Is it true that SSD's are not good for RAID 1 and RAID 5 and why?

[IT4Hire]

I have ordered the following drives:

Intel 530 Series 240GB 2.5-Inch Internal Solid State Drive (Reseller Kit) SSDSC2BW240A4K5
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DTPYT78/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DTPYT78&linkCode=as2&tag=ourworlente0d-20

I was considering buying more of the one above for my RAID 5 Storage Raid (They seem to be a great deal with a great warranty (5 Years) and using the two below as my OS Partition RAID 1 Mirror:

&

Intel 530 240GB 2.5-Inch Internal Solid State Drive (Drive only) SSDSC2BW240A401
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DTPYSEM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DTPYSEM&linkCode=as2&tag=ourworlente0d-20

I have heard that SSD's are not performing well in RAID due to something called TRIM? I know little about this and am looking to expand my knowledge on this and pick the best option moving forward for my new system. I am hoping I have not made a mistake so far.

Below is the System Board I have purchased:

Asus ATX DDR3 1600 LGA 1150 Motherboard Z87-DELUXE/QUAD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FE71R3I/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FE71R3I&linkCode=as2&tag=ourworlente0d-20

Thank you in advance for any knowledge, advice and experience that you can offer....

Here is another one of my posts about this...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2053050/raid-raid-ssd-asus-z87-deluxe-quad.html

Thank you,

Dave
IT.4.Hire@Gmail.com

 

[Szyrs]

I have to ask why you would want to do either of those things? SSDs are far more reliable than platter drives and so RAID1 on your OS would be a waste of a perfectly good SSD. Given that you're probably not in the habit of burning money to keep yourself warm, I can't recommend that you waste your money on that. Many people use two SSDs in RAID0 because of the high speeds it offers and the improved reliability of SSDs means improved reliability of RAID0 by using such drives. It's still an expensive way to do things, given the speeds of a single SSD. It's a luxury/bragging thing.

To then use SSDs in RAID5 is even more of a waste in my opinion as you are losing yet another SSD for no good reason. You've also chosen a quite expensive product to waste. You could get a single 500GB SSD from Samsung or someone else for much the same price (cheaper in some cases) and you wouldn't be scraping the barrel at all for quality. You can get a 1TB EVO drive from Samsung for not much more that $500 that uses the slightly more fragile TLC NAND technology but it is still vastly more reliable than a spindle drive (let alone several in an array). If the TLC is a serious concern for you then the MLC Pro range are not a great deal more expensive (don't think they go above 750GB though). Of course there are competitors for these drives and I can also recommend the Crucial SSDs.

In answer to your actual question, TRIM is currently not supported in RAID and it is highly recommended to prolong the life of your SSD. If you wanted to get an enterprise class PCIE SSD, they tend to be a number of smaller SSDs sandwiched together in a RAID array but they come with their own garbage removal commands inbuilt, which is what TRIM is. If you have a RAID array on your motherboard (and so have SATA mode set to RAID) then any drive connected to the motherboard that is not a part of a RAID array will revert to AHCI mode, which does support the TRIM function.

RAID is not a data protecting function, it offers redundancy against hardware failure. SSDs are vastly more reliable than platter disk drives, as they contain no moving parts (note your 5yr warranty). Hardware failure in the drive is still possible but it's not really a concern. It was with the first wave of SSDs but those controllers aren't used any more and the technology in general has become greatly improved. The TRIM function is one such improvement. If you really have that much money to throw away, I need a new car and am open to donations...