Raid 0 two of my SSDs?

[seanyc5]

Hi all,

I have never done RAID before nor know if this is even possible.

I have just put a Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMW PCI4 in my PC (see sig) this is the boot drive.

I now have two other SSDs a Kingston 240GB(showing in windows as 223GB) this is a SATA 2.5" drive.

Also now, my old boot drive a Samsung m.2 (data). That is now in an m.2 to SATA adaptor as I only have one m.2 slot.

It just occurred to me it might be possible to RAID 0 them together so create one "faster" drive?

I assume they have to be the exact same drive but I figured I would ask! Just for learning it rather than any need to be honest.

Cheers,
Sean

 

[seanyc5]

I have done it. Did not think it was so easy. Only software in windows but still about a 85-90% speed increase over the one drive.

I never really thought about it but should have done it years ago haha, data is not important so no worries about redundancy!

Should I go and try and set it up from within the BIOS or just leave it?

 

[EsxPaul]

I have done it. Did not think it was so easy. Only software in windows but still about a 85-90% speed increase over the one drive.

I never really thought about it but should have done it years ago haha, data is not important so no worries about redundancy!

Should I go and try and set it up from within the BIOS or just leave it?

I've been doing the same thing with 2 of my SSDs for about 5 years now. I use windows storage spaces to crate the raid just as you have and have never had an issue.

I did consider setting it up via the bios but ultimately never went through with it as there didn't seem to be any tangible benefits that I would really notice.

 

[Vince]

I've been doing the same thing with 2 of my SSDs for about 5 years now. I use windows storage spaces to crate the raid just as you have and have never had an issue.

I did consider setting it up via the bios but ultimately never went through with it as there didn't seem to be any tangible benefits that I would really notice.

Depends on the controller but the "benefits" from using a dedicated controller are around the way that data is cached in and cached out of the array, often backed by batteries to prevent data loss in the event of a write failure to the array. This also improves latency etc and prevents the controller getting backed up. You can often tune caches for greater performance/latency, put simply a hardware raid config is almost always better than a software raid group.

Onboard raid on motherboards can be hit and miss, some will have caches available and let you chose where to use it i.e read/write, but few have a battery backed cache.

 

[seanyc5]

Depends on the controller but the "benefits" from using a dedicated controller are around the way that data is cached in and cached out of the array, often backed by batteries to prevent data loss in the event of a write failure to the array. This also improves latency etc and prevents the controller getting backed up. You can often tune caches for greater performance/latency, put simply a hardware raid config is almost always better than a software raid group.

Onboard raid on motherboards can be hit and miss, some will have caches available and let you chose where to use it i.e read/write, but few have a battery backed cache.

Yeah I seen a video basically saying most BIOS raid is the same as windows raid. Unless you have a proper raid card or maybe a high end mobo.

Really wish I had thought of doing this sooner lol. I transferred a 2.6gb ISO between RAID and NVME drive and I did not even get chance to see the speed it was that quick.

So I moved an 18GB file between the two and saw a sustained speed of 900mb with it peaking to about 1.2gb for a few seconds. Really pleased with that for some older SATA SSDs.

When I finally build a new PC I am 100% going to have multiple NVME drives so I can download to one/extract or install etc to the other. When I build an Unraid server with my old kit I will be wanting 10gb network no doubt now haha

 

[AyeAyeAhoy!]

Blimey, I never thought of that. I have a spare 500gb SSD just sitting in the machine empty at the min doing nothing. Looks like it's going in a RAID!

When I build an Unraid server with my old kit I will be wanting 10gb network no doubt now haha

I get around 1100mb /s sustained read and write over 10Gbe It's a game changer!

 

[seanyc5]

Blimey, I never thought of that. I have a spare 500gb SSD just sitting in the machine empty at the min doing nothing. Looks like it's going in a RAID!



I get around 1100mb /s sustained read and write over 10Gbe It's a game changer!

Haha got the 10Gbe but missed the RAID! You wont look back mate, no reason not to do it unless.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I have 2x 2TB Firecuda drives in RAID 0 using the BIOS. Never had an issue with performance, but then I’ve never tried a dedicated controller...

I suppose my input is that it isn’t all doom and gloom if you do go down the bios route.

 

[AyeAyeAhoy!]

Haha got the 10Gbe but missed the RAID! You wont look back mate, no reason not to do it unless.

I know, daft!

So I copied everything off the SSD that's in use, stuck it in a raid with the spare one using Storage Spaces, and copied everything back on again. Couldn't have been easier! Named it the same and gave it the same drive letter, so the apps that were installed on the original SSD don't seem to have realised what's happened.

Thanks for the tip!