Hey guys, looking to upgrade my boot drive from a 120gb ssd to a 256gb ssd, I currently have 3 Crucial M4 2 in raid 0 for games and the one as a boot that I will probably add to the array when I get a new drive. Basically my questions are, What 256GB SSD is the best at the moment. and Can I add another drive to a raid 0 array? Thanks for all the help as usual, Luke.
Im personally a big fan of corsair drives as they out perform all others i know, and have great warranty and low fail rates. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-240...YUO6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364002705&sr=8-2 Scan wont load for me at the moment, :S
That was a quick reply! Im assuming that's a lot faster than my current crucial m4 anyway? also would I be better with the single drive or two 128gb in raid? Thanks again!
The Corsair range are pretty good, currently owning a Force 3 and my experience with it has been great! But personally, I think the best 256GB SSD drive you can buy right now is the Samsung 840 Pro. I can't really give you any personal experience with RAID with SSD's as I have never had to. They are soo damn quick.
With the kingston HyperX, Corsair GS/Nutron, OCZ vertex, sammy pro.. There all immensely fast drives with very little between them, so little you will never notice the diffrence between them in the real world, only a little in benchmarks. So do with what ever gives you the best warranty and price.
You can useu as many drives as you want in a RAID array, but each time you add a new drive you will need to rebuild the array, so will have to reinstall all your apps and data. The more drives you have in the array, the faster it will be. For most purposes you won't see any significant gain once you move beyond a couple of drives in the array as it will be so fast, faster than most apps will benefit from.
Ok sweet, so im better with 2 x 128gb drives. Now I still need to decide what is the best option everywhere I look seems to recommend me a different 'fastest' ssd.
The fastest SSDs at the moment are the Samsung 840 Pro and the OCZ Vector. They perform very similarly, but Samsung is generally a bit cheaper. A review: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/01/08/the-ssd-catchup/1
I have only used Corsair SSD's and never really had a problem with them. I had 1 die on me and I sent it to Corsair and it was replaced really quickly. I did run 2 Corsair Force 3 120Gb SSD's in a Raid 0 array and whilst they benchmarked at over 1Gbps on the read and write, they didn't offer any faster loading time over a single drive in terms of loading games etc, but they did cause my pc to take longer to boot because of the raid array. I am now using a Corsair Force 3 240Gb and it's fine have had no issues with it at all. I would suggest not running raid on SSD's because to be honest it's not needed, unless you need a larger drive such as 512Gb or something like that and cannot afford to buy a 512Gb drive.
Things have certainly changed in the last few months. Last year, there would not have been a significant SSD thread with nobody saying to avoid SF, which IMNSHO has been worth buying for longer than most folk here would accept
I'm a firm believer in Crucial gear (brand loyalty is something I really believe in), so I'd suggest getting another M4. I've been very pleased with all of mine. BUT - if pure performance is what you're after, follow the suggestions above - and/or consider an 840 Pro
First off, you're not quite comparing apples with apples as there's much more of a drop off in average data rates between the 240->120GB F3s & something like the 256->128GB 840 Pros (or Vectors or...)... so, not only are the former inherently slower, but there will be less of an improvement between R0 arrays for general usage than with using more modern top end SSDs. Still, accepting that having a raid array will slow the boot down... (though as the OP is already using R0 for the M4s then it's going to make no real odds - & how often, after first installing Windows & whatnot do you reboot anyway?) ...it will certainly be quicker overall to use a R0 array, though it will obviously depend upon the usage as to the extent that the difference is noticeable... Well, it's about both cumulative improvements & any significant disk limited operations - 1. in the first instance, whilst it may be the case that a single read or write may show no perceptible difference, how much time is saved over an average day - & hence a week, a month...? Now, this may be negligible for, as an example, most games (other than some MMO things apparently) - esp if you're playing for extended periods - but, more generally, it will depend upon usage. There also 'should' (assuming both that the algorithms are consistent across drive sizes for a model & the smaller drive is >=~51% of the speed of the larger) be an improvement in GC as each drive will be able to block combine & wear level & whatnot independently of the other - which would lead to a cumulative improvement in the maintenance of speeds. [NB the flip side to this is potentially trim which i'll come onto in a minute as the OP asked about it.] 2. &, in the second instance, if you are doing anything significant which is disk bound (ie high QD small r/ws or highly sequential ones) then, assuming the r/ws are >~51% on a single smaller SSD (as scaling's not quite linear for these then it's a good enough approximation) for the r/ws you're doing, you will get a significant improvement. [NB naturally QD1 smallish r/ws do not scale at all, so you might lose a small amount of speed there... but it's nothing compared to the overall gains &, with a stripe size of 32K, you'd get a great balance for most uses... Only increasing it if you had a highly sequential usage, or decreasing it if you had a high QD small r/w one.] Now, the core of these two reasons are, effectively, the same reasons as to why people choose to buy high end processors or gfx cards or whatever - to get small improvements in everything to save time overall & to overcome situations where a bit of h/w is the limiting factor in what you're trying to do... ...& SSDs are no different. it's all choice based upon both budget & need, which is why there's a place for (what i'd class as) shonky mid-range SSDs; much as i'm quite happy gaming using a 580 @ 2048x1536 (& prior to that stuck with a 4870x2 for years) whereas other people have several Titans... Though, with current pricing (esp vs where things were a couple of years ago), it's certainly the case with SSDs that it doesn't take much more money to make some real differences if you have the need. * * * * * * * Moving on, the OP's pm'd me & it's probably easier if i answer here... Not least as the first bit of stuff (about trim) is only ttbomk (as i'm now only using Z77 boards) - so if anyone has better info from personal experience then i'm obviously happy to be corrected... Though i am 99.999% sure i'm correct. Regarding trim, my understanding is that, in order for trim to work in R0, you need BOTH a trim enabled driver & a trim enabled orom - & without these then there'd be limitations to running (non-SF) SSDs in R0... esp if you've got a high non-sequential write usage. Now, whilst, there's no physical reason why, for example, P67 & Z68 boards can't have an orom installed that supports it (as part of bios updates), the limitation can come down to manufacturer support - &, whilst i do love Asus boards (it's all i buy personally), it's not something that they've tended to be hot on. So, on booting (with the intel controller set to raid obviously) you need to see whether the orom listed on the intel controller is =>10.6 as that's the first version which was compatible (10.5 & lower aren't). if it is not compatible & updating with the latest bios from the Asus does not alter it, all's not lost though as you can either - (a) email Asus' tech support (they gave me an internal build for a P67 board going back) (b) check the official Asus forums for your board (as there are some modders on there for some boards) (c) mod one yourself (see, for example, this page) (d) or do a google search to see if there's one out there. Oh, & obviously you need a 10.6 or later irst driver - the latest official whql one is 11.7.3.1001, but atm i'm using 12.0.0.1083 (non-official whql release) as, with Win8, i had an issue with opening the application. Otherwise, the OP also asked my opinion about the best drives for R0... Now, assuming the orom issue either isn't one or can be resolved, atm the best 128GB drives are the 840 Pro & the Vector - i have 2x 256GB Pros in my proper PC (along with 2 256GB 830's in this machine) but that was solely about pricing at the time rather than anything else. Prior to these drives i'd been using nothing but OCZ & even the 2009 ones are still working (albeit that they're very slow in comparison). The one thing i would question is the efficacy of buying 2x128GBs as it then limits upgrade options... ...though that could be overcome if you were looking at something like a Haswell build prior to more SSD space as that, ttbomk, will have 6 6Gb/s intel ports... Though i don't know what the bandwidth specs are likely to be on them.
Thanks for all the help going to do a bit of investigating here, and will report back with results. Another question I have something I just remembered about actually is that my maximus IV extreme z only has 4 sata 6 ports therefore ill obv use intel for the boot drives... but what about the 3 remaining drives can I raid them? 2 on the marvel controller and one on a sata 3 port? Or will I have to go all sata 3? therefore the drives are wasted really? Thanks, Luke. EDIT: also looking at the likes of raid cards and sata 6 expansion cards if need be. honestly don't have much knowledge on ssd's so relying on all of you guys to help me out. So far ive learnt more in this thread than I thin i ever knew about ssd's so all is going well
Right, without going for a software raid option (which would be appallingly awful), you can't mix the intel & marvell ports - however as the marvell controller's shonky, your best option is to use the 2x 6Gb/s intel ones for your boot array & 3x of the 3Gb/s intel ones for the M4s. This still leaves you with 3 ports - & the marvell ones are fine for HDD data storage. Even the superior 6Gb/s ASMedia controller that Asus now uses for the 2 extra 6Gb/s ports on the Z77 boards is only normally good enough for HDD data storage. [NB the only reason why you 'might' consider altering this is if you were using 2 SSDs, other than the boot ones, pretty much exclusively for sequential r/ws... but otherwise the 3Gb/s intel ones will be quicker overall.] As to raid cards, for the cost of something good enough to make a significant difference, you'd be *much* better off spending the money on either 2x 256GB 840 Pros/Vectors - in fact you could get 3x 256GB drives & have a reasonable chunk of change - or saving the money to put towards a Haswell build in a few months time to gain the extra intel ports... (or buying whatever else you might want naturally) That's not to say that decent raid cards can't be great with arrays... i used to run 4x V Turbos on my lsi 9260-8i & it was much faster than the intel ports at the time - you have latency kicking in which lowers low QD small r/ws, but that's was more than offset by the improvements in everything else; both from the SSDs themselves & the 512MB DDR2 cache ...but, alongside this setup predating both the introduction of the 6Gb/s intel ports (which has increase the total controller bandwidth considerably, so what i did would now be pointless with 4x 3Gb/s SSDs in R0) & 6Gb/s SSDs (which, naturally, are much faster), the value of the card to me was/is for running 15K SAS HDDs. [NB just to be clear, if the price & performance of the 480GB M500 is as expected then i'm aiming to get one & be using it on my raid card - *but* my usage for it would be solely for sequential r/ws (the Pro & Vector are faster drives) &, obviously, i own the card already so there's no additional cost.] Anyway, what i'm basically saying here is that you'd really need to have some extra usage that needed it, or be wanting to run far more SSDs in a single array than you're proposing, to make a decent raid card a worthwhile investment at this point.
Damn, how do you know all this man o.0 Does that mean that this sucks? http://www.amazon.co.uk/HighPoint-RocketRAID-2720SGL-PCI-Express-Controller/dp/B0050SLTPC Also here is a reviw: http://thessdreview.com/featured/hi...gl-review-utilizing-8-micron-c400-6gbps-ssds/ If it is in anyway decent im sure that I will have to add more drives in the future making it a decent investment? Thanks again PocketDemon.
Right, this uses a marvell 9485 controller which is certainly faster than the marvell 9182 controller that's on your board... ...however, whilst you'd certainly be able to gain on sequential speeds (though it still maxes out well below each SSD's potential per SSD), you'll lose out against the 3Gb/s intel controller elsewhere due to increased latency. Now (obviously) buying a much more expensive card would still have the same latency issues as they're inherent to using the pcie bus (which is why the intel &, on boards for their CPUs, amd controllers are much better for most normal uses), but there are 3 key differences (off the top of my head) as to why you need to be spending more if you're serious about a raid card solution - 1. there wouldn't be the limitations on sequential r/ws per drive & they come with an on board cache - which combine to vastly help to mitigate the latency issues by being great elsewhere -whereas the 2720 is well below par 2. there are 'add-on' options - something like a battery backup for the cache being pretty useful for data integrity if you're working with critical data - whereas the 2720 is simply what it is 3. & they have processors built in for parity checking - whereas the 2720 will use the CPU thus lowering system resources (naturally only relevant with R5/6). Now, having said all of that, the same caveat does apply that 'if' your usage were to be pretty much exclusively for sequential r/ws then the 2720 would be an improvement over the 3Gb/s intel ports - but that's where its real gains would be... ...or, naturally, if you wanted to add 8 HDDs then it'd be a reasonable solution. As to the testing, the methodology used in that review is shonky - there's just the standard few artificial b/ms that will tell you next to nothing about r.l. performance; being hugely limited in what's being tested. Well, (again ignoring purely sequential uses) do you want something that might look snazzy in b/ms or something that's a decent overall solution? (i've no idea where 'snazzy' came from in my head, but it'll do) Anyway, rounding off - 1. doing a quick price comparison (not counting using cashback sites or discount coupons) - 2x 128GB Pros (2x ~£105) + 2720 card (~£127) + SFF-8087 to SFF-8482 cable (£20-30) = ~£357-367... ...whereas 1x 256GB Pro is ~£176 - so you could buy two & get (nominally) an extra 256GB of much faster SSD space & have change. 2. & if you really wanted to go for an investment raid card then it'd need to be something like the 9260-8i or (particularly) the 9265-8i - but you're talking about a few hundred for either of them (unless you got lucky on eBay). [NB there are, ttbomk, HP & intel versions of the lsi cards which are cheaper - though there are limitations to cross-flashing, so it's not possible to get quite the same performance out of them.] & with Haswell being a matter of months away then it simply wouldn't be a sensible purchase unless you had some other real need for it... Well, for that kind of 'investment' then you'd have most of the cash for a half decent Haswell build. (to get the 3x 256GB SSDs & change, i'd budgeted on a 9260-4i in the last post simply as it was cheapest decent option btw - though you'd be ltd to 4 SSDs, so it's not quite an investment...) Still, it's entirely your call as it's your money - but, based on the ltd info that you've given about your usage, i *really* wouldn't be looking at any kind of raid card as it'd be a huge mistake for what you're aiming for... 2x 256GB 840 Pros or Vectors & saving money for Haswell would be a much better investment. [Edit] i've just noticed that you're using 2 gfx cards... ...though whether you're using them as 2 8x cards or 2x 16x cards is unclear - there's advantages & disadvantages to using the nf200 chip to get two 16x electrical lanes so it could be either. Simply that there's additional latency issue with any raid card using additional lanes provided the nf200 processor (the chip that gives the extra pcie lanes beyond the intel spec)... Now my recollection is that the Asus boards i tried it with simply would not work using the top 16x (physical) pcie slot having the raid card in - which would prevent you using both of the 2nd & 4th 16x physical slots for the gfx cards & the top one for the raid card. Then, from looking at your mobo manual then, assuming i'm reading it correctly, it's the 2nd & 4th 16x physical slots which use the nf200... ...so without further increasing latency, you'd be forced to have one gfx card in 8x mode & one in 16x on the nf200... ...to leave space to put a raid card into the 3rd 16x slot down. i'm not an expert on how best to set up gfx cards, but my belief is that this is the least optimal of the options. Yeah, just another reason why it'd be more trouble than it's worth.
Honestly think it would be better If i sold the three m4's and bought 3 x 256gb 840pro's? would make life a lot easier eh? 2 in raid 0 for boot and the other for games....
