SSD/HDD upgrade Speed/Performance factors

[$immond$]

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Alright here are my current benches of my 4 Seagate Barracudas 7200.12 500 Gb in RAID 0.
I figured I try an SSD if it will be a noticeable upgrade from what I have or I might just get some faster hard drives in put them in RAID 0. One of my concerns is the random 4k write/read. Is that important to hard drives/SSD's in terms of speed/performance? Should I be focused more on that over Seq write/read? I have already noted that SSD's have virtually no latency so I have factored that in as well. I am just seeing if I can justify spending $400 on 100-128Gb over $260 on 2.5 Tb.

Since I transfer large files at most times my stripe size is 128, but I might set it to 32 or 64 if that will increase my 4K read/write Speeds (while taking a hit to my Seq read/write). I am also know with SSD's TRIM or Garbage Collection is a necessity. Please post relevant SSD's to these as well. Also for RAID 0 factors which is better: TRIM or Garbage collection or both?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

These are my upgrade options:

4 Western Digital Blacks Sata 3 640Gb 64Mb Cashe
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=52888&vpn=WD6402AAEX&manufacture=Western Digital WD (Marked down to $65 per drive)

Crucial RealSSD C300 128Gb
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348$389.00

OCZ Vertex le 120Gb
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227508$359.00

Kingston SSDNow V Series Gen II 128Gb
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=50544&vpn=SNV425-S2BD/128GB&manufacture=Kingston$294.00 (Not sure if it supports Garbage collection)

 

[$immond$]

Kingston SSDNow V Series Gen II 128GB, alright I have settled for 2 of these in RAID 0.

No need for anyone's help.

 

[currahee440]

I heard the V+ series supports TRIM which is essentially garbage collect. The V+ is also a lot quicker than the V series. Or you could always go with Intel. I'm gonna get a X25-M soon.
EDIT: Just found out that the second generation V series also has TRIM. So might wanna look into that.

 

[$immond$]

I heard the V+ series supports TRIM which is essentially garbage collect. The V+ is also a lot quicker than the V series. Or you could always go with Intel. I'm gonna get a X25-M soon.

I was thinking that route but the storage capacity is just not enough.

 

[currahee440]

The second gen V series should have it.
I'm kind of afraid of getting the 80GB version. It's not going to be enough :shadedshu have fun with your SSD! Let me know what the performance is like I'm still deciding between a 64GB V series or 80GB X-25M.

 

[$immond$]

I heard the V+ series supports TRIM which is essentially garbage collect. The V+ is also a lot quicker than the V series. Or you could always go with Intel. I'm gonna get a X25-M soon.

I was thinking that route but the storage capacity is just not enough.


80Gb X25 is nearly the cost of the V series Gen 2 128Gb SSD with even worse write times
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41732&vpn=SSDSA2MH080G2C1&manufacture=Intel

Well what I plan on doing is having 256Gb in RAID 0 with the Kingston drives(Best bang for the buck it seems) and set-up my 3 500 Gb HD's in RAID 0 with a stripe size of 128, I will store my games and media files on that array. (I really don't care about setting up RAID 1 for backup as all I want is speed). I will have all my important data backed up on external drives/server. I like to see the Kingston Drives in RAID 0 running a VM.

The performance must be superb.

 

[Flak]

TRIM does not work if you are setting up the SSDs in any sort of raid. There are no raid drivers out yet that will pass the TRIM command to the drives. So if the drives don't have some sort of GC to fall back on they will get slower as time progresses. Unless you reinstall the OS more then usual and do an SE before each install or some sort of manual wipe program. I think intel offers one for its drives and ocz has wiper.exe for the barefoot drives it sells.

 

[Hockster]

It's not the driver that has to support TRIM, well it does, but the controller must also pass on the commands. Currently there are no RAID controllers that do. From what I've read Adaptec and Areca has some on the way, but I don't know when.

 

[$immond$]

are there any SSD's that can go into RAID 0 without losing performance?

 

[Flak]

Just need to find one that does idle garbage collection. I'm pretty sure all OCZ indilix based drives as of firmware 1.5 do both GC and Trim. There is also a utility you can run to manually do GC/TRIM, from OCZ it's call wiper. I think intel also has something similiar built into their SSD utility (for g2 drives).

 

[n-ster]

I have a Vertex 2...


Believe me, you want it ... get a pair of 50gb Vertex 2 in RAID 0