Single SSD vs 2 HDDs in RAID 0

[jamesyboy]

Im currently looking at buying new hard drives. I currently have a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar (dont laugh...it actually performs close to the spinpoint in most cases that ive personally seen. i bought it because my microcenter was out of anything good.) and im looking to upgrade to something more powerful.

My question is this:

A single 80gb intel-m ssd vs RAID0 HDDs for my os disk (gonna use my 1tb hitachi for data). Which is better....

If you had 250-300 dollars to spend on a boot drive, but size is a reasonable variable in the equation, what would you do?

And

I dont like the idea of using RAID on 2 small SSDs as ive heard you lose TRIM (is it essential?)

Which RAID mode has striping and redundency built in? if i have 3 500gb hard drives in the redundency/striping mode, does it only show up as 1tb? (this is the way i understand it)

 

[sub mesa]

A single 80GB SSD is better than a thousand 20.000rpm HDDs in RAID0, for the function of the system drive.

With 300 dollars the best Intel SSD you can buy; two X25-V or one X25-M.

Support for TRIM is not essential if you reserve space for the SSD to use internally (i.e. only partition 70GB on a 80GB SSD).

You don't want to use RAID5 on an SSD. You don't want to use RAID at all unless you understand its fundamentals, please have a look on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

 

[sminlal]

I agree with sub mesa.

For an OS drive, what you're typically looking for is faster boot and application load times. Those are highly dependent on the access time of the drive (how long it takes to find files), and SSDs have access times that are about 100X faster than hard drives.

RAID doesn't help because while it can improve transfer rates, it really can't put a dent in the long access times required by a hard drive.

For the best performance at the least cost your optimum strategy is to buy a relatively small SSD to hold the OS and your applications (at least the ones you use the most), and a larger HDD to hold your data.

If you're thinking about buying extra disks to create a RAID set, your first consideration for those extra disks should be to use them for external backup. RAID only protects against drive failure, not against lots of other risks to your data.

 

[jamesyboy]

So you would suggest getting a SSD using my 1TB for data, and using an External for backup?

 

[jamesyboy]

Is it possible to boot from my ssd and install programs onto my data drive? Programs like office: will they run if they are installed on a drive that isnt the boot/os drive?

 

[sminlal]

> So you would suggest getting a SSD using my 1TB for data, and using an External for backup?

Sounds like an good plan to me.


> Is it possible to boot from my ssd and install programs onto my data drive?

You can do this with most programs - it's only a few errant ones that assume they're installed on the OS drive.

 

[jamesyboy]

Best answer selected by jamesyboy.

 

[andrew149]

SSD all the way!