Hello there i have a 40 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD storage drive. I have realized that 40 GB is not enough room and plan on adding another 40 or 60 GB SSD and put them in R0. My question is this will i have to reformat my computer in order to put them in raid 0 or can i simply install the second SSD, format and put them in r0 ? system specs: Motherboard- MSI 890FXA-GD70 CPU- AMD Phenom II x6 1055T Cooler - Scythe Rasetsu Memory - 8 GB G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1600 Video - Twin XFX HD5770's in Crossfire X PSU - OCZ ModZStream Pro 700w Modular SSD - 40 GB intel x-25 HDD - 1 TB Western Digital Black Case - Antec 900
Yes you'll need to wipe everything and start again sorry. It requires re-writing the whole file system. Make a full mirrored backup of your current install and bung it on your 1TB, then setup your new drive(s) and put it back on
By putting the SSDs in RAID you'll lose TRIM support. What's the firmware's garbage collection like on the X-25?
when i pick up this second SDD does it have to be the same brand and model or can i mix and match it with a different brand/size .
I also recommend using HDD Erase on your SSDs before formating to restore their performance. Also remember you need two identical drives for RAID. In the end you might want to get a 120GB sandforce or perhaps leaving only windows on your 40gb and getting a different drive and just install games on it, avoiding RAID 0. As said RAID does lose TRIM command.
The write speed on the 40GB X25 SDD is really bad at about 35MB/s - much slower than your HDD. If you can possibly afford it you are much better off getting a single larger drive, The OCZ vertex 2E 90GB is about 270MB/s read/write which I think is the best of the smaller drives.
