Help With raid or Srt.

shawn finkenstead · March 15, 2015

I am going to end up buying another ssd to go with my current 850 evo. now i know if i want to raid i need the same exact volume 500g. but what could i do if say i got a 256g m.2 pci card? Sorry if this seems noobish to some but i have never setup a raid before. What would be the best option for gaming? Basicly i am just looking for the best performance i can get out of the pc. thanks in advance.

kameshss · March 15, 2015

You cannot RAID different model.

You can RAID same model, but with different capacity. However. it will take the lowest capacity and match it with another drive.

For eg. If you RAID 0 512G and 256G, You'll get 512G only. You'll not get 768GB.

shawn finkenstead · March 15, 2015

You cannot RAID different model.

You can RAID same model, but with different capacity. However. it will take the lowest capacity and match it with another drive.

For eg. If you RAID 0 512G and 256G, You'll get 512G only. You'll not get 768GB.

So if i want to switch to PCI SSD i would have to turn my 850 evo as storage?

kameshss · March 15, 2015

So if i want to switch to PCI SSD i would have to turn my 850 evo as storage?

Yes. If same drive you can RAID. Otherwise you can't RAID.

shawn finkenstead · March 15, 2015

Yes. If same drive you can RAID. Otherwise you can't RAID.

Thank you. i just found linus video talking about raid 10. i might go this route since im looking for speed and some reliability.

Captain_WD · March 16, 2015

I am going to end up buying another ssd to go with my current 850 evo. now i know if i want to raid i need the same exact volume 500g. but what could i do if say i got a 256g m.2 pci card? Sorry if this seems noobish to some but i have never setup a raid before. What would be the best option for gaming? Basicly i am just looking for the best performance i can get out of the pc. thanks in advance.

Hey shawn finkenstead,

You can put two drives of any model and any brand in a RAID array. You can even put a SSD and a HDD in RAID, but it would be meaningless and involving a lot of risk. Drives would be limited to the smallest size and slowest drive.

It is recommended that you use same size, brand and model to have the safest configuration.

Games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics would stay the same. I would say a single SSD is already fast enough for good gaming experience. The speed increase in performance is very big, but for certain usages. for gaming, for example, you shouldn't see a huge improvement. E.g. games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics will not be affected at all. Here's an example of the speed boost when using SSDs and HDDs: The jump in load times from HDD to SSD is like 10s to 1s. RAID 0 effectively (theoretically) halves the load time. So if you were to RAID 0 mechanical drives, it's 10s to 5s. You derive 5s of benefit. If you were to RAID 0 SSDs instead, its like 1s to 0.5s. You derive 0.5s of benefit. Just to demonstrate that striping SSDs is nowhere as beneficial compared to mechanical drives.

Captain_WD.

shawn finkenstead · March 16, 2015

Hey shawn finkenstead,

You can put two drives of any model and any brand in a RAID array. You can even put a SSD and a HDD in RAID, but it would be meaningless and involving a lot of risk. Drives would be limited to the smallest size and slowest drive.

It is recommended that you use same size, brand and model to have the safest configuration.

Games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics would stay the same. I would say a single SSD is already fast enough for good gaming experience. The speed increase in performance is very big, but for certain usages. for gaming, for example, you shouldn't see a huge improvement. E.g. games rely on storage only for their loading times and FPS and graphics will not be affected at all. Here's an example of the speed boost when using SSDs and HDDs: The jump in load times from HDD to SSD is like 10s to 1s. RAID 0 effectively (theoretically) halves the load time. So if you were to RAID 0 mechanical drives, it's 10s to 5s. You derive 5s of benefit. If you were to RAID 0 SSDs instead, its like 1s to 0.5s. You derive 0.5s of benefit. Just to demonstrate that striping SSDs is nowhere as beneficial compared to mechanical drives.

Captain_WD.

Thank you for taking the time to explain it in detail. i will most likely hold off and spend the money else where. i figured when i got my comp built i would be thrilled and i am but now its like i cant stop and want to change and try anything and everything. i might just grab a small ssd just to setup the Srt that i seen linus talking about just to speed up access to the programs i use the most. that way i get a little more speed and stay away from raid.