Adaptec SSD/SSD Hybrid

[taintisgod]

I have an Adaptec 6805 RAID card currently with all mechanical drives only.

I have yet to take the plunge for an SSD, its pricey and lifespan is an issue. BUT I recently talked to Adaptec and they said they have garbage collection "like trim" in the firmware but they do not support TRIM, also Hybrid SSD option as well... but that doesn't interest me much because the speed I could be getting with just using only SSD's would dwarf the speed of Hybrid -- so if I'm going SSD I'm going full.

The question(s) I have:

1) Is the garbage collection good enough on the adaptec cards to say no to TRIM? How would I find out without taking the plunge myself?

2) Is my card good enough to take advantage and have full speeds with 2 (or more) SSD's in RAID?

3) Any other thoughts on this card at all? (I got it as a gift, so I don't care if you say terrible things about it I didn't buy it!)

Thanks in advance, I await any and all replies.

 

[taintisgod]

no one knows anything about how adaptec's handle SSD's? I'm sure there has to have been some research done on this subject...

I just want to know definitively before I spend that kind of money on SSD's.

anyone?

 

[chesteracorgi]

Putting an SSD in a RAID array has questionable practical application. While mechanical drives as opposed to RAM drives can show improvement in access due to two disks spinning and reading, the bottleneck doesn't exist with SSDs. RAIDing SSDs may provide marginal improvements, however, the bottleneck is not the read/write speed but the interface access. As SSDs are the only devices currently capable of using 6.0 GBps you are probably better off not placing a second device in the way of transmitting their r/w speed (your Antec controller) to the system bus.

It is my educated guess that you would be better off with using naked SSDs vs. using RAIDed SSDs. And, as you have proven trim in the hardware and Windows 7, I think that you expose yourself to a lesser risk of failure.

 

[taintisgod]

Just found out that my adaptec card isnt even compatible with my new mobo (yet) so I will either look for another RAID card or use the intel provided RAID on the mobo with perhaps two 60-64GB SSD's.

Would it be bad for overall performance putting the SSD's with the integrated RAID controller on my mobo? I can't find any hardware RAID cards that aren't a fortune that say they support SSD's well enough.

 

[taintisgod]

Has anyone tried or tested running two SSD's in RAID using integrated RAID (Marvell 88SE9128) Vs. a RAID controller? Is there a big difference or anything I should know?

 

[RetiredChief]

First off and up front - All of My systems prior to SSDs have used raid(0) and that goes back to before SATA - used IDE interface with raid(o). My E6400 used 2 pairs of raid(0) HDD, one for Vista and one pair for XP.

Since swithching to SSDs I have stopped using raid(0). Both of my desktops have 2 SSDs. The newest one (i5-2500k) has a pair of 128 gig Agility III They are configured as a boot drive for OS and programs and the other as a work/scratch disk. With NO plans on raiding them. Laptop has a pair of Curcial M4s configured the same way (don't think it allows for Raid0 anyway).

Raid(0) Only really improves the Sequencial read/writes which is the LEAST important function for a OS plus program disk. It does nothing for access time, nor for the MORE important small file 4K random read/writes. Raid(0) would make a great setup for a DATA disk that is used to work with / Edit Large files such as Movies (DVD = 1 gig file size, and Blu-ray Video files are up to 40 gigs per file), Large spreadsheets, CAD/CAM drawings, and working often with large jepg photos.

A single 120/128 gig SSD performs Better than a single 60/64 gig SSD.

Raid, must rely soley on CG (Has improved), but CG with TRIM is BETTER.

 

[taintisgod]

I have a Gigabyte P67A-UD7

I was thinking of getting a pair of Crucial M4 64GB and putting them in RAID0 as my boot drive.

You're telling me that not putting them in RAID and making one a swap I would get better performance? I do a lot of video conversion with big files and such and a lot of big data file moving, should I still not consider RAID?


Lastly

Raid, must rely soley on CG (Has improved), but CG with TRIM is BETTER.

What does CG mean?


Thanks in advance

 

[RetiredChief]

CG = Garbage Collection.

On performance:
.. Raid0 - Only a SMALL improvement in Boot time and program load.
However as you indicated "I do a lot of video conversion with big files and such and a lot of big data file moving"
.. YES raid0 will improve this over nonRaid0. as I indicated. The question here then becomes of where thes LARGE files reside. You will be limited to 128 Gig - say 30->40 gigs for operating system + programs - Min of 18 gigs (15% of 128 gigs) that you should leave free, Important even more so since no Trim. This leaves you about 70 to 80 gigs free (NOTE that's the way manuf counts space so lop off another 9 gigs for true space). The quest then becomes is this enough space to put these files, don't forget the large amount of writes this will be to the SSD (They say it should be fine as write life cycle is about 10K per cell) - But long term user data is not in yet.

Myself, I'd go with the 128 gig SSD for programs and operating system and Then RAID(0) a pair of good HDDs.
For working with the large files you are not concerned about the Pis^%$ poor acess time and raid(0) sequencials for HDDs, while not as good as SSDs are still prtty good.

 

[taintisgod]

The majority of these big files would be on my storage HD's. 2 2TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache....

If I RAID0 those drives wouldnt I still feel a huge bottleneck between the SSD and those drives when doing operations between them, and also say converting a video on the HDD with a program on the SSD?

Why did you say no TRIM in your response? Why wouldn't I use TRIM?

Finally, what SSD(s) do you recommend particularly?

 

[RetiredChief]

(1) For SSDs you normally set the Bios to ahci, But if you plan on doing a raid array and the SSD is on the same controller then you would select raid. The trim cmd only works if the Controller is set to AHCI or raid and the SSD is NOT a member drive of an array (Raid0 two SSDs and you loss trim and Have to rely on CG.

(2) Raid) will speed up the HDD Sequencial Read/writes by a fair amount (not as fast as a SSD). When editing these large files the random 4 K performance is much less critical.

(3) Currently my favorite is the Curcial M4 (Similar to the intel 510, but cheaper)

Note: even if you raid0 two SSDs and edit large video files that are on a HDD you will still be limited to the speed of the HDD while editing them. SSDs ONLY speed up what is stored on them.