Multiple RAID 0 Set Up with Primocache

[Hypnotized621]

What if I bought a RAID controller with two NVMe or mSATA slots and put two SSD's and two HDD's in separate RAID0 arrays and THEN using the RAID0 SSD's as a cache using Primocache? All RAID done through the RAID cards bios.

One benefit would be that the first read or write load won't be as slow because the HDD's are in RAID0. Good for gaming.

I can see something like this costing no more then maybe around $350. Cheaper then a 4TB SSD.

2x2TB old NAS HDD's from like 2016 - $100
2x120GB-256GB mSATA or Nvme SSD's - $60
RAID controller - $100 M.2 RAID Controller Card + 2x SATA Ports - SATA Controller Cards (startech.com)
Primocache - $30

I looked all over YouTube and Bing search for something like this and I didn't find anything.

 

[Zach_01]

Do you have any specific reason or work load that requires a RAID-0 configuration?
Games (loading) usually don’t really benefit from anything faster than a single SATAIII SSD.

 

[Hypnotized621]

Games (loading) usually don’t really benefit from anything faster than a single SATAIII SSD.

I have a RAID0 HDD config and games do benefit from it.

 

[Deathy]

I have a RAID0 HDD config and games do benefit from it.

Do you need 4TB for your games? I have 2x2TB SSDs, one is my Windows installation with quite a bit of games (500GB free) and the other is just videos, music, documents.
In Germany, I could get a 500GB SSD for about 50€, 1TB is 90€ and 2TB is 200€. That 200€ is the price for the Primocache, RAID card and your SSDs (usually in electronics the conversion is 1:1, regardless of actual value). So I would get a 2TB SSD for my windows and games and use those HDDs as a steamcache if I had to have most of my games locally available in a hurry.
In any case, RAID 0 is a data security nightmare and SSD RAID 0 is useless.

 

[Toothless]

What are your system specs?

 

[newtekie1]

I have a similar setup. Don't RAID-0 the SSDs, just buy one larger SSD. RAID-0 can lead to some big sequential speeds, but it can often hurt random access due to the increased latency the RAID controller adds.

 

[elghinnarisa]

RAID0 for games is practically useless on SSD. Now my setup is farm from perfect but I do have a NVMe, a dual SSD Raid 0 and a single SSD just hanging around. I did actually test loading times out a few months back on all of them. I only tested one game in this case (World of Warcraft) and they all gave me identical performance. The largest difference was only the difference from each attempt. Sometimes it loaded in 12 seconds, sometimes in 14. Averaged out over 5 tests with cold boots between, I saw no improvements of running the game on neither the NVMe or the raid 0 compared to just the single SSD.
I also for the fun of it tested to load from my old mechanical drive, which took roughly 45-50sec compared to the SSDs.

I would much rather spend the extra 100 dollars on a larger SSD of any type instead.

 

[Toothless]

RAID0 for games is practically useless on SSD. Now my setup is farm from perfect but I do have a NVMe, a dual SSD Raid 0 and a single SSD just hanging around. I did actually test loading times out a few months back on all of them. I only tested one game in this case (World of Warcraft) and they all gave me identical performance. The largest difference was only the difference from each attempt. Sometimes it loaded in 12 seconds, sometimes in 14. Averaged out over 5 tests with cold boots between, I saw no improvements of running the game on neither the NVMe or the raid 0 compared to just the single SSD.
I also for the fun of it tested to load from my old mechanical drive, which took roughly 45-50sec compared to the SSDs.

I would much rather spend the extra 100 dollars on a larger SSD of any type instead.

Well for 100 bucks you can get a 1TB pretty easily. Or have an older one laying around and use it as cache for an hdd.

 

[Jetster]

Mechanical drives in a RAID 0 sure, and you don't need a hardware controller for just two drives. SSD is pointless

 

[FinneousPJ]

Why not go for software raid?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

What if I bought a RAID controller with two NVMe or mSATA slots and put two SSD's and two HDD's in separate RAID0 arrays and THEN using the RAID0 SSD's as a cache using Primocache? All RAID done through the RAID cards bios.

One benefit would be that the first read or write load won't be as slow because the HDD's are in RAID0. Good for gaming.

I can see something like this costing no more then maybe around $350. Cheaper then a 4TB SSD.

2x2TB old NAS HDD's from like 2016 - $100
2x120GB-256GB mSATA or Nvme SSD's - $60
RAID controller - $100 M.2 RAID Controller Card + 2x SATA Ports - SATA Controller Cards (startech.com)
Primocache - $30

I looked all over YouTube and Bing search for something like this and I didn't find anything.

I have tried this and your system better be stable , crashes equates to data loss ,, it's not overly worth the effort too.

 

[Zach_01]

I have a RAID0 HDD config and games do benefit from it.

Going from 1 HDD into 2 with RAID-0, yes it does bring performance. I use to have it myself 10 years ago and I even gone further with a RAID-5(on board controller) setup and 4xHDD. But that changed after my first SSD. If you look game loading benchmarks there is no real benefit over a single SATAIII SSD. Not even a NVMe PCI-E4.0 can bring more (on loading games) over a SATAIII SSD with its over x10 times faster Read/Writes.