RAID0 SSD on a 2011 MBP

[Hexley]

Are you running a RAID0 SSD setup in your MBP? I want to swap out my SuperDrive with another SSD so I can run RAID0 with a throughput of >1GB/s

This got me thinking as the 2TB Micron 1100 SATA SSD is selling for under $298.50. Have a couple of those in RAID0 and you get 4TB of power sipping storage!

 

[robvas]

I wouldn't RAID them. You lose TRIM functionality, you're exposing yourself to dataloss, etc.

 

[Hexley]

I wouldn't RAID them. You lose TRIM functionality, you're exposing yourself to dataloss, etc.

Speaking of TRIM is it enabled by default on a Crucial MX500?

 

[robvas]

Not 100% sure but I think it’s only automatically enabled on OEM drives

 

[treekram]

On my 2012 MBP with 2 Samsung 850 Evo's set up as RAID0 (Sierra), it says that TRIM is enabled.

Either a SSD supports TRIM or it doesn't. It's a command sent to the SSD. It's up to the OS whether it's used or not. I don't believe you can turn off TRIM on SSD's that support it - the idea being if you don't want to use TRIM, don't send the command to the SSD.

In order to use RAID0 on the 2011 MBP with SSD's, you need to see if the optical port can support SATA3 speed. It's more common that you CAN'T get SATA3 speeds on the optical port on the 2011 MBP. I think there was a hardware solution to this but it wasn't cheap. If you're still interested in RAID0 on your MBP after reading the rest of this post, you can search or just post and I can try to see if I can find the site where they sell this.

In order to really take advantage of the higher RAID0 speeds (keep in mind RAID0 in this case is implemented through software), you need to have use cases where you are copying large files on the SSD. Otherwise, you're not likely to see much human-observed difference. Many times when an app writes a large file, it has to do some processing so it's not an uninterrupted flow of bytes to the disk. So, in that case if the speed of the non-RAID0 is faster than what the app can push, there's no advantage to RAID0. Also, the RAID0 blocks I believe are 32K. So any file smaller than that won't be split between the RAID0 disks.

It just so happens that I have an app (DVR editing program) where if you want to compact a recording (getting rid of commercials) or if you want to splice up a large recording into smaller ones, it will do very little processing and do mainly a file copy and in this case, it's much (not 2x, but noticeably faster) than on my computer which has a SSD but no RAID. If you have a use case where this applies, then RAID0 may help. I also tried a database app that I have where I have operations that may take awhile (anywhere to 10+ seconds to several minutes). There wasn't a clear advantage to RAID0 for this particular use case of mine.

 

[jorgk]

Are you running a RAID0 SSD setup in your MBP? I want to swap out my SuperDrive with another SSD so I can run RAID0 with a throughput of >1GB/s

This got me thinking as the 2TB Micron 1100 SATA SSD is selling for under $298.50. Have a couple of those in RAID0 and you get 4TB of power sipping storage!

Quite possible. Looks like this (see picture) on a late-2011 MBP. [btw, that MBP will die b/c of Radeongate].

In the end, however: I rather liked to have the second SSD as my backup (either a clone or place for TimeMachine files). But that setup, 2 internal SSDs, is really great!

YMMV ;-)

P.S.: Why would anyone like to copy / transfer that many data internally? B/c that's the only moment you gain. In all other 'normal' scenarios other requirementsa are more limiting to the read/write to the drive, eg. to get the data in the first place: 1 Gb ethernet will be the usual culprit, or?

 

[Hexley]

Quite possible. Looks like this (see picture) on a late-2011 MBP. [btw, that MBP will die b/c of Radeongate].

In the end, however: I rather liked to have the second SSD as my backup (either a clone or place for TimeMachine files). But that setup, 2 internal SSDs, is really great!

YMMV ;-)

P.S.: Why would anyone like to copy / transfer that many data internally? B/c that's the only moment you gain. In all other 'normal' scenarios other requirementsa are more limiting to the read/write to the drive, eg. to get the data in the first place: 1 Gb ethernet will be the usual culprit, or?

The Late 2011 13-inch MBP didn't have a Radeon and was the model year that Thunderbolt (10Gb/s) was added to Macs. RAID0 SSD should be able to make most of Thunderbolt.

 

[jorgk]

The Late 2011 13-inch MBP didn't have a Radeon

I am talking about a late-2011 15" MBP which has the AMD Radeon HD 6750M.
True, its older Thunderbolt 1 connector allows up to 10 Gb/sec and will be better fed with two SSDs as RAID0 if transferring data from the SSDs over this port. But I have no scenario where I would use it regularly, do you?