# 2x Intel 520 Series 120GB in RAID0



## shovenose (Jun 17, 2013)

Hi 
Getting most of the components for my new computer tomorrow. Today I went to Best Buy (had a gift card) and bought two of the Intel 520 Series 120GB SSDs. I intend to put them in RAID0 using the motherboard's Intel "fake" RAID.

I do have a couple questions though:
-Will the SSDs still have Trim and all that cool stuff?
-Will the performance of SSDs in RAID0 be better or worse than just a single SSD in normal configuration. I'm aware that RAID0 is striped so I should get double the throughput, however will latency increase?

Thank you


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## AsRock (Jun 17, 2013)

-Will the SSDs still have Trim and all that cool stuff?. A: Yes, using INTELS new IRST drivers. But only for raid 0 and 1 configs.

-Will the performance of SSDs in RAID0 be better or worse than just a single SSD in normal configuration. I'm aware that RAID0 is striped so I should get double the throughput, however will latency increase?

With SSD's the max speed nearly doubles but if you will notice is another thing and if you do is it worth it, Just remember that if one fails in raid 0 you lose every thing.

I Run Raid for my games for the fastest loading times possible how ever with some games it can be annoying for example Skyrim when you are trying to read the tips as they come on the games done loading and you don't get to read them lol.


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## shovenose (Jun 17, 2013)

AsRock said:


> I Run Raid for my games for the fastest loading times possible how ever with some games it can be annoying for example Skyrim when you are trying to read the tips as they come on the games done loading and you don't get to read them lol.



HAHAHA there is no such thing as loading TOO FAST for impatient people like me.

Thanks for the info, and yes I'm aware RAID0 is risky but everything important is going to be on a 1TB WD Black as well.


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## shovenose (Jun 17, 2013)

One more thing - best stripe size?


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## AsRock (Jun 17, 2013)

Depends on data on it but i normally pick 32k, no lower than 32k and 64k as the highest.. In the INTEL IRS software it used to at least recommend 16k for SSD it don't seem t o be there now and when i tried it back them i thought it was a bit sluggish.

I tested it a while ago although it was with HDD's and i used to change the format options too as the default waas not always best and all depends on the file sizes.

Haave a look at these 2 threads.


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...tripe-size-for-SSD-RAID-0-running-OS-and-apps


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## shovenose (Jun 17, 2013)

AsRock said:


> Depends on data on it but i normally pick 32k, no lower than 32k and 64k as the highest.. In the INTEL IRS software it used to at least recommend 16k for SSD it don't seem t o be there now and when i tried it back them i thought it was a bit sluggish.
> 
> I tested it a while ago although it was with HDD's and i used to change the format options too as the default waas not always best and all depends on the file sizes.
> 
> ...


One of those is from 2008 and one contains malware that Google Chrome blocked me from accessing the site.


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## AsRock (Jun 17, 2013)

shovenose said:


> One of those is from 2008 and one contains malware that Google Chrome blocked me from accessing the site.



Maybe you should stop using Google Chrome unless there was a bad ad that popped up. I would be extremely surprised if XS had malware lol.


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## shovenose (Jun 17, 2013)

AsRock said:


> Maybe you should stop using Google Chrome unless there was a bad ad that popped up. I would be extremely surprised if XS had malware lol.



Lol, the .be one had malware


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## Aquinus (Jun 17, 2013)

I should also note that the bigger the stripe the more data your SSDs have to write for any given write operation. If you have a stripe size of 128kb and Windows writes a 9k file, you just wrote 128kb worth of data as far as the SSD is concerned. Lower stripe sizes will improve longevity but will usually hurt read/write speeds. Ever since I switched to 4k stripes, my SSDs don't make nearly as many writes. You're really not going to notice the performance difference between one SSD and two in RAID-0 unless you're copying files.

Edit: My recommendation would be to make the stripe size match the block size of the SSD.


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## Bo$$ (Jun 17, 2013)

AsRock said:


> http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/ar...rives-Tested/4



not just chrome, My firefox warns me about this


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## AsRock (Jun 17, 2013)

Bo$$ said:


> not just chrome, My firefox warns me about this



Well i removed the link, but i have tried malware programs which are not detecting any thing ?..  Maybe because i block the ads and such there that  nothings detecting it ?.


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## shovenose (Jun 17, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> You're really not going to notice the performance difference between one SSD and two in RAID-0 unless you're copying files.


I am not that worried about performance - even a single SSD kicks HDD ass. I just need more than 120GB storage, so I'll be happy to have around 200-240GB with the RAID0. Nice benchmark scores are just the icing on the cake 


Aquinus said:


> Edit: My recommendation would be to make the stripe size match the block size of the SSD.


And, on an Intel 520 Series 120GB... that's 4K?


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