to RAID or not to RAID

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...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

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Run the 2 together normally

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Run the Vertex as the main drive and buy a bigfoot

Cheers!

 

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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

 

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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

 

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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

 

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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