That's right. And this proves my point expressly. My 3-drive Green RAID0 gets 500 ~ 600 MB/s writes and 300 ~ 350 MB/s reads. And those are slow-ass green drives.
I stand pretty much by what I said.
I happen to agree. SSD's cost/capacity is absolutely lousy, and it performance reign is only for random access use (when compared to an array of mechanical drives). It's equal at best on sequential reads, and totally lacking in seqential writes.
So they're great for an enthusiast that wants a single, fast drive, and uses it for primarily reads (OS & loading apps), and data to a mechanical unit for the capacity.
It's not yet ready for use in heavy write situations, such as banking, scientific research, video/graphics work,....
I would still take the SSDs over the Raptors considering the noise, energy and mechanical failure issues of those. Just to get rid of the heat of the raptors is an issue in confined spaces.
I've not found them to be noisy or hot, but the issue of confined space can be an issue, and needs to be taken into consideration.
But if the engineers did their jobs correctly, the drive area should have adequate airflow for proper cooling (acceptable standard is 45C, with 55C being the max limit). I've not seen VR's get that hot. Mine tends to hover in the 29 - 33C range (idle - avg. load respectively), which is rather cool for any mechanical drive.
1)is it worth it upgrading to a single SSD drive for me? I have the money, its not really an issue, its a matter of logic. Any SSD drive that holds more than 80gb costs quite a bit. However, at the same time, I could buy two 60 or 64gb SSD drives and RAID0 them to make quite a fast drive.
Single drive = NO, given the cost. The usage matters, and if you're extremely constricted for locations (i.e. a single drive space is available), then it may be a solution. But you've not indicated this is an issue.
2) I've asked about this before, but would garbage collection/TRIM have any real advantages over an SSD without it? Is it worth the wait (and money saved from the wait).
Yes, TRIM is worth having. Waiting also will do something else that isn't mentioned much. OS's will be equiped to deal with SSD's (currently they're designed around mechanical drives). This will change, but OS developers need time to work it out, and make it reliable (won't wear out the NAND cells).
3) Does OS X's automated defragmentation really hinder an SSD drives over all life expectancy? I keep reading stuff about '100K write cycles per cell' is this even something to worry about?
Yes. It's not needed for SSD's, and it causes unnecessary wear on the cells. This is part of the changes needed in OS's.
4) MLC vs. SLC? Whats the REAL difference?
MLC = 10k writes
SLC = 100k writes (worst case data from the NAND flash manufacturer)
SLC is also faster, but more expensive. So the less expensive drives will be MLC. Always a compromise.
Please note that the reliablility data published by SSD makers is based off a 90th percentile model, and also includes the affects of wear leveling. The flash makers use a 100% model, and no wear leveling (that's a function in the drive's firmware, not built into the flash itself).
I can get a 120gb MLC drive for $369, 220mbs/200mbs read/write speeds:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139030
Or 64gb MLC drives for $199 each, 220mbs/140mbs read/write speeds:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139030
Going with the pair would be a little more expensive, but would provide (theoretically) double the performance in read speeds, and about 40% boost in write speeds (280mb/s vs. 200mb/s).
Your presumptions about RAIDing 2x of the 64GB models would be correct. It would effectively double the performance, so ~440MB/s for sequential reads and ~280MB/s sequential writes.
Owners of the '09's would be limited to a max of 660MB/s though, as the ICH10R in those systems are throttled to that rate, no matter what they should be capable of (i.e. 6x Intel SSD's would be capable of ~1.5TB/s max in a stripe set for reads).
