Raid or ssd?

[mattsaffell5]

I want the fastest yet most reliable hardrive setup. Should i geta velociraptor with a ssd as cache, two velociraptors in raid 0, two ssd's in raid 0 with trim, or a single ssd. If money is not a concern, which would be the fastest and most reliable?

 

[mattsaffell5]

What would the best setup be for a gaming rig? Two velociraptors on raid 0, one velociraptor and one ssd for cache, two ssd's in raid 0, or one ssd? If money is no concern which would be.the fastest and most reliable?

 

[abbadon_34]

If all you want is speed, then get the SSD. If money is no concern get a big one, or two. If money is really no concern, get a half a dozen raptors in RAID6 on a PCI-E RAID cards.

That said there is a more to HDD vs. SSD than just speed.

edit: This is assuming you have other HDD's for storage

 

[tokencode]

I would go with 1 large SSD. SSDs are an order of magnitude faster than HDDs and RAID 0 doubles (or more if you stripe over more drive) your change of a failure.

 

[mattsaffell5]

As far as ssd's go, can you expect the same lifetine as a conventional hd these days? Years ago when they first became popular they seemed to go out quicker.

 

[mattsaffell5]

Haha, i guess money is a concern to a certain degree, even though atm this is hypothetical. I have a 3 or 4 year old velociraptor and i expect it to go out eventually. I would prefer to upgrade in speed but have never dealt with raid physically (just understand the basics.) I know ssd arent that great in raid without newest chipsets. I basically want to get the best bang for the buck and i dont need tons of hd space. I also have an external for storage.

 

[mattsaffell5]

Honestly ive been waiting a long time to get away from spinning media. Last upgrade ssd's werent there yet. Ive seen some really impressive read speeds, i guess om wondering if there are still major setbacks (aside from price) from buying a ssd as my main drive.

 

[abbadon_34]

Then just get a current generation SSD around 120/128 GB. Make sure to ALWAYS keep ~10% free and use current firmware. The old SSD's had issues, but the newer ones theoretically are on par with a HDD as far as useful life, at least in the warranty period.

edit: No problem using an SSD as your main drive, it's become relatively common. Just know the basic difference in usage/maintence vs. a HDD

 

[kulmnar]

Just get one spacious SSD. SSD raid is flaky and full of problems. Hard drive raid is slower than one SSD. Most reliable SSDs are the Intel 520 MLC series last time I checked. They are pricey though. Stay away from OCZ SSDs.

 

[abbadon_34]

DON'T double post.

 

[mattsaffell5]

I guess thats something I'll have to research. No defragmentation is all i know about. And i would try to keep at least 10% on my regular hd too, so not a big change.

 

[mattsaffell5]

What are the faster ssds that arent pci express and thousands of dollars? Mushkin was one i researched a bit

 

[mattsaffell5]

Also would it be redundant to use a ssd for cache if you have a ssd for a main drive?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

This next topics has been merged by SR-71 Blackbird
■ Best gaming hd setup

 

[RetiredChief]

Raid0 for HDDs made good sense prior to SSD, as HDDs have plenty of space and contained OS, Programs and All files. Infact all my systemsfrom about 1999 on and prior to SSD were based on Raid0.

Raid0 improves sequencial performanc but does nothing for acess time and very little for 4 K random performance (Some improvement if short stroking is used). So while Raid0 did NOT do much for improving boot time and program load times, it did improve working with large file/data structures.

Along comes SSDs. Normally to small (costly) to load 1000s of the larg jpeg/bitmap photos and not going to stick many DVD (one .VOB = 1 gig), or Blueray that one file may be up to 40 gigs. SO the SSDs are normally used for OS + programs, and for Gamers some games. Here, it is the access time and random 4 K performance that is important - So not much to gain by using raid0. Exception would be if large game maps are loaded, But for this one exception not really worth it.
SSDs about 40+ times faster than HDDs. Typical HDDs access time is around 12.6 mSec and raptors probably around 4->9 mSec, SSDs are measured in tenths of a mSec. Random 4K performance for HDDs are terrible compared to an SSD.

Just as RPMs affect HDD performance, Size effects SSDs, That is a larger SSD is faster than it's smaller brother. This means that if you take two smaller SSDs (with their inceased Sequencial performance) will probably perform SLOWER in real life day-to-day usage than the same SSD but twice the size - Reason: The larger SSD will have higher throughput for the 4K ramdon read/writes and this is (again) what is important to a OS + Program drive.

Cashing a HDD with an SSD. Only makes sense if NOT using an SSD for OS + Programs. SRT was developed primarily for thoes that could NOT afford the larger SSD required for OS + Programs. In this case the "cache" primarily held the OS start up files + Most used Programs. Boot Time and program loads ALMOST equaled a SSD. For a storge drive it is very difficault to gauge benifit and would very widely between users.

My Idea for a great system is:
1) a SSD (128 Gig) of OS + Programs
2) a 2nd SSD (I use a 256 gig SSD for this) for A) My most often used data files (I think I can pick better than a software quess (Caching algorthium). B) game maps
3) HDD - What a Large storage vessal does best - Hold my files and used as a Backup for my 2 SSDs

 

[mattsaffell5]

Thanks for all of the info. I guess I'll keep up on ssd's specifically.