SATA 300 & 600 in conjunction with Intel Smart Response

[CurseUppl]

Hey guys,

It's difficult to Google my question because it yields so many unrelated results, so here it is:

I'm getting an Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z RoG, with the Z68 chipset and Intel Smart Response Technology. Right, so the mobo is capable of 4x SATA 300 in RAID and 2x SATA 600 in RAID.

What I want to do is stick 4 500 GB HDDs in RAID 0 on the SATA 300 line. Logically, this should give me quadruple read/write speed.

But I also want to utilise SRT by using a SATA 600 capable 60 GB SSD. So, my question is, can I stick the SSD on the SATA 600 line and use it in conjunction with the SATA 300 HDDs as a cache? It would seem rather silly if I couldn't, as using an SSD on a SATA 300 is wasting its full potential (or so I believe), as well as downgrading my RAID 0 potential to 3 500 GB HDDs and then the 60 GB SSD.

And, if it turns out I can't do what I asked, should I just drop the SSD and use 4 500 GB HDDs in RAID 0 as my primary drive and then forget completely about the SSD and SRT?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Dereck47]

You need 1 SSD & 1 HDD to utilize Intel SRT. The SSD is the cache and the HDD is where the O/S is installed. So, the 2 drives working together will be your "C:" drive.
Connect both drives to the Intel 6Gb/s ports and then follow your motherboard manual instructions on how to create a SRT drive.

Once you get the SRT drive up and running then you can connect the remaining 3 HDDs to the Intel 3Gb/s ports and create a RAID-0 array. Of course if you want a 4 drive array you would have to purchase an additional drive.

 

[CurseUppl]

Thank you for your response. You're basically saying I can't combine 4 SATA 300 drives and a SATA 600 SSD (5 total) into a single drive using SRT.

Do you know if the 4 SATA 300 HDDs in RAID 0 will perform better than the 1 SSD + HDD SRT combo?

 

[Dereck47]

Thank you for your response. You're basically saying I can't combine 4 SATA 300 drives and a SATA 600 SSD (5 total) into a single drive using SRT.

Correct.

Do you know if the 4 SATA 300 HDDs in RAID 0 will perform better than the 1 SSD + HDD SRT combo?

I'm not 100% positive but I pretty sure that the 4 drive RAID-0 would perform better.

 

[Dereck47]

Also, don't forget to have a backup solution in place. All data is lost if any drive fails in a RAID-0 array.

 

[CurseUppl]

Indeed and thank you. I will be having a few HDDs in the TB range as general storage and back up, so your advice will be heeded