RAID 5 with SSDs?

[GoogalyMoogaly]

So I went and splashed out on one of the 1TB Samsung EVO SSDs.
Probably not my shrewdest purchase ever, but I'm coming to terms with it...

Anyway, this will leave me with 2 spare 128GB Crucial M4 drives.
So I was thinking, as my 2nd PC already has 1 M4 I could add the other 2 and create a RAID 5 array. Since it's Z87 I believe I still get TRIM while in RAID?
Is this a bad idea?
I figure it should give me a speed boost (not that I'll really notice it) while also giving a small degree of redundancy (which always worries me with RAID 0).
It does mean I'll lose 128GB of space though.

Would I have to re-install Windows or is there a clever way to put the boot disk in a RAID array and then let it automatically shuffle everything around?
I assume worst case I could clone the drive onto another SSD (I have a 120GB Kingston in the 2nd PC too) and then clone that onto the RAIDed disks?

Would it be possible and would there be any benefit to adding the Kingston SSD into the array too to have a 4 disk RAID5? It's only 120GB so I'd lose more space because of that, but gain overall. Since that disk has worse performance overall, would it still be doable?

Thanks.

 

[GefGz]

Ok.

The 1TB Samsung EVO was a great purchase and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, they're amazing drives and using an SSD for day to day usage over a HDD is just lovely.

For the rest no.

Don't bother with putting any of those drives in a RAID5(anything other than 0) in my opinion, ok you'll get the speed increase and the redunancy if you put them into 5 but what redunancy do you need for ~200GB of data that's worth losing ~128GB of fast(much faster than HDD) storage for?

Just use the drives either solo, pop em in RAID0 if you want transfer but not real world speed increases and if you want them backed up, just back them up to a HDD on the odd occasion.

I'd be more concerned about when you fill that 1TB EVO, but they're such great drives(i've got a 750GB) you won't have a problem I imagine.

And I'd suggest putting your OS on the EVO, running them in a hardware(can't use Software RAID for OS) RAID is not going to increase performance noticibly and will create a MUCH bigger headache if one of them actually dies.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I've been used to 2 x 128GB SSD, I imagine I'll be ok with the 1TB (also have 4TB of HDD space for data and things that don't really benefit from extra speed).

To be honest the rest does sound like a lot of work for little noticeable gain.
I might stick a 2nd M4 in to replace the Kingston, but will probably stick with just 2 x 128GB in the other PC. Takes a bit more managing, but I've been coping fine up till now.

 

[demon8991]

Ok.

The 1TB Samsung EVO was a great purchase and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, they're amazing drives and using an SSD for day to day usage over a HDD is just lovely.

For the rest no.

Don't bother with putting any of those drives in a RAID5(anything other than 0) in my opinion, ok you'll get the speed increase and the redunancy if you put them into 5 but what redunancy do you need for ~200GB of data that's worth losing ~128GB of fast(much faster than HDD) storage for?

Just use the drives either solo, pop em in RAID0 if you want transfer but not real world speed increases and if you want them backed up, just back them up to a HDD on the odd occasion.

I'd be more concerned about when you fill that 1TB EVO, but they're such great drives(i've got a 750GB) you won't have a problem I imagine.

And I'd suggest putting your OS on the EVO, running them in a hardware(can't use Software RAID for OS) RAID is not going to increase performance noticibly and will create a MUCH bigger headache if one of them actually dies.

+1

 

[Amonlym]

As a reference for anyone who wants to change their system from native ide -> ahci or ahci -> raid or any combination like this without the loss of current windows install you can try the following:

Tools needed; some form of additional HDD controller that can be set to the same mode as you presently use, typically a cheapo pci card works ok. some motherboards can do this with on-board additional controllers, but not all!

1) install the card in system and boot as normal.
2) install drivers for this card.
3) shut down and attach your CD drive to the card
4) reboot and make sure you can see the CD attached to it, and select it as a boot device.
5) load windows as normal and make sure the CD is visible here also
6) shut down, move your windows disk to this card
7) start up, enter bios, set your normal hdd controller you want to change to its new mode (eg from AHCI to RAID, normally)
8) let windows load
9) install the new drivers for your normal controller, F6 drivers for those who remember good times
10) shutdown
11) move CD to the normal used controller, keep hdd on the add-in card
12) restart windows, make sure CD is visible and working.
13) shutdown and move hdd to the original controler
14) restart with controller set to new configuration without bluescreen on startup.

now, as for converting this to a raid setup (50/50 chance it works ok)...

you will need a spare hdd big enough to hold a full disk image of your current disk

15) take a full disk image of your current setup, clonezilla sometimes works and sometimes doesn't work with raid arrays.
16) restart and configure the raid array in raid controller bios
17) format and partition the array using windows cd then restart
18) restore disk image to the array
19) boot like normal
20) install any additional drivers and raid tools. (and expand partition size)

21) send thanks