to RAID or not to RAID

[Sandmod]

...that is the question!

Hi Guys, I currently have a OCZ Vertex 4 256GB in a 'hackintosh' that isnt big enough for my needs. I do not know which option is best as i want 300GB on the windows partition and 200GB on the OSX partition. I hear that TRIM does not function correctly with RAID but as i have no experience with RAID i wanted to ask people that know. So i have 3 ideas listed below, the third might be a little harder to put together in my setup as i have limited space, but i am not ruling it out.

RAID0 2 of the OCZ Vertex 4's

-

Run the 2 together normally

-

Run the Vertex as the main drive and buy a bigfoot

Cheers!

 

[JonJ678]

The other option is to put a SSD in the main computer and a pile of hard drives in another one, sharing data across the network. I have two 64 bit windows 7 installs and one of Debian on a 128gb drive with no space problems, because all the vaguely large files are on the network. Perhaps a similar setup would suit you?

 

[Sandmod]

The larger files are game installs, everything else like pictures and documents are on a NAS already. I basically wasn't sure if RAID was the way to get best speed and ability to have partitions just the way I wanted them

 

[CodeMeRight]

...that is the question!

Hi Guys, I currently have a OCZ Vertex 4 256GB in a 'hackintosh' that isnt big enough for my needs. I do not know which option is best as i want 300GB on the windows partition and 200GB on the OSX partition. I hear that TRIM does not function correctly with RAID but as i have no experience with RAID i wanted to ask people that know. So i have 3 ideas listed below, the third might be a little harder to put together in my setup as i have limited space, but i am not ruling it out.

RAID0 2 of the OCZ Vertex 4's

Run the 2 together normally
Run the Vertex as the main drive and buy a bigfoot

Cheers!

It all Depends on which Chip set your running mate..

AMD No TRIM is Not Supported In RAID-0 Yet!!!

But Intel have enabled TRIM on seven and six series chipsets with RAID but not AMD as I mentioned..

So if you have an Intel Chipset on them Series then your lucky.

That Information came from HiVizMan on the Asus ROG Forum as i was just asking the same question more or less. But I have a AMD so I lose lol


Anyway Good Luck Man

 

[RHS]

I use two Crucial M4's in RAID 0 config on an Intel onboard RAID controller and can confirm that TRIM works in Windows 8 (Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI EXTREME mobo)

I use the following setup:

PC
RAID 0 - 2 x 128Gb Crucial M4's for OS
SSD - 256Gb Samsung 840 Pro for games on a separate disk (loads games mighty fast)
HDD - Programs, stuff that only requires slower access

Storage
NAS - RAID5 with hot failover spare for important documents, music, movies etc. Runs on load balanced dual 1Gb NIC's providing fast access and allows streaming.

Backup
3TB Internal HDD drive in USB caddy to backup NAS and PC. (RAID5 is not a backup, ie RAID controller failure)

All this means I have a robust solution in the event anything goes wrong and can recover without suffering data loss.

 

[Sandmod]

It all Depends on which Chip set your running mate..

AMD No TRIM is Not Supported In RAID-0 Yet!!!

But Intel have enabled TRIM on seven and six series chipsets with RAID but not AMD as I mentioned..

So if you have an Intel Chipset on them Series then your lucky.

That Information came from HiVizMan on the Asus ROG Forum as i was just asking the same question more or less. But I have a AMD so I lose lol


Anyway Good Luck Man

I use two Crucial M4's in RAID 0 config on an Intel onboard RAID controller and can confirm that TRIM works in Windows 8 (Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI EXTREME mobo)

I use the following setup:

PC
RAID 0 - 2 x 128Gb Crucial M4's for OS
SSD - 256Gb Samsung 840 Pro for games on a separate disk (loads games mighty fast)
HDD - Programs, stuff that only requires slower access

Storage
NAS - RAID5 with hot failover spare for important documents, music, movies etc. Runs on load balanced dual 1Gb NIC's providing fast access and allows streaming.

Backup
3TB Internal HDD drive in USB caddy to backup NAS and PC. (RAID5 is not a backup, ie RAID controller failure)

All this means I have a robust solution in the event anything goes wrong and can recover without suffering data loss.

Great comments guys, thanks a bunch

I have an ivybridge z77 system so I'm assuming all is good to take the plunge then? So the next question is really, is it worth getting the exact same drive or another similar spec drive will be good enough? Is there anything else I should know about RAID0? Windows and OSX boots very fast at present but I heard that RAID actually slows it? Not that it really makes much of a difference lol

But thanks for the great advice

 

[CodeMeRight]

Great comments guys, thanks a bunch

I have an ivybridge z77 system so I'm assuming all is good to take the plunge then? So the next question is really, is it worth getting the exact same drive or another similar spec drive will be good enough? Is there anything else I should know about RAID0? Windows and OSX boots very fast at present but I heard that RAID actually slows it? Not that it really makes much of a difference lol

But thanks for the great advice

If you RAID-0 you will not get the huge difference in speed that you are kind of expecting. OS wants Random Reads & a single SSD will be tops for that anyway.

As for the ivybridge z77 that's the 7 Series Just make sure you have the right Driver, I forget which Driver Version Implemented the TRIM Support for
RAID-0. Sorry..

When using RAID-0 your Best always getting the exact same Drives this lessens any Incompatibility Issues. & Just say you got a 300GB & 200GB when you RAID them you'll NOT end up with 500GB You will only end up with a 400GB.. From Personal Experience Stick with the same in my Book, Less to go wrong. And with RAID-0 if anything happens to one of your drives you could & most probably will lose everything this is the only Issue with RAID-0. SO make sure if your **** is Important then always Make Backups of everything you hate to lose

However I have 2 SSD's & I hate to Lose TRIM (AMD User) so OS on one of the SSD's & Games etc on the other, & files, Music & Video on my 2 1T HDD's. Best RAID is RAID-5 if you can afford to do it, as it backs up all your crap as well as speed.
RAID is kind of a Old Tech now with the Birth of SSD to be Honest In the Old days it was sometimes necessary to RAID **** together, SSD's Make that Tech a Thing of the Past.

I'm a AMD User to be honest lol, I've just not been convinced to use INTEL although I do have to say Only recently I'm starting to Question my Locality to AMD.

Anyway I hope I've helped & Good Luck Pal

 

[Sandmod]

If you RAID-0 you will not get the huge difference in speed that you are kind of expecting. OS wants Random Reads & a single SSD will be tops for that anyway.

As for the ivybridge z77 that's the 7 Series Just make sure you have the right Driver, I forget which Driver Version Implemented the TRIM Support for
RAID-0. Sorry..

When using RAID-0 your Best always getting the exact same Drives this lessens any Incompatibility Issues. & Just say you got a 300GB & 200GB when you RAID them you'll NOT end up with 500GB You will only end up with a 400GB.. From Personal Experience Stick with the same in my Book, Less to go wrong. And with RAID-0 if anything happens to one of your drives you could & most probably will lose everything this is the only Issue with RAID-0. SO make sure if your **** is Important then always Make Backups of everything you hate to lose

However I have 2 SSD's & I hate to Lose TRIM (AMD User) so OS on one of the SSD's & Games etc on the other, & files, Music & Video on my 2 1T HDD's. Best RAID is RAID-5 if you can afford to do it, as it backs up all your crap as well as speed.
RAID is kind of a Old Tech now with the Birth of SSD to be Honest In the Old days it was sometimes necessary to RAID **** together, SSD's Make that Tech a Thing of the Past.

I'm a AMD User to be honest lol, I've just not been convinced to use INTEL although I do have to say Only recently I'm starting to Question my Locality to AMD.

Anyway I hope I've helped & Good Luck Pal

I must be honest I was questioning wether or not I would actually see any real world difference. The reason I was thinking of raiding was to get two partitions of different size from two different drives.

If there is another way of doing this, I guess this would be just as good. My issues lies with having OSX and Windows on one computer. I use OSX for general things but at the same time I use Windows for gaming, so generally I need more space on the windows partition than the OSX partition.

But I'm now thinking that just having the two drives in tandem might be good enough

 

[CodeMeRight]

I must be honest I was questioning wether or not I would actually see any real world difference.

But I'm now thinking that just having the two drives in tandem might be good enough

I have 2 x SSD & I'm in the middle of a re-building my Upgrade. This is how I'll be using my 2x SSD, One just for the OS alone.. Done!! lol

The other I'll be Installing a Game or 2 & Installing my VMware so I can Install my other OS for testing Software, And for downloads etc.

Once I've sorted out what I'm keeping in downloads etc. I'll move them over to the 2x 1T Disks.

Until AMD Bring out a RAID Driver for SSD (which I don't think there going to be far Behind now, As they have just made there New RAID array SSD PCIe card) so A driver must be following suite in the not to distant future, Fingers Crossed lol..

Well Bed time for me, Work in Morning ...

Good Luck Man

Gaz

 

[Sandmod]

Well I've managed to bag myself another Vertex 4 256GB brand new for £136, a steal at that price. I think I'm just going to settle 256gb on each drive to keep things simple.

Thanks very much for your help and advice

 

[Chris Beard]

...
I use the following setup:

PC
RAID 0 - 2 x 128Gb Crucial M4's for OS
[...]
All this means I have a robust solution in the event anything goes wrong and can recover without suffering data loss.

Raid zero does not give you a robust solution that prevents data loss. Raid 0 does not create any redundancy of data. You have produced a less robust system:- if you lose one drive then you lose everything.

In fact - RAID 1, 5 and 6 also don't ensure you won't lose data as multiple drives can fail before they are replaced, or the RAID controller can fail, or you might delete something you don't mean to. Backups are your friend.

 

[RHS]

Raid zero does not give you a robust solution that prevents data loss. Raid 0 does not create any redundancy of data. You have produced a less robust system:- if you lose one drive then you lose everything.

In fact - RAID 1, 5 and 6 also don't ensure you won't lose data as multiple drives can fail before they are replaced, or the RAID controller can fail, or you might delete something you don't mean to. Backups are your friend.

I know RAID0 is not bombproof at all in its own right and neither is RAID5 or RAID6. For clarity I never keep anything of importance on my RAID0 array in terms of anything I cannot afford to lose.

I backup my computer to my NAS box regularly and then backup the NAS to an external harddrive, that's how I achieve a robust solution by having a multi-level backup solution.

Folks often make the mistake that RAID5 is bombproof and don't backup up the array as they figure it already backs up itself which is fine until the raid controller fails and you lose the whole container

 

[CodeMeRight]

Well I've managed to bag myself another Vertex 4 256GB brand new for £136, a steal at that price. I think I'm just going to settle 256gb on each drive to keep things simple.

Thanks very much for your help and advice

Your More than Welcome My friend & I think you Done the Best Thing, As I say RAID is old Tech now with the Birth of SSD.

Anyway Good Luck Pal Glad I helped

Raid zero does not give you a robust solution that prevents data loss. Raid 0 does not create any redundancy of data. You have produced a less robust system:- if you lose one drive then you lose everything.

In fact - RAID 1, 5 and 6 also don't ensure you won't lose data as multiple drives can fail before they are replaced, or the RAID controller can fail, or you might delete something you don't mean to. Backups are your friend.

Folks often make the mistake that RAID5 is bombproof and don't backup up the array as they figure it already backs up itself

True Mate RAID is never a sure solution & You can never go wrong with Backup Back-up & Back-up....


It's just shame us AMD Users Lose TRIM