Win 7 & RAID vs SSD

[James]

Is SSD (at apprx. 250MBs) faster than RAID?

(I have a desktop computer and I want the fastest damn drive access on
the planet!)

 

[Mad Ad]

Is SSD (at apprx. 250MBs) faster than RAID?

(I have a desktop computer and I want the fastest damn drive access on the
planet!)

must be the day for general questions

i was thinking of raiding 2 usb memory sticks, but i can tell you they wont
be faster than a 6 year old mechanical drive *grin*

anyway, look up fibre channel

 

[Jackie]

1x SSD sounds more appealing to me than 2+ noisy things that is spinning
at 7200+ RPM. Only thing that bugs me are the prices.
SSD in RAID sounds very delicious. There's this huge price gap between
around 100-200+ GB however, that takes quite some dedication.

 

[Veedaz]

@ James

2x SSD in RAID 0 will leave 2x Raptors in RAID way behind.

 

[John B. Slocomb]

1x SSD sounds more appealing to me than 2+ noisy things that is spinning
at 7200+ RPM. Only thing that bugs me are the prices.
SSD in RAID sounds very delicious. There's this huge price gap between
around 100-200+ GB however, that takes quite some dedication.

I looked up an article on Tom's
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-ssd-performance,2518-5.html

Sort of interesting and certainly evidence that all SSDs are not
created equal

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

 

[Jackie]

I looked up an article on Tom's
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-ssd-performance,2518-5.html

Sort of interesting and certainly evidence that all SSDs are not
created equal

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

Oh sure, of course. Same with regular HDDs (and anything else) though
but the technology is very mature and everyone should have had their
time to perfect their products by now.
It is quite embarrassing when certain SSDs are on par with or actually
worse than HDDs in some cases.
Well, but I guess they do so to lower costs and you get to choose the
right SSD for you, based on how you use your computer. I would just want
the best or near-best though. Just the price bugs me when you get to
200+ GB.

 

[smithdoerr]

Is SSD (at apprx. 250MBs) faster than RAID?

(I have a desktop computer and I want the fastest damn drive access on the
planet!)

Do both. Get two (or more!) SSD s and raid configure them if you want the
fastest storage and cost isn't an issue.

But the more practical approch is to get a small SSD for the OS and key
programs and put everything else on HDD raid. You could even use two small
SSDs in raid for the OS but I don't know if the price/performance boost
would be worth it.

 

[Colon Terminus]

Is SSD (at apprx. 250MBs) faster than RAID?

(I have a desktop computer and I want the fastest damn drive access on the
planet!)

I have three SSD's in a RAID 0 configuration.
I get a constant 675 MB/s random read rate.
Windows 7 64-bit.

 

[James]

I have three SSD's in a RAID 0 configuration.
I get a constant 675 MB/s random read rate.
Windows 7 64-bit.

Wow! SSD RAID 0... this sounds like the way to go. BTW, I found a nice
little Ultra 2.5" 2-bay internal enclosure at tigerdirect.com. I think I
will get a couple of these and some Kingston 64GB V+ series drives.
Unless there are some faster SSDs for around the same price...?

Thanks everyone, for your input!

 

[Char Jackson]

i was thinking of raiding 2 usb memory sticks, but i can tell you they wont
be faster than a 6 year old mechanical drive *grin*

"Fastest damn drive access" and USB don't belong in the same sentence.

As others have said, I would recommend a smallish SSD for the OS and
conventional hard drive(s) for everything else.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

"Fastest damn drive access" and USB don't belong in the same sentence.

As others have said, I would recommend a smallish SSD for the OS and
conventional hard drive(s) for everything else.

Perhaps Mad Ad was being ironic, sardonic, or sarcastic...

 

[John B. Slocomb]

Oh sure, of course. Same with regular HDDs (and anything else) though
but the technology is very mature and everyone should have had their
time to perfect their products by now.
It is quite embarrassing when certain SSDs are on par with or actually
worse than HDDs in some cases.
Well, but I guess they do so to lower costs and you get to choose the
right SSD for you, based on how you use your computer. I would just want
the best or near-best though. Just the price bugs me when you get to
200+ GB.

Probably the cheapest way, at the moment, would be to use a RAID for
data storage and a SSD as a "fast disk" containing application code
and a cache. Write data to the cache and use a daemon running in the
background to write cache data to RAID during low CPU usage periods.
It might also be possible to use some sort of memory cache, write that
cache out to SSD cache. It might let an application run full bore
without waiting on write-to-disk at all.

On the other hand, you'd be writing a DOS system

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

 

[John B. Slocomb]

Wow! SSD RAID 0... this sounds like the way to go. BTW, I found a nice
little Ultra 2.5" 2-bay internal enclosure at tigerdirect.com. I think I
will get a couple of these and some Kingston 64GB V+ series drives.
Unless there are some faster SSDs for around the same price...?

Thanks everyone, for your input!

Check Tom's hardware site. He had a pretty comprehensive test of
various SSDs (and I think that the Kingston were among the slowest).
John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

 

[James]

Check Tom's hardware site. He had a pretty comprehensive test of
various SSDs (and I think that the Kingston were among the slowest).
John B. Slocomb

Kingston SSDNow V+ Series SNVP325-S2B/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II MLC
Internal Solid State Drive (SSD):

Sequential Access - Read: up to 230MB/s
Sequential Access - Write: up to 180MB/s
Power Consumption (Active): 2.6W
Power Consumption (Idle): 0.15W

These drives are among the best in performance/price ($189@newegg).