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Two 240GB SSD's or One 480GB

lbeck

lbeck

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 5, 2009
381
0
I'm getting ready to get some more storage, I like the 480GB 6G SSD from OWC. But I was thinking it may be better to get two of the 240GB and put them in a RAID 0. Theoretically that would be faster, right?

Any thoughts on this, has anyone done the above?
 
My thoughts (from another recent thread on the same topic)...

Striped SSDs improve sequential read/write speeds. In fact, internally all SSD's are effectively RAID0 arrays of NAND chips for this reason. However, a lot of desktop I/O is random small transfers which doesn't benefit.

So SSDs in RAID0 certainly doesn't hurt and it might make a difference in reading large photos libraries or in video work, but I wouldn't go out of my way to go this route if you're starting from scratch.

It may make sense if the two smaller drives are cheaper than the single larger one.

Things you give up with RAID0:
- An extra drive bay
- Added risk of data loss due to drive failure
- TRIM does not work on RAID arrays
- Potential lack of portability of your data between different systems
 
Might as well go for the two SSDs in RAID 0. You can still back it up with an external drive, and the Mac Pro has plenty of HDD space: Four bays to be exact. You would STILL have a spare bay if you keep your current HDD in the computer.
 
You also have twice the bandwidth and the 240's are generally faster than the 480's. I vote for RAID0 as well.
 
I like the idea of two in a RAID 0, but I also know eventually I'd need that extra bay for another 480gb drive. Ideally I'd get two 480GB's but that's way out of my price range. What to do, what to do ...
 
what controller are you running these off of ? since you mentioned the 6G units ? this will be a big factor to performance :)

if its on the regular internal do a search here for ICH and see why you will be limited bandwidth especially if your data drives are also using the internal trays and you are pulling other data off these at times ? or if your boot is on a SSD also and your data is on 2 240 gig in raid 0 ? you are throttling something big time

as far as faster raid 0 then single yes but for what ? pulling up a single 20 meg photo I doubt you will tell the difference ? opening a 300 meg file PS itself is the problem

I still say two drives in raid if one dies you can still use it and work

as far as the twice the chance one of my buddies at colorado memory system told me the math does not work that way really its some strange curve thing and when you are talking such nill chances who cares
cause when a single HDD dies you loose everything and when a raid 0 dies you loose everything this is why raids that protect you a bit the common being 10 or 5 or 6 as examples are better ways to go for most people who want security and usually a speed bump
 
philipma1957 said:
buy the intel series 320 600gb ssd.

I like owc a lot but this is a case of size matters.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Intel-SSDSA...ltDomain_0&hash=item588eba861a#ht_2477wt_1189


I own one of them and it is flawless and it is big. Two of these in a raid 0 in any mac pro (on the market now) will be the same speed as two of the owc's. Buy one now and one later.
Click to expand...

that looks nice, real nice. But I'd prefer to buy a SATA 3 interface for the future. Does intel make a 600GB SATA 3 SSD?
 
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