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2x 120Gb OCZ Vertex vs 1x 240Gb OCZ Vertex

I

Inconsequential

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 12, 2007
1,978
1
Right,

Decided I'm getting one of these bigfoot drives, but the 240Gb is more than two 120Gbs.

Now, I could buy two of the 120Gb and software RAID them (No Hardware RAID in my Mac Pro).

I wish the 180Gb was a sensible price but at £310 Im really not going to pay £120 more for 60Gb more :confused:

Or I could just buy the 240Gb and be done with it...

OR I could just buy the 180Gb..

120Gb: 0.68Gb/£
180Gb: 0.58Gb/£
240Gb: 0.66Gb/£

HD Setup would then be with a single 120Gb:

Lower Bay: 300Gb Velociraptor - Windows 7 x64 / XP x32
HD1: OCZ SSD 120Gb - Boot, Apps, Caches
HD2: 80Gb Intel SSD - LR Library, Caches
HD3: 1Tb WD Black - Photo RAWs
HD4: Documents, Music, etc


HD Setup would then be with double 120Gb:

Lower Bay: 300Gb Velociraptor - Windows 7 x64 / XP x32
HD1: OCZ SSD 120Gb - RAID 0
HD2: OCZ SSD 120Gb - RAID 0
HD3: 1Tb WD Black - Photo RAWs
HD4: Documents, Music, etc


HD Setup would then be with the 240Gb:

Lower Bay: Second DVD Drive
HD1: OCZ SSD 240Gb
HD2: 1Tb WD Black - Photo RAWs
HD3: Documents, Music, etc
HD4: 300Gb Velociraptor - Windows 7 x64 / XP x32


Opinions?
 
There is a performance benefit to striping a pair of drives, but whether you will see much improvement day-to-day is another matter - sometimes you will, sometimes you won't. The only downside to striping drives is the added chance of data loss from a drive failure which can be mitigated by a decent backup strategy, and/or the consumption of an added drive bay, which may or may not be an issue for you now or in the future.

I'd say if you have a backup strategy, and can afford to use an extra HD bay for this, buy the two smaller drives and run them in RAID0. :D
 
VirtualRain said:
The only downside to striping drives is the added chance of data loss from a drive failure which can be mitigated by a decent backup strategy, and/or the consumption of an added drive bay, which may or may not be an issue for you now or in the future.

I'd say if you have a backup strategy, and can afford to use an extra HD bay for this, buy the two smaller drives and run them in RAID0. :D
Click to expand...
SSD's can cause the ICH's available bandwidth (~660MB/s) to be exceeded though, depending on the specific drive models attached, and how they're used.

So there's another factor when using SSD's in stripe sets (or other RAID levels) that may need to be taken into account. :rolleyes: Just another example of "old meets new" tech... ;) :p
 
nanofrog said:
SSD's can cause the ICH's available bandwidth (~660MB/s) to be exceeded though, depending on the specific drive models attached, and how they're used.

So there's another factor when using SSD's in stripe sets (or other RAID levels) that may need to be taken into account. :rolleyes: Just another example of "old meets new" tech... ;) :p
Click to expand...

True, but with just a pair of SSD's he should be fine even when transferring files to/from another mechanical drive connected to the ICH.
 
philipma1957 said:
I would say hold off don't buy any ssd's for now. I don't know the price for a 600gb velociraptor in the UK but they are only $250 usd at newegg.com I think a pair of them in a raid0 is a better choice don't forget a 5 year warranty.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=velociraptor_600gb-_-22-136-555-_-Product
Click to expand...

I have a 300Gb Velociraptor as it is, my 80Gb Intel kicks it into next week.

The days of having a non-SSD boot/apps drive is long gone.

As for the stripe speeds, im not that bothered. Besides the max of these drives is only 275x2 = 550Mb/sec so shouldn't be an issue.

My backup plan is that it's CCC'd to a 240Gb partition on the 1Tb Documents drive so I can wipe and secure erase easily along with a 2Tb Time Machine External and another weekly backup on another 2Tb.

Thankfully backups isn't a problem. :p

I would buy two drives simply for being cheaper than one big one. Does anyone know how much CPU usage there is with SSD RAID0? I suspect it might be quite abit?
 
VirtualRain said:
True, but with just a pair of SSD's he should be fine even when transferring files to/from another mechanical drive connected to the ICH.
Click to expand...
It wouldn't (at the limit though, given the ~550MB/s SSD stripe set + 110MB/s HDD).

But thought it was worth mentioning if there's a change in thought. ;)

Concorde Rules said:
I would buy two drives simply for being cheaper than one big one.
Click to expand...
It can be cheaper, but ultimately depends on the disks being compared. But the single drive also opens up a SATA port that could be used later (especially if the performance of an SSD stripe set won't make a difference in real world usage compared to a single SSD).

Concorde Rules said:
Does anyone know how much CPU usage there is with SSD RAID0? I suspect it might be quite abit?
Click to expand...
Not much at all (a few % is usually all that shows up). So it's nothing to worry about.
 
Humm.

I wish the 180Gb was sensible price, that would be perfect. :(

Will have to think abit more.
 
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