RAID 0 Array Showing Smaller Size Than Expected?

jb7 · 20 Jun 2013 at 16:37

I have a 500gb and a 250gb Samsung 840 SSD's.

I have created a raid 0 array in my motherboard's bios, however the total size of the array is 465 gb (I've definitely selected raid 0, and not raid 1)

Any ideas? It doesn't seem to be using the second drive....

Thanks!

paintguy · 20 Jun 2013 at 17:45

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if you're using two different sized drives in RAID 0 then you're only ever going to get twice the capacity of the smallest drive, which, after formatting, is roughly what you have.

The RAID is writing half the data to your smaller drive and half to your bigger drive, so only using about half of its capacity. You can't set it up to write 2/3 to one and 1/3 to the other.

jb7 · 20 Jun 2013 at 18:01

paintguy said:
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if you're using two different sized drives in RAID 0 then you're only ever going to get twice the capacity of the smallest drive, which, after formatting, is roughly what you have.

The RAID is writing half the data to your smaller drive and half to your bigger drive, so only using about half of its capacity. You can't set it up to write 2/3 to one and 1/3 to the other.

Ah I see! Thought it worked with any size drive

Oh well, I'll keep the OS on the 500 and games on the 250

Surveyor · 20 Jun 2013 at 19:14

paintguy said:
Forgive me if I'm wrong

You're not wrong

eddyr · 20 Jun 2013 at 20:04

jb7 said:
Ah I see! Thought it worked with any size drive

Oh well, I'll keep the OS on the 500 and games on the 250

For the optimum experience it's typically the OS on the ssd. The much faster random read and low latency make an ssd ideal for the OS. The HDD can be used for less frequently accessed games/media. And the 250GB is large enough for the odd game that may benefit from being installed on the ssd instead.

Rroff · 20 Jun 2013 at 20:08

I don't generally reccomend RAID with SSDs unless you need raw transfer rates as the overheads can reduce one of the biggest advantages of having an SSD - really low access times.

CaptainUnlikely · 21 Jun 2013 at 09:40

eddyr said:
For the optimum experience it's typically the OS on the ssd. The much faster random read and low latency make an ssd ideal for the OS. The HDD can be used for less frequently accessed games/media. And the 250GB is large enough for the odd game that may benefit from being installed on the ssd instead.

He has two SSDs, no HDD involved.

eddyr · 21 Jun 2013 at 10:22

CaptainUnlikely said:
He has two SSDs, no HDD involved.

Ahh, so he does.