SSD Help

[zyanox]

Hello,

I would like some suggestions at buying (an) ssd(s). I'm looking for the fastest way to get maximum performance of the price around the c300.

I am thinking of buying an Crucial C300 64gb. But I would like to know for a future purchase if, there is an Sata 3 controller card that I can plug in to a PCI x4 or more slot. There is the Asus U3S6 but that does not support RAID. There is also an RocketRaid 620 or something but that is PCI x1, so not full bandwidth, but it supports RAID, with a theoratical maximum of 500mb/s..

Or would you go for an 2x OCZ Vertex 2 and stay with SATA 2? Do you get maximum speed for that? Sata 2 is like 300 mb/s per slot or per mobo?

Or any other suggestions?

Thanks!

Georges

EDIT: Thought I'd post my rig with it:

Processor:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.6GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600
Hard Drive: 320 x 2 Samsung Spinpoint (RAID0)
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5850
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2
Computer Case: NZXT Tempest

 

[foscooter]

SATA II is 3.0Gbps (300MBps) PER SLOT.

People rave about the Crucial C300, but if you don't have a SATA III port, ditch the idea. Keep it simple. And cheaper.

Go for the OCZ Vertex 2 in SATA II. You could RAID them, althought I wouldn't. Just get a single larger drive, like OCZ Vertex 2 60GB. 60GB should be fine for the OS and Programs. I only use 22+GB on my 80GB available.

Set up of SSDs in RAID gets complicated, getting around the lack of TRIM support for SSDs part of/in a RAID array.

 

[mark_k]

I was thinking about getting SATA III MOBO to suport the new SATA III SSD comming out soon but then I reliezed that I am upgrading from using a HHD to SATA II SSD so that in its self will be a very large improvement.

I will use that for another year and wait for SATA 4 to come out before upgrading my MOBO.

 

[zyanox]

Thanks for your reply's. What I meant in my first post was that an idea was to put 2x vertex 1 in RAID, not vertex 2. For just 20 euro's more I can buy 2 vertex's 30gb instead of one Vertex 2.

http://www.overclock.net/9983989-post144.html I would get a major performance increase for just 20 euro's. Thats really do able for me .

I don't know if you can get a faster ssd for the same price?

Thanks

 

[adampower]

The trouble is they just don't scale properly in RAID. You're almost always better off with the larger drive. Essentially they have RAIDed them for you, internally. Not only that but the vertex2 is a quantum leap over the vertex 1 imho.

 

[geofelt]

The larger the SSD, the more nand chips it contains. For performance, those chips can be read concurrently. Sort of an internal raid-0. The value of a SSD is not the sequential speeds, but the random reads and writes. That is what the OS does most of.

I suggest you leep looking at the marketplace or you will suffer buyer's remorse. 25nm based gen 3 SSD's are coming, likely by fall. They will be bigger, faster, and cheaper. The performance gains should be impressive regardless of being attached to sata 2 or 3.

A raid-0 attachment will show impressive synthetic sequential benchmark numbers, but you will feel little actual difference in every day usage. I tried it.

 

[zyanox]

I decided to wait till the new ones come out, I'm buying an slate in a few months I think so, and after that the new ssd's will be out.

Thanks for your answers!

 

[zyanox]

Best answer selected by zyanox.