raid0 with 2x60gb vertex3; update: 2 weeks later

[xiz0r]

Decided to add a second vertex3 to my setup since I was low on fast free space. Trim is enabled with intel raid and the OCZ drives are running firmware 2.15.


Its kinda impressive and really fast !

I decided to share since I had a hard time to find/research data on 2x60gb vertex3

edit: kinda puts my older array to shame (2x WD 74gb raptor GD in raid0)

[Anusha]

I'm sure TRIM is not enabled. AFAIK, when Intel said TRIM is supported under RAID with their latest drivers, is when the SSD not in an array, while the controller is RAID mode.

for example, when you have two hard drives in RAID-0 or 1 along with a single SSD on the same controller, SSD gets the TRIM command. Not when the SSDs are in RAID. Before that, even though the SSD was not in an array, it didn't get TRIM command because controller is in RAID mode.

While the benchmarks show a huge improvement, since you are using it as a boot drive, are you seeing any improvement in performance? I didn't. I also had to RAID-0 because I ran out of space, and I couldn't anyone to sell my first Vertex2. But I think I should have gone with a single drive, even though SATA 3 SSDs weren't available when I bought the second drive.

[xiz0r]

the Trim command should be enabled by default on Windows 7, but if you want to check to make sure do this:


Command prompt > fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

I was under the impression that trim was working, maybe its not but even if thats the case I dont really care. Is that command irrelevant when raid is in the equation ?

I did see some minor improvements but I did it to get more space, any extra performance is a bonus!

edit :

Thankfully, Intel has solved the problem with the release of a TRIM-compatible driver which finally brings the technology to SSDs in RAID arrays.

So I'm quite sure its enabled

[Anusha]

http://communities.intel.com/thread/24894

[xiz0r]

looks like some of those article I read were misleading ...

edit: from further readings it looks like the garbage collection will work it out nicely anyway

[xiz0r]

one week later I've lost between 30% to 5 % read performance with more loss in smaller file size transfer while bigger file didn't loose much, write speed suffered a ~5% drop all accross:


Versus only 1 60gb vertex 3:
Small file size write are ~10% slower then with only one 60gb drive until you get up to 32k and above where its much faster
Read speed is much faster at any file size.

1 60gb vertex3

*was on my AMD 1090t setup before I updated to a 2500k

So far I'm still happy with the way I went (2x60gb vs 1x120) and performance is still much faster then with one drive but on a daily usage its not really noticeable.
If someone who doesnt know much about computer was to ask me if he should get 1 bigger ssd or 2 smaller, I'd recommend one bigger to not have to deal with a raid 0 setup.

[Anusha]

looks like some of those article I read were misleading ...

edit: from further readings it looks like the garbage collection will work it out nicely anyway

That is true but it is not quick, at least on my vertex 2. But it does work.

[xiz0r]

3rd week and almost back to full speed