'll fill up more than another 60GB.
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BigStack said:
Maybe just add the second SSD as another drive (ie. not RAIDed). You're only booting off of one drive. The original drive can likely hold all your boot software. If you load the software that won't fit on the second SSD, it will load as fast as software on the first one.

Is there any advantage to having both drives act as a single drive. The % performance increase with RAID is probably a lot less noticable with SSD than it is with magnetics, and RAID adds it's own overhead. Also, if you don't raid, you can add a bigger SSD, if you think you'll fill up more than another 60GB.



Actually, its quite the opposite. SSD drives don't provide exactly double the performance with each addition, but the RAID shows significant improvement. Most users actually get limited by their on-board RAID controller, so after 3xSSD drives they don't see much peformance gain. Aftermarket contollers help, but ultimate its going to boil down to a rework of the FSB and throughput to the CPU once SSDs really take off.

I got both drives installed as a RAID 0. The performance is incredible. Everything loads instantly. I ran ATTO hard drive benchmarking tool and found I am getting sustained reads of over 400MB/sec

Thanks for your answers.
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