Raid0 or SSD which is best for performance

[Voyager31]

I'm building an i5 system using a Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3 Motherboard and was going to setup RAID0 but wondering if it's less hassle and just go with an SSD drive as a cache as I understand this gives near RAID0 speed? which setup do others recommend?

Also, if I were to go the RAID route do I need two identical drives? I currently have a 1TB Spinpoint drive and a Hitachi 1TB drive as a secondary drive. I was going to get another Spinpoint drive but mine is an early F1 drive and I only seem to be able to get the F3 drives now as the F1 drives no longer seem to be available, will pairing up with one of these still be OK as I understood both drives had to be identical models?

Can a SSD drive also be used with a RAID setup (I suspect not) but if it were possible would there be any point to doing this still?

Many thanks

 

[jbloggs]

Running your OS from an SSD (say a Crucial M4 in AHCI mode) will give you better performance that running 2 x HDDs in RAID0...

if I were to go the RAID route do I need two identical drives? I currently have a 1TB Spinpoint drive and a Hitachi 1TB drive as a secondary drive.

No, you don't need 2 identical HDDs, but it generally gives the best performance, the Samsung and Hitachi will work fine in RAID0, although both HDDs will run at the speed of the slowest HDD in the RAID0 volume...

 

[Voyager31]

So are you saying in your experience it's not worth using a SSD just for caching then? This technology is all new to me, but I thought that was the main idea for using these rather than run your OS from them?

I see the optimum size for use as cache is 64gb but many of the drives are 60gb how does this effect it's efficiency? is it better to go for say a larger 80gb drive if I cant get a 64gb?

If I were to use a SSD for the OS then I presume all applications would need to be on the SSD as well, then all documents and personal files photos etc would be on a secondary drive, but to do it this way I would need a pretty big drive so prefer the caching option.

I was hoping to setup RAID0 and then a SSD for the cache as I believe you can do this? if anyone else wants to give me some feedback and their thoughts it's most appreciated

Also what are the fastest Solid State Drives (sandforce) out there that will be compatible with my Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3 Motherboard setup, are these SATA2 or SATA3? haven't done much research but I gather the Intel & Crucial M4 drives are good?