RAID 0 or SSD?

[nanofrog]

Problem with that, even if you do have a big budget, is that you cant fit all 24 drives into your case. Mac pro could handle 6 at the most, 5 if you still want to keep an optical drive.

I mentioned it for performance results only, but Yes, you'd have to use external enclosure/s to fit it all, and get it operational on a Mac Pro. Unless you do like the experiment, and have a rat's nest of cables and drives hanging out of the computer.

Yeah, there's definitely a cap on the ICH10's throughput. But I believe we also have a lot to learn about the impact of the large write-erase blocks on most drives and the interaction this has with stripe size. It's odd to me that no professional review sites have tackled this issue. For example, what's the impact of using RAID0 arrays with small stripes (even 128KB stripes) on drives that have write-erase blocks of 512KB?

Very good point. Since the OS uses data in 512KB blocks, it would need to be adjusted. It can be in Vista and Win7 (at least I can confirm this in 64bit), but it does need to be tested. Hopefully, that's what the SSD makers are doing, and working with OS developers to make the optimizations for SSD in the OS to help matters.

It's still really early yet.

Of course reads should will be faster, but SSD's are so damn fast that a RAID0 doubling of read performance will only be really useful in very limited circumstances that are not CPU bound. For example, I don't believe boot times or app load times scale proprortionally to the number of SSD's in a RAID0 array. Do they? I better start looking for some stats before I look foolish!

To me, the whole point of it, is to feed the cores faster (aleviate the disk to CPU bottleneck). It's only useful if the application/s can benefit from it, so the performance levels needed depend on the specifics for each user & system.

As far as specific data, it's hard to find now (IMO), as it's limited mainly to SSD on ICH10R SATA. I've been waiting for more RAID card and PCIe Flash Drive data. My instincts tell me it will scale, so long as the throughput isn't throttled as it is on the ICH10R. It does seem to scale for a pair, but no more (at least with Intel G1's, IIRC). Past that, and it hit the wall.

I do even wonder if it's the chipset drivers that's causing the issue in the first place, as it's capable of more bandwidth from what I can derive off the specs. What I don't know, if there's something going on internally (latency overhead) that's eating clock cycles, and thus throttling the throughput.

I'd certianly like to understand more.

 

[nanofrog]

So use the SSD for the system and applications and fast good old fashioned HDs for data then? I've been toying with the idea of doing this and RAID0 in the three bays not used by the SSD.

I've got an SSD in my Macbook Pro, and am amazed at the speed.

Seems a reasonable path ATM.

 

[VirtualRain]

I'd certianly like to understand more.

That makes two of us. I suggest you start some testing

I wish I had more time to spend on stuff like that... I'd love to delve into it deeper.

 

[nanofrog]

That makes two of us. I suggest you start some testing

I wish I had more time to spend on stuff like that... I'd love to delve into it deeper.

If you're willing to send me a bunch of Intel SSD's, I'll oblige you. And keep the drives.

BTW, I've been looking into the scaling issue, and it seems the ICH10R does technically have the bandwidth, it seems to be fixed, not dynamic. So I'm assuming at this point Intel figured 110MB/s for mechanical drives * 6 ports, thus resulting in the 660MB/s limit people are seeing (band is shared by other devices).

Makes sense, but it sucks. I hadn't noticed this in the chipset data sheet, but I'll try to take a look later.

 

[Tesselator]

Okay, I can barely afford an SSD, so which setup would be better for speed overall... One Intel SSD 160GB (when available) or two WD 1TB Blacks in a RAID 0?

Also, do you have to have a RAID approved HD or will any of the 1TB Blacks work?

Thank you for all the responses... I guess SSD it is!

Now, where is the 160 at Intel?

Ummm no, not really.

The SSD is faster at reading (ONLY) over two 1TB blacks. At writing it's very very close and the SSD will be faster at some things while the Black RAID0 will be faster at others. But aren't you looking at price performance here? If so you should be looking at a 3-drive RAID0 vs. SSD as those cost roughly the same. And at that point the 3-D Black RAID0 is faster at almost everything over the SSD not to mention that you're getting 3TB for that price instead of a measly 160 GB. Here's a thread which shows the speed of a 3-drive RAID0 comprised of slow 1.5 TB 500GB/Platter Samsung Green drives: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7673878/ As you can see, even it is faster at most things than an SSD is - and it costs about the same as a single SSD too (~ $300).


Also the Blacks may not be the best for RAID. I read that they're good but I would think any 1TB drive that uses 500GB platters would be considerably faster in a RAID than the WD Blacks. This is another reason why the 500GB Blacks suck so bad in RAID. The platter density is too low and performance suffers greatly.

Anyway, if it were me I would want three 1TB or 1.5TB drives in a RAID0 over an SSD for about the same price. Without hesitation!

 

[22Hertz]

Im throwing in my vote for the Intel SSD with one caveat...

I would opt for the 80Gb drive unless you need the space of the 160.

SSD technology is still teething and later advancements will make things faster/more reliable/cheaper

the 80Gb drive is (will be) around $200...drives 2 years from now may be 320Gb with twice the I/O bandwidth at $100.

I just couldn't live with myself if I spent $400+ on something that will be considered old news in a year or two.

The main advantage I see other than speed is reliability.
Reliability is the number one reason for having one in my MBP. Now Im not as worried about how I handle my notebook fearing Ill loose all my data.

 

[jazz1]

Im throwing in my vote for the Intel SSD with one caveat...

I would opt for the 80Gb drive unless you need the space of the 160.

SSD technology is still teething and later advancements will make things faster/more reliable/cheaper

the 80Gb drive is (will be) around $200...drives 2 years from now may be 320Gb with twice the I/O bandwidth at $100.

I just couldn't live with myself if I spent $400+ on something that will be considered old news in a year or two.

The main advantage I see other than speed is reliability.
Reliability is the number one reason for having one in my MBP. Now Im not as worried about how I handle my notebook fearing Ill loose all my data.

I have an 80GB Intel SSD. I bought it for a laptop where I don't need a lot of storage capacity (at least the way I use it). The multiple platter HD RAID0 solution, in a desktop, probably makes the most sense right now. But it is fun to tweak if you have the $$$$ to burn. Price and capacity ignored the loss of heat, vibration and noise on my SSD laptop is really, really nice!

 

[3587]

Is $511 for both the Intel SSD G2 160GB and the Icy Dock a good price?

 

[rnb2]

I've been running an Intel 80GB in my unibody MacBook since I bought it in February, and the same drive as the OS/Apps drive in my Mac Pro 2GHz (1,1) for the last few months. Everything runs so fast and smooth, it's crazy - most apps barely bounce before they're ready to accept input.

I have all of the data on my Mac Pro on a 3-drive WD 1TB Black RAID, with a VelociRaptor as my OS/Apps backup drive (updated every day via SuperDuper), with a separate partition for my Lightroom and Aperture libraries. I also created a 100GB partition on the Black RAID for PS swap, Lightroom temp, etc.

While the processors in this box may not be the fastest things around these days, I/O is very respectable. I use a Drobo to back up most of my data RAID, and a separate Time Machine drive for my user folder (where there might be more revisions of files, etc).

I'm planning to pull the optical drive from my MacBook and use one of the third-party brackets to mount a 256GB Crucial M225 SSD for storing my photographs when I'm on the road. In a laptop, in addition to the speed, the battery life improvements are very impressive.

 

[Tesselator]

Is $511 for both the Intel SSD G2 160GB and the Icy Dock a good price?

Do YOU think $511 is a good price for 160 GB?

$500 in HDD terms is 7.5 TBs, and a 5-drive RAID that will SMOKE any SSD in existence at every operation.

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[nanofrog]

One of the concerns I've had with RAID0 was data loss if one of the HDDs go bad.

That's effectively mitigated with a proper backup though. Any drive or array will fail no matter the technology. It's just a matter of time. So a safe, copy of the data is necessary, not an option.

 

[ungraphic]

Do YOU think $511 is a good price for 160 GB?

$500 in HDD terms is 7.5 TBs, and a 5-drive RAID that will SMOKE any SSD in existence at every operation.

Yeah, but if any one of those 5 drives fails, your whole RAID0 setup is gone, and so are all of your files. Gone forever, completely.

To be blunt; 5 drive RAID means your 5 times more likely to risk failure. Imo, anything past 2 drive raid0 if used for anything other than os/applications is very VERY dangerous. I'd never use it. Especially in HDD. Doesnt matter how big of a disk size id get. Then theres also the noise issue and heat produced by 5 drives.

 

[Tesselator]

Yeah, but if any one of those 5 drives fails, your whole RAID0 setup is gone, and so are all of your files. Gone forever, completely.

To be blunt; 5 drive RAID means your 5 times more likely to risk failure. Imo, anything past 2 drive raid0 if used for anything other than os/applications is very VERY dangerous. I'd never use it. Especially in HDD. Doesnt matter how big of a disk size id get. Then theres also the noise issue and heat produced by 5 drives.

OH, that is total BS! To be frank there's just as much of a chance of an SSD failing. And in either case there is a backup so it ALL means NOTHING anyway.

 

[3587]

Well, after all of these posts, I'm still leaning towards SSD... What was Intel's original asking price for the $160? All of my OS, apps, AND files will fit on there... I just need a 1TB for all my media files... Then I'm set!

Do YOU think $511 is a good price for 160 GB?

$500 in HDD terms is 7.5 TBs, and a 5-drive RAID that will SMOKE any SSD in existence at every operation.

 

[nanofrog]

Well, after all of these posts, I'm still leaning towards SSD... What was Intel's original asking price for the $160? All of my OS, apps, AND files will fit on there... I just need a 1TB for all my media files... Then I'm set!

160GB G2 has an MSRP of $440USD. But the supply is really limited recently, and the current street prices are reflecting that.