850 evo: RAID or not?

[MoonlightSylv]

So I'm getting 2 120gb Samsung 850 evos for my birthday soon (and no, I can't get 1 250gb) so I was wondering if I should do a RAID 0 or use them as separate drives. What should I do?

 

Thanks in advance

[Mark77]

You should be backing SSDs up (just like HDDs) if you have any important data, so why not RAID-0? 

[Enderman]

no

you dont need raid 0 speed and more than you need to risk losing your data

just run them reparately

[ZeusXI]

18 minutes ago, Enderman said:

no

you dont need raid 0 speed and more than you need to risk losing your data

just run them reparately

Technically, your splitting the read/write speeds between SSD's. So if you have 1SSD and write 1MB to it, it gets 1 MB, but if you have 4SSD, its 256Kb per SSD. So you can technically prolong the life of an SSD

[pagani123]

5 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

Technically, your splitting the read/write speeds between SSD's. So if you have 1SSD and write 1MB to it, it gets 1 MB, but if you have 4SSD, its 256Kb per SSD. So you can technically prolong the life of an SSD

possibly but raid 0 is unstable and if one ssd fails then they all fail 

[Enderman]

6 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

Technically, your splitting the read/write speeds between SSD's. So if you have 1SSD and write 1MB to it, it gets 1 MB, but if you have 4SSD, its 256Kb per SSD. So you can technically prolong the life of an SSD

no

you still only have 2 SSDs

the amount of write cycles used is the same if you use 5 on one SSD and 5 on the other or 10 on one and 0 on the other

you still use the same amount overall

 

and there if a huge risk of data loss from raid failure more than drive failure

software raid on consumer motherboards is absolute crap

one power outage or flicker and everything can be gone

or it can just fail for no reason and you need to reinstall everything because you lost your data

[ZeusXI]

On 4/17/2016 at 0:37 AM, Enderman said:

no

you still only have 2 SSDs

the amount of write cycles used is the same if you use 5 on one SSD and 5 on the other or 10 on one and 0 on the other

you still use the same amount overall

 

and there if a huge risk of data loss from raid failure more than drive failure

software raid on consumer motherboards is absolute crap

one power outage or flicker and everything can be gone

or it can just fail for no reason and you need to reinstall everything because you lost your data

Umm.....Yes. 1MB isnt written on each SSD if you have 1MB to write. The more drives you have, the more the data is split in Raid 0.

 

On 4/17/2016 at 0:37 AM, Enderman said:

no

you still only have 2 SSDs

the amount of write cycles used is the same if you use 5 on one SSD and 5 on the other or 10 on one and 0 on the other

you still use the same amount overall

 

and there if a huge risk of data loss from raid failure more than drive failure

software raid on consumer motherboards is absolute crap

one power outage or flicker and everything can be gone

or it can just fail for no reason and you need to reinstall everything because you lost your data

http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/video/Schulz-Using-RAID-can-prolong-SSD-lifespan

 

And most SSD's last about 5 years according to some articles under medium/heavy read/writes over time. So, if Raid can extend SSD life, and in 5+ years you are probably gona be moving on to a different type of drive unless it actually does stop on you. For gaming this helps, but if your doing day to day tasks, maybe just 1 SSD would be good.

[Enderman]

16 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

Umm.....Yes. 1MB isnt written on each SSD if you have 1MB to write. The more drives you have, the more the data is split in Raid 0.

 

What do you not understand about 1+1=2?

If you have two SSDs, then you use both of them

 

You dont use one and leave the other empty

 

For example two 5GB video files

you put one on each SSD

now you wrote 5GB to each SSD

 

If they were in raid 0 you would write 10GB to the array which would split it in half, writing 5GB to each drive

because 5+5=10

 

ITS THE SAME

 

SSDs do not live longer in raid 0

the total amount of data written to them is the same

[ZeusXI]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

What do you not understand about 1+1=2?

If you have two SSDs, then you use both of them

 

You dont use one and leave the other empty

 

For example two 5GB video files

you put one on each SSD

now you wrote 5GB to each SSD

 

If they were in raid 0 you would write 10GB to the array which would split it in half, writing 5GB to each drive

because 5+5=10

 

ITS THE SAME

 

SSDs do not live longer in raid 0

the total amount of data written to them is the same

In raid 0 the data is split.if it worked that way, then i wouldnt even worry about a backup drive in Raid 0. cause then I could just get the 5GB video that was on 1 drive. The data is split. 5GB is split in 2.5 and put on each drive. being 5GB TOTAL, and 2.5GB on EACH drive. If your thinking of 1+1=2 in a different raid where 1 is being written to, and then one is backup up the main, THEN you have 10GB total worth of data. But Raid 0 is just splitting the data between the two drives. Not doubling.

[Enderman]

18 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

In raid 0 the data is split.if it worked that way, then i wouldnt even worry about a backup drive in Raid 0. cause then I could just get the 5GB video that was on 1 drive. The data is split. 5GB is split in 2.5 and put on each drive. being 5GB TOTAL, and 2.5GB on EACH drive. If your thinking of 1+1=2 in a different raid where 1 is being written to, and then one is backup up the main, THEN you have 10GB total worth of data. But Raid 0 is just splitting the data between the two drives. Not doubling.

Do you know how to read? I said TWO 5 GB videos

10GB total

 

you can either put one 5GB video on each drive or put both 5GB videos on the raid 0 array

 

either way 5GB gets written to each drive because 5 is half of 10

 

you have some serious problems understanding how this works...lol

[MoonlightSylv]

34 minutes ago, Enderman said:

-

I think I'll just use them separately, I probably won't actually ever completely fill them up. I'd rather have them last longer than faster speeds.

[ZeusXI]

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Do you know how to read? I said TWO 5 GB videos

10GB total

 

you can either put one 5GB video on each drive or put both 5GB videos on the raid 0 array

 

either way 5GB gets written to each drive because 5 is half of 10

 

you have some serious problems understanding how this works...lol

Im quoting your when you say SSD dont live longer in Raid 0

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, ZeusXI said:

Im quoting your when you say SSD dont live longer in Raid 0

Yeah they dont live longer

 

5GB written separately to each drive is no different than 10GB written by raid 0 and split in half to each drive

 

the SSDs will live the same whether they are in raid 0 or not because the amount written is identical either way

[ZeusXI]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Yeah they dont live longer

 

5GB written separately to each drive is no different than 10GB written by raid 0 and split in half to each drive

 

the SSDs will live the same whether they are in raid 0 or not because the amount written is identical either way

If I write 10GB to 1 drive, and then 10GB to 2 drives in Raid 0, your putting 5GB on each drive. HALF of the 10GB to 1 drive. But yes, you write a TOTAL of 10GB to two drives.  SSD life can be lengthened because you put half the data of a total file on each one.  

[Enderman]

7 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

If I write 10GB to 1 drive, and then 10GB to 2 drives in Raid 0, your putting 5GB on each drive. HALF of the 10GB to 1 drive. But yes, you write a TOTAL of 10GB to two drives.  SSD life can be lengthened because you put half the data of a total file on each one.  

no.......

thats not how it works

thats not how any of this works

 

omg why is it so hard for you to understand that you have TWO ssds

you dont just use one of them

you use BOTH

over time you will use the same amount of data on BOTH of them even if they are not in raid

 

you dont write 1000TB of data to one SSD and leave the other empty

you use both SSDs and over time they average to 50 50 so 500TB on one and 500TB on the other

if you were using raid 0, it would split the 1000TB writes into 500TB on one and 500TB on the other

 

it is literally the same, unless for some stupid reason you have two SSDs but only use one

in which case your total SSD lifetime is still the same, since one will be 100% used and the other 0%

 

because 50%+50% = 100%

doesnt matter if you use raid or not, either way both SSDs will be used

[ZeusXI]

23 minutes ago, Enderman said:

no.......

thats not how it works

thats not how any of this works

 

omg why is it so hard for you to understand that you have TWO ssds

you dont just use one of them

you use BOTH

over time you will use the same amount of data on BOTH of them even if they are not in raid

 

you dont write 1000TB of data to one SSD and leave the other empty

you use both SSDs and over time they average to 50 50 so 500TB on one and 500TB on the other

if you were using raid 0, it would split the 1000TB writes into 500TB on one and 500TB on the other

 

it is literally the same, unless for some stupid reason you have two SSDs but only use one

in which case your total SSD lifetime is still the same, since one will be 100% used and the other 0%

 

because 50%+50% = 100%

doesnt matter if you use raid or not, either way both SSDs will be used

I understand you use both. Ive been saying that the whole time. The data is split. the lifetime as in Writes Before Failure. Not power on failure. But if your gona argue, argue. I know what Raid 0 is. Raid 1. and so on. Raid 0 uses both drives equally and the 1000TB (as you say) is split 500GB on each drive. I know that. So im just gona stop because you keep trying to tell me they use both, then i say they use both, then you argue something else. Have a nice day.

[Dann0359]

I'd use them as separate drives.

 

1st SSD - OS files + frequently used Programs

2nd SSD - Games + frequently used files + lesser used programs, etc.

 

Just make sure to keep an eye on how much you fill the drives, not too much or you'll see decreases in performance, say leave 15-20Gb. Also, don't defrag, and backup regularly.

[Mark77]

As long as your storage subsystem appropriately allows for TRIM commands to be passed through RAID to the underlying drives, the data written on a N-drive RAID-0 will be 1/N per drive. 

 

Additionally, managing a single RAID volume, rather than a bunch of individual raw SSD volumes, should increase overall efficiency. 

 

The key here is that RAID-0 destroys data if there is failure or corruption of any of the drives/SSDs in a manner that is quite severe and very unlikely unrecoverable.  Especially so with SSDs.  So backup of anything important is critical.