RAID SSD for more space?

jaytee1414 · March 13, 2015

Hello members of the forum,

I am currently using an intel 330 120gb ssd as my boot drive and for my most frequently used applications. But after sometime of using it plus a few software update, the ssd is lacking of space and the speed is noticeably slower (still faster than hdd). Currently I have a bit of cash and should I get another 330 or 530 to raid it with my current one to boost the speed and size of my drive?

Hope to see any replies

Vitalius · March 13, 2015

The amount of data stored doesn't affect the drive's speed.

If you perform RAID 0, both drives must first be wiped. No way to avoid that.

And if you do it with a 120GB and another higher capacity drive, the resulting RAID volume will be limited to 2x the capacity of the smaller drive (which will be 240GB in your case)

In general, RAID 0 for SSDs is pointless, as the speed improvement is hardly noticeable, and it only adds another point of failure.

Incorrect.

Correct, but backing them up isn't that hard.

This is true. Caveats and all that. As an alternative, getting multiples of 120GB is a possibility.

I disagree. Another point of failure isn't significant when it comes to SSDs as they fail rarely. @jaytee1414 I personally have four 120GB SSDs in RAID 0 because I wanted them all to be one volume and that was the easiest way to do it. It's awesome even if it's impractical for most things. It's also my boot drive.

I only recommend putting them in RAID 0 if you have another drive to back up the current configuration to so you don't have to rebuild/redownload from scratch. If you have to do that, then I would just buy a larger 240GB+ drive, clone your 120GB over to it, then sell your 120GB to get some money back or use it for some other purpose.

Godlygamer23 · March 13, 2015

The amount of data stored doesn't affect the drive's speed.

SSDs slow down when data stored exceeds a certain percentage.

jaytee1414 · March 13, 2015

Incorrect.

Correct, but backing them up isn't that hard.

This is true. Caveats and all that. As an alternative, getting multiples of 120GB is a possibility.

I disagree. Another point of failure isn't significant when it comes to SSDs as they fail rarely. @jaytee1414 I personally have four 120GB SSDs in RAID 0 because I wanted them all to be one volume and that was the easiest way to do it. It's awesome even if it's impractical for most things. It's also my boot drive.

I only recommend putting them in RAID 0 if you have another drive to back up the current configuration to so you don't have to rebuild/redownload from scratch. If you have to do that, then I would just buy a larger 240GB+ drive, clone your 120GB over to it, then sell your 120GB to get some money back or use it for some other purpose.

Well I think getting a larger ssd will probably be a better idea, but the matter of fact I don't really have the money. However, I would love to try using RAID 0 and I do have a 3TB harddrive (over kill) in my computer as the mass storage and probably use it for the cloning of the os when I create the RAID. I do think RAID makes the drives easier to manage and linus got 8 drive RAID, so I'm thinking of doing it just cause I can. But the question is is it a good idea to RAID new and old drives together?