M4 128GB Raid

Phenomenologica

Phenomenologica

Phenomenologica

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Hey all, as per the title I'm looking into setting up two 128GB Crucial M4s in RAID 0 as my main drive, as my hard drive is really slowing the computer down. First question I suppose is, is it really worth the RAID setup over one 256GB drive?

Firmware-update wise, if the drives don't come with the latest one installed, is it essential to update it before installing windows? Also, I presume I set up the RAID in the BIOS somewhere before going ahead with the install. Once windows is install I assume I'll just see that as one C drive? Haven't played with this stuff before.

Still got a few days to decide as I want to make sure I can deal with all the software reinstalls on the other side of it, so thought I'd mine the knowledge base here for any potential snags! :)
 
For benchmarks yes you would see the score difference but real world I'm sure a single SSD is fast enough. Price per GB is bad enough for SSD's without buying 2 for RAID 0 lol. IMO I'd rather get a single 256gb and have more storage and just as fast real world speeds.
 
Spenty said:
For benchmarks yes you would see the score difference but real world I'm sure a single SSD is fast enough. Price per GB is bad enough for SSD's without buying 2 for RAID 0 lol. IMO I'd rather get a single 256gb and have more storage and just as fast real world speeds.
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Two 128GB drives in RAID 0 provides the same amount of storage as one 256GB drive. It's the same capacity, only a few quid more expensive, and presumably has slightly higher performance.
 
sypher365 said:
Supposed to on the next update, but unless your benching a single larger drive should quick enough for everyday use.
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I was thing more that Phenomenologica was talking about the increased performance of RAID 0 over a single drive but without TRIM the RAID 0 performance will deteriorate over time.
 
Spenty said:
I thought RAID 0 halved data so the maximum storage is 128gb?
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RAID 0 combines the disks into 1 drive the capacity of which is the capacity of the smallest disk in the array multiplied by the number of disks.

2x128GB in RAID 0 = 256GB

3x128GB in RAID 0 = 384GB

64GB + 128GB + 128GB in RAID 0 = 192GB (3x64GB)
 
Ah silly me I'm mistaking it for RAID 5 I think (and maybe other RAID setups) where it mirrors the data on both drives so if you had 2x128gb you'd still only have 128gb total storage.
 
I've seen benchmarks in a review that suggest M4 garbage collection isn't particularly good so M4 raid 0 doesn't work great. Its faster but loses write performance over time. Sandforce drives in raid seem to have garbage collection working better and with them being seemingly fixed now if I was going raid 0 I'd probably go Agility's/Vertex's over an M4.

Newer firmware might change that though with m4's garbage collection maybe working better.

Raid 0 on ssd's has very diminishing returns. You can barely tell the difference in real world performance between last gen and this gen ssd's, sequential increased, random 4kb read/writes basically hasn't increased for 2-3 gens and that will have a lot to do with the lack of real world speed increase.

I wouldn't say don't do it, just don't do it thinking you'll get something twice as fast as a normal ssd, or even frankly 20% faster. The biggest problem is, with hdd raid 0, if you download, unrar big files, or just transfer big files around doubling sequential speeds is great. With ssd's, you would rarely do any of that, download straight to a hdd anyway, big storage files on the hdd's so you really don't get the same benefit due to the usage because of size cost.

Single ssd will blow a hdd away, raid 0, you most likely won't notice the difference.
 
You be better off getting one of those PCI-E SSD cards. Now that is ripping performance.
 
Guest2 said:
In title it looks like he's using SATA 2
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He says he is but it looks like he isn't.

SATA 2 has a maximum bandwidth of ~280MB/s.

Look at the other benchmarks in that thread. All are below 270MB/s.

Putting 2 drives in RAID 0 can't suddenly make SATA 2 work at over 500MB/s, which it would have to if he was using SATA 2 and getting over 1,000 MB/s.
 
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So is the general consensus that it's not worth the hassle and chance of one of them failing as the gains are marginal? I'll just grab myself a 256 then and save some time and effort. :)
 
If you get two 128gb drives and put them in RAID 0, dont you actually get 256gb of space instead of 128gb as you would with mechanical drives? In which case for me it would be a no brainers getting 2 128gb drives and putting them in RAID 0
 
Just checking - if Im going to set up raid 0 on a fresh install, Im guessing that I will need to load the raid drivers by specifying additional drivers during the install via the F6 button.
As Im using the 2 intel ports, do I set up windows using the Intel drivers from the Intel website or the drivers from the Mobo CD?
 
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