Replace Beer Holder for New SSD ?

[DnFx91]

I have a RAID of 2 v300 SSD's, i was wondering before i start tearing it apart how much more speed i will gain by adding a third SSD to the RAID ? its already pulling 1.1-1.2GB/s and just wanna make it a bit faster. Only problem is i have a SATA beer holder in my 5.25" bay which is using my last 6G SATA port, so i would have to remove it. Can i just unplug the data cable from the beer holder and keep it powered so the tray still opens ? 

 

I want another SSD in my RAID but i dont really wanna put that blanking plate back in the front of my PC.

 

TL:DR Want another SSD in my RAID, how much faster will a 3rd one be ?

[Technomancer__]

it will be faster

[DnFx91]

Just now, Ethocreeper said:

it will be faster

well yeah, just wondering by how much, i know these things dont tend to scale 1 for 1.

 

Does anyone run 3x SATA SSD RAID0 ?

[RollinLower]

11 minutes ago, Ethocreeper said:

it will be faster

best answer 2017 i rate 5/7

[MarcCz]

The biggest thing to consider with a RAID 0 array is reliability. every drive you add makes the whole array less reliable. This because only one drive needs to fail inorder to destroy the data on the whole array. A two drive array is twice as likely to fail a three drive array is 3 time as likely to fail etc... SSDs are extremely reliable these days If it's only your OS and programs it's just a ginormous pain in the a**. REMEMBER: all storage drives can and will fail. It's all a numbers game.

 

On the other hand:The biggest advantage you'll get is more storage. Once you get into the 1GB/s range you not going to notice much of a difference unless you'r copying huge files all the time and unless unless you're copying from another 1GB/s + source you're going to be bottle necked somewhere else. as far as increased speed goes there is a law f diminishing returns here. This video explains: 

 

 

Bottom line ask if yourself: 1) Do I want more SSD storage that is maybe a little bit faster? and 2) am I okay with the added risk to the data on this array. If both those are a yes I say go for it.

 

Also remember you'll have to destroy the array to add a drive.

[Mira Yurizaki]

29 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

well yeah, just wondering by how much, i know these things dont tend to scale 1 for 1.

 

Does anyone run 3x SATA SSD RAID0 ?

Well, that performance should be nearing NVMe territory (i.e., 2,000 MB/s with three times the IOPS, for high end models anyway), but it doesn't appreciably improve performance when it comes to loading stuff.

 

The thing with loading applications is that it isn't just "move stuff from RAM", it's "run stuff to make the application usable", which is dependent on the CPU. By moving to much faster storage, you've shifted the bottleneck back to the CPU. Take this for example, this is loading Linux Mint from after POST to a login prompt:

Spoiler

Note this was captured loading it from a VM which only used half the cores available to the system, which is why CPU utilization appears to be capped at 50%

 

Also note that the 4GHz on HDD beats the 2GHz on SSD.

So IMO, going beyond SATA SSD performance is not worth it. Unless of course you have a use case that actually does scale with storage performance.

[DnFx91]

10 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Well, that performance should be nearing NVMe territory (i.e., 2,000 MB/s with three times the IOPS, for high end models anyway), but it doesn't appreciably improve performance when it comes to loading stuff.

 

The thing with loading applications is that it isn't just "move stuff from RAM", it's "run stuff to make the application usable", which is dependent on the CPU. By moving to much faster storage, you've shifted the bottleneck back to the CPU. Take this for example, this is loading Linux Mint from after POST to a login prompt:

  Reveal hidden contents

Note this was captured loading it from a VM which only used half the cores available to the system, which is why CPU utilization appears to be capped at 50%

 

Also note that the 4GHz on HDD beats the 2GHz on SSD.

So IMO, going beyond SATA SSD performance is not worth it. Unless of course you have a use case that actually does scale with storage performance.

hmm, i knew to an extent that it will show the best improvement in synthetic workloads, but i have an i7 so would like to think that any overhead caused by adding a 3rd SSD could be handled decently. I'll give it a try tonight and post some results. I'm more after the extra space than the extra speed to be honest, that'll take me up to 1.5 TB of solid state RAID0, which is too cool to turn my nose up at

[DnFx91]

Update#

 

Added a third SSD to the array

 

 

[-Ice]

If you wanted more speed, why stick to SATA?  Why not PCIe NVMe drives?