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Which is faster with SATA 2: 7200rpm RAID 0 or SSD?

PJemus
By PJemus
in Storage Devices
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I am building an HTPC. It has LGA775 with core2duo 2.93 and only runs SATA 2 (and only runs ubuntu). I already have 2 7200RPM HDDs. Given the limitations of SATA 2, and the fact that I will be running the RAID in software, do you think RAID 0 will be A: significantly faster than a single HDD, and/or B: comparable in speed to an SSD?

What kind of CPU tax will be incurred running RAID 0? I intend on using the HTPC as a games console - specifically for use with Rocket league, given that it is a great console game.

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What are you using the storage for?

 

Sequentical speeds are about the same, the ssd will be 10x more iops. Get the ssd if you can afford it.

 

Software raid cpu usage is very low, normally less than 5% on almost all cpu's.

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A) Ideally it should be twice as fast, but at the most really you will see only around 50% faster gains. 

B) No. 

 

It should be fine for a little wee console, but an SSD will still yield nice gains however even early SSD's maxed out SATA3, so SATA2 will bottleneck the SSDs, but it will still be faster than 2 hard drives. 

 

I'm not sure what software you are using, but it shouldn't tax the processor by much. If you want to, I'd upgrade to a Core 2 Quad for cheap. 

 

 

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Twice as fast on linear/sequential transfers as single HDD.
Around the same speeds as those with SSD SATA2/3 (since board will limit it to SATA2).
SSD will trash RAID0 at 4k file operations and random access (IOPS) - "OS stuff".

What board have you got ?
Think about using M.2 PCI-e adapter, NVMe drive, and Duet/Clover bootloader.
Unless you can buy Samsung 950 Pro (which works on anything ;)).

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SSD by far.

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If SATA 2 maxes out at 300MB/s, and 7200rpm is around 120-160MB/s, wouldn't RAID 0 be theoretically 240-300MB/s, meaning that an SSD would not be worth it? I am specifically taking about boot times, as that is what is important to me.

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2 minutes ago, PJemus said:

If SATA 2 maxes out at 300MB/s, and 7200rpm is around 120-160MB/s, wouldn't RAID 0 be theoretically 240-300MB/s, meaning that an SSD would not be worth it? I am specifically taking about boot times, as that is what is important to me.

the problem with HDD, other than sustained transfer rate, is the response time. SSD is much shorter in this regard, and HDD in RAID 0 wont help at all.

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2 minutes ago, PJemus said:

If SATA 2 maxes out at 300MB/s, and 7200rpm is around 120-160MB/s, wouldn't RAID 0 be theoretically 240-300MB/s, meaning that an SSD would not be worth it?

RAID0 isn't perfect like that.
Those HDD speeds are for sequential read/writes only.

The difference is mainly in the random access times. With HDDs they still rely on the platters to spin and the needle to move across to access the data. This means accessing lots of little bits of data takes a long time as it needs to wait for the disk and needle to move in to place to read the data. With an SSD there aren't any moving parts so it can access it all instantly.

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4 minutes ago, PJemus said:

If SATA 2 maxes out at 300MB/s, and 7200rpm is around 120-160MB/s, wouldn't RAID 0 be theoretically 240-300MB/s, meaning that an SSD would not be worth it? I am specifically taking about boot times, as that is what is important to me.

Those are sequential speeds. Random 4k speeds are much much lower, around 30-45MB/s with a SATA SSD, around 0,5-1,5MB/s with a HDD. Those are important for boot times, load times, launching apps, etc...

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Even if you doubled the performance with RAID, its nowhere near the improvement of a competent SATA SSD over spinning rust especially for small random reads. Youd still be much faster than RAID HDDs with an SSD even with a slower version of SATA.

 

Keep in mind that not all SSDs are created equally though. Some cheap SSDs have junk controllers, no DRAM cache or poor quality NAND. A DRAMless SSD isnt worth buying for any reason.

 

If youre considering doing RAID HDDs just get a decent quality SSD, nothing fancy. Its going to be a night and day difference from HDDs, even in RAID.

 

 

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I think my decision is to buy a cheap SSD from aliexpress. Thanks for the help everyone.

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5 hours ago, PJemus said:

I think my decision is to buy a cheap SSD from aliexpress. Thanks for the help everyone.

Just make sure its not a DRAMless SSD or youd be better off with the spinning rust lol

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1 hour ago, Amazonsucks said:

Just make sure its not a DRAMless SSD or youd be better off with the spinning rust lol

Aliexpress cracks down heavily on shit that is fake or bad, and has really good easy ways for people to search for the best things. The SSDs on there are $40NZD (about 20 pounds) for 120gb. They use sm2258xt controllers, and run crucial components. Benchmarks I found in the reviews look like they run  on-par or faster than Samsung Evos. Have a look at 'Goldenfir SSD' if you don't believe me (note that most of these gopniks are complaining because they don't realise it is being limited by their SATA 2)

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Well a DRAMless SSD isnt fake or anything. Theyre just not gonna perform like an SSD with a DRAM cache.

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3 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

Well a DRAMless SSD isnt fake or anything. Theyre just not gonna perform like an SSD with a DRAM cache.

I just watched the techquickie on DRAM-less SSDs. I had a look at a deconstruction video and it looks like it has DRAM.

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13 hours ago, PJemus said:

If SATA 2 maxes out at 300MB/s, and 7200rpm is around 120-160MB/s, wouldn't RAID 0 be theoretically 240-300MB/s, meaning that an SSD would not be worth it? I am specifically taking about boot times, as that is what is important to me.

If Sequential transfer was important, you'd be correct. However, even on SATA 2, SSDs will see massively strong gains in random read and writes. SATA 2 bottlenecks maximum speeds, however, it is of very little relevance in utilizing the benefits of going SSD.

My eyes see the past…

My camera lens sees the present…

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