Dual SSD RAID 0 in MacBook Pro

[orthorim]

I won't go for the RAID for two reasons:

1 - It will sap the battery. I mind even if it's just 10 or 20 minutes.
2 - Expensive (2 SSDs)

I will swap out my optical for a HD, and do one of the following:

Optical Bay: 500GB hard disk
HD bay: Intel X25-M G2 80GB ($225 MSRP when they are released)

-- or --
Optical Bay: Intel 80GB SSD as above
HD Bay: WD 1TB drive.

I think gonna go with the former though. I am not 100% sure booting from an SSD in the optical bay is a good idea. Even though people say it works, it wasn't intended for that so I am worried about stability. Plus, I don't really need 1TB disk space, particularly when I have all 500GB for media, and have all apps and stuff on the SSD.

A hard drive gets significantly slower the fuller it is but if I have nothing on it that requires speed, it wouldn't really matter, so I could fill it to the brim.

 

[Lounge Deluxe]

I am not 100% sure booting from an SSD in the optical bay is a good idea. Even though people say it works, it wasn't intended for that so I am worried about stability.

It's just another SATA port, nothing special. And besides the optical drive is also meant as a boot device for bootable dvd's like the OS X dvd or TTP, so that SATA port is just as suitable to boot from as the other SATA port that has the hdd connected to.

 

[L0s7man]

How do you put HDD in optical bay? Does it void the warranty?

 

[Lounge Deluxe]

How do you put HDD in optical bay?

Try this.

Does it void the warranty?

Probably, but Apple needs to find out first.

 

[mrrippey]

I won't go for the RAID for two reasons:

1 - It will sap the battery. I mind even if it's just 10 or 20 minutes.
2 - Expensive (2 SSDs)

I will swap out my optical for a HD, and do one of the following:

Optical Bay: 500GB hard disk
HD bay: Intel X25-M G2 80GB ($225 MSRP when they are released)

Most likely what I would do. You get the speed of boot up and shut down as well as launching of apps (which are loaded on SSD, mostly the apps I use 90% of time) and keep all data (like music) on the HDD.

Also I do not think RAID 0 works on the newest uMBP

 

[KarlOlsson]

Duel 64gb SSD in my Macbook Pro 2011 !!!

I have to tell you , When I purchased this machine I wanted it to be a speed Demond.....I have all my Data /Music/Pics/Docs/Movies on a external Seagate 1tb 2.5inch hooked up with firewire 800

Removed optical drive added 2nd SSD (Matched Set)
Runnig them in Raid 0 stripped
Went to 8gb of ram 1333

Machine flies 440mbs read 410mbs write

No issues.....Saved all orginal parts so apple wont bitch about it

 

[bdodds1985]

I am bringing back the dead with this one. But does anyone else use RAID 0 with dual SSD's on the newer MBP's? I have a 2011 running Lion and not the same exact SSD's (stock apple 120GB and an Intel 320 series 120GB Sata II) and I am wondering if I can use RAID 0 and if so how is this working for anyone who is currently using it? (failure rate, time machine back ups, etc)

 

[orthorim]

people are doing it but IMO there's way too many things that could go wrong with this, from drive errors to driver issues... and if you have any of those issues all the speed gains you get from the RAID are going to be lost to fixing the issue.

Maybe it makes sense if you constantly work with 500MB Photoshop files or if your job involves reading a writing large quantities of data all the time.

For me, not worth it. My speed is limited by access time and small random I/O so a single SSD is just as good as a RAID. RAID 0 doubles the data transfer rate, and that's only relevant for large files.

 

[alphaod]

I am bringing back the dead with this one. But does anyone else use RAID 0 with dual SSD's on the newer MBP's? I have a 2011 running Lion and not the same exact SSD's (stock apple 120GB and an Intel 320 series 120GB Sata II) and I am wondering if I can use RAID 0 and if so how is this working for anyone who is currently using it? (failure rate, time machine back ups, etc)

The main issue is Lion is a hit-or-miss when it comes to RAID. It will either work, or your life will be hell.

Set up is the still the same. Boot up to a Lion USB flash drive, run Disk Utility, set up RAID, install OS X to the new RAID array. If it works it works, if it doesn't then you can't do it.

Just a heads up, since you're creating a RAID from 2 drives, you cannot boot to a recovery partition to create said RAID.

 

[bdodds1985]

Just a heads up, since you're creating a RAID from 2 drives, you cannot boot to a recovery partition to create said RAID.

but do the drives need to be the exact same?

How To

If I use Carbon Copy I can boot from an external to create the RAID or your saying without doing that you cannot boot from recovery?

 

[maflynn]

The main issue is Lion is a hit-or-miss when it comes to RAID. It will either work, or your life will be hell.

Personally, I'd not use RAID 0 on a laptop. Something happens to one volume and your data is gone.

Definitely will need a solid and consistent back up plan.

Also since SSDs have no latency like hard drives, how much of a speed increase will you see, and will it be worth saving a couple of milliseconds while increasing the risk to your data?