Will a SSD raid 0 be beneficial?

Hi,

I'm rather confused by now. My initial idea was getting 2 of intel's new X25-M Gen 2 SSD drives and throw them into a raid 0 configuration.
After that, when released, I was (still am) going to buy Windows 7.

One of my top priorities with PCs is performance, so the TRIM feature was appealing to me.

I'm not going to ask whether or not there'll be TRIM support for raid arrays (in specific the ICH10R raid controller), but rather if this can be solved at a later point through firmware/driver updates, or would a solution enforce new hardware purchases?

Also, will the lack of TRIM for my raid0 severely impact the performance, or just a tiny bit? It'll be a system disk, on which potential games/programs will run from too, and not a storage disk.

I hope my newbie questions are alright on this otherwise high-tech forum

Thanks in advance,

Ottosen.

welcome to the forum!

My (little) knowledge is that only the very newest Intel SSD is supposed to get TRIM per update. I however would not buy it before it actually has. and the stores all still have the "old"vesion of that SSD and that won't get an upgrade afaik.

TRIM really will be beneficial since it deals with the long term performance of SSD (that have a tendency to lose performance due to not literally deleting deleted entries).

AFAIk only W7 will support TRIM.not sure if the RC already does, but there are no SSDs that have it yet to verify.

I think W7 is much faster than Vista with my regular HDD and I'm kind of backpaddling with the SSd since the OS already is fast. Unless you swim in money, you should try one SSD first. That will be significantly faster than what you have now.

I think RAID 0 is overestimated. I've seen tests where in some instances it even is slower. The twice-the-speed only is a theory and depends on many things. It's like whne you drive a Camry to work in traffic jam, and then drive a Porsche to work. Probably not really faster and you need to stop more often for gas

but really, the SSD will be so much faster in real life applications, There really isn't a need for RAID 0 imo considering the additional money.

I don't know if TRIM works in RAID 0. I don't see why not.

why don't buy the SSD when W7 gets released? then you have to install the OS anyway and that would be a good time to change HDD or SSD. I'm on the fence with the SSD, but woudl consider 10/22 a good day to buy an SSD too

Well I do sort of 'swim in money' as you so eloquently put it I also just want to try raid0, and see what it's all about - I never have.

Usually when people see worse results with raid0 SSDs, it's because they forgot to enable write cache, at least if they're using ICHxR.

I am also fairly sure that I read somewhere, that this new Intel drive, which is the one I was going for, will be firmware updated for W7 on it's release.

I appreciate your effort to help none-the-less, but I'm still curious as to whether anyone can say with certainty that the ICH10R bridge can or can not be updated to support TRIM, or if that would require the developement of a whole new chip?

By far, the single-most important upgrade for ANY PC is a SSD drive. Used as your main OS drive, or combined into a RAID, two small, relatively inexpensive SSD's can vastly enhance your PCs performance. Beyond even RAM, a new CPU or video card.

As for the TRIM issue, it's likely we will see new firmware being made available in the very near future. I know there is discussion to this on the ASUS forums and am certain others will follow suit. The Intel X25's, while old, still outperform many of the newer drives that have become available since. They simply remain pricey.

Good thing I'm getting the new Gen 2 drives then!

I did think the solution to a controller not supporting TRIM would simply be a firmware update, but I had to be sure so I wouldn't by hardware that would never be able of supporting TRIM.

With the Intel SSd you are referring to I'm 99% sure it will get the firmware upgrade.
But I'm a perso who believes when I see. If they don't provide TRIM in the firmware, you are stuck and need to buy their 3rd generation SSD

I assume even the 1st generation is able to support TRIM. It is just that the manufacturer doesn't want it to because they sold it to the user anyway.

Same for all other manufacturers.

Important is sizing if you know how much your OS uses now. Mine uses 56 GB, so the 80 GB Intel SSd will do for me. If you are uncertain about the future, why not buy one 80 GB SSD now, and if you run out of space, buy a second one and do RAID 0 then?

As Captain Zero said, you will see the speed with one SSD already.