4 Hdd in RAID 0 or one ssd?

[Mrcrazed]

So I've got a curious question. So you can get a 1tb hdd on amazon for about $50 now, and a 1tb ssd for about $200. but I was thinking, would buying 4 1tb hdd and running them in RAID 0 be faster than one ssd? It would have a lot more storage, obviously. but what about speed?

 

[geofelt]

Raid-0 has been over hyped as a performance enhancer.
Sequential benchmarks do look wonderful, but the real world does not seem to deliver the indicated performance benefits for most
desktop users. The reason is, that sequential benchmarks are coded for maximum overlapped I/O rates.
It depends on reading a stripe of data simultaneously from each raid-0 member, and that is rarely what we do.
The OS does mostly small random reads and writes, so raid-0 is of little use there.
There are some apps that will benefit. They are characterized by reading large files in a sequential overlapped manner.

Here is a study using ssd devices in raid-0.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
Spoiler... no benefit at all.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Raid-0 has been over hyped as a performance enhancer.
Sequential benchmarks do look wonderful, but the real world does not seem to deliver the indicated performance benefits for most
desktop users. The reason is, that sequential benchmarks are coded for maximum overlapped I/O rates.
It depends on reading a stripe of data simultaneously from each raid-0 member, and that is rarely what we do.
The OS does mostly small random reads and writes, so raid-0 is of little use there.
There are some apps that will benefit. They are characterized by reading large files in a sequential overlapped manner.

Here is a study using ssd devices in raid-0.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
Spoiler... no benefit at all.

Yes and no. It truly depends on a lot of factors. I have found that most games do not benefit from a RAID 0, I have 2 2TB in a RAID 0 and a Intel 520 for my OS drive. There is one game that did, that was Guild Wars 2 but it also benefits from a SSD.

That said, It is better to get a SSD for the OS and some games and one large drive for data as RAID 0 basically means double the chances of failure and double the failure rate.

 

[Mrcrazed]

Raid-0 has been over hyped as a performance enhancer.
Sequential benchmarks do look wonderful, but the real world does not seem to deliver the indicated performance benefits for most
desktop users. The reason is, that sequential benchmarks are coded for maximum overlapped I/O rates.
It depends on reading a stripe of data simultaneously from each raid-0 member, and that is rarely what we do.
The OS does mostly small random reads and writes, so raid-0 is of little use there.
There are some apps that will benefit. They are characterized by reading large files in a sequential overlapped manner.

Here is a study using ssd devices in raid-0.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
Spoiler... no benefit at all.

Yes and no. It truly depends on a lot of factors. I have found that most games do not benefit from a RAID 0, I have 2 2TB in a RAID 0 and a Intel 520 for my OS drive. There is one game that did, that was Guild Wars 2 but it also benefits from a SSD.

That said, It is better to get a SSD for the OS and some games and one large drive for data as RAID 0 basically means double the chances of failure and double the failure rate.

But putting aside failure rates and optimizations, which would still just be faster and more snappy overall? Like loading large games like GTA V or Far Cry, or just booting into windows?

 

[geofelt]

A Single SSD will be faster.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Raid-0 has been over hyped as a performance enhancer.
Sequential benchmarks do look wonderful, but the real world does not seem to deliver the indicated performance benefits for most
desktop users. The reason is, that sequential benchmarks are coded for maximum overlapped I/O rates.
It depends on reading a stripe of data simultaneously from each raid-0 member, and that is rarely what we do.
The OS does mostly small random reads and writes, so raid-0 is of little use there.
There are some apps that will benefit. They are characterized by reading large files in a sequential overlapped manner.

Here is a study using ssd devices in raid-0.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
Spoiler... no benefit at all.

Yes and no. It truly depends on a lot of factors. I have found that most games do not benefit from a RAID 0, I have 2 2TB in a RAID 0 and a Intel 520 for my OS drive. There is one game that did, that was Guild Wars 2 but it also benefits from a SSD.

That said, It is better to get a SSD for the OS and some games and one large drive for data as RAID 0 basically means double the chances of failure and double the failure rate.

But putting aside failure rates and optimizations, which would still just be faster and more snappy overall? Like loading large games like GTA V or Far Cry, or just booting into windows?

An SSD. HDDs in RAID0 still do not have the write/read or IOPS to compete with a single SSD. Even a STAA Gen II SSD is faster than my current RAID and I can get Read/Write speeds of about 200-230MBps. My old Intel X25m g2 was pushing 300MBps and felt "snappier".

 

[bjornl]

So I've got a curious question. So you can get a 1tb hdd on amazon for about $50 now, and a 1tb ssd for about $200. but I was thinking, would buying 4 1tb hdd and running them in RAID 0 be faster than one ssd? It would have a lot more storage, obviously. but what about speed?

Raid 0 is not reliable. SATA disks do not hold up in RAID. RAID speeds and spindle counts do scale nicely (much like you envision) but it requires much more costly SAS disks. If you used SAS disks in a 4 drive RAID 0 then they would have close to the same speeds as a single high end SSD and well above that of a low end one. The other thing SAS would do is bring greatly enhanced reliability.
With regards to your speed question, the single SSD will almost certainly be faster than a 4disk raid-0 of low end SATA disks (such as you could get for ~50). The SSD will not be as long lived and having a conventional HD to back it up to would be a good idea.

 

[jimmysmitty]

So I've got a curious question. So you can get a 1tb hdd on amazon for about $50 now, and a 1tb ssd for about $200. but I was thinking, would buying 4 1tb hdd and running them in RAID 0 be faster than one ssd? It would have a lot more storage, obviously. but what about speed?

Raid 0 is not reliable. SATA disks do not hold up in RAID. RAID speeds and spindle counts do scale nicely (much like you envision) but it requires much more costly SAS disks. If you used SAS disks in a 4 drive RAID 0 then they would have close to the same speeds as a single high end SSD and well above that of a low end one. The other thing SAS would do is bring greatly enhanced reliability.
With regards to your speed question, the single SSD will almost certainly be faster than a 4disk raid-0 of low end SATA disks (such as you could get for ~50). The SSD will not be as long lived and having a conventional HD to back it up to would be a good idea.

This is not all true. I have been using SATA based RAID for, well since SATA became a standard and have not had any failures. RAID 0 in and of itself is prone to higher failure rates as is any RAID as the more disks you implement into an environment, the higher the risk of failure and of course chance of data loss.

SAS has higher reliability because it is a standard developed for server use which requires higher reliability as the drives normally operate 24x7. They too have failures though as failure is not determined by the connection interface but the disks.

If you do a RAID you never buy low end drives like WD Greens or the cheapest you can find. You buy NAS, WD Reds or normal Seagates as they are going to actually work properly.

Either way RAID 0 is not worth it over a current generation Intel 530 or Sansumg 850.

 

[bjornl]

So I've got a curious question. So you can get a 1tb hdd on amazon for about $50 now, and a 1tb ssd for about $200. but I was thinking, would buying 4 1tb hdd and running them in RAID 0 be faster than one ssd? It would have a lot more storage, obviously. but what about speed?

Raid 0 is not reliable. SATA disks do not hold up in RAID. RAID speeds and spindle counts do scale nicely (much like you envision) but it requires much more costly SAS disks. If you used SAS disks in a 4 drive RAID 0 then they would have close to the same speeds as a single high end SSD and well above that of a low end one. The other thing SAS would do is bring greatly enhanced reliability.
With regards to your speed question, the single SSD will almost certainly be faster than a 4disk raid-0 of low end SATA disks (such as you could get for ~50). The SSD will not be as long lived and having a conventional HD to back it up to would be a good idea.

This is not all true. I have been using SATA based RAID for, well since SATA became a standard and have not had any failures. RAID 0 in and of itself is prone to higher failure rates as is any RAID as the more disks you implement into an environment, the higher the risk of failure and of course chance of data loss.

SAS has higher reliability because it is a standard developed for server use which requires higher reliability as the drives normally operate 24x7. They too have failures though as failure is not determined by the connection interface but the disks.

If you do a RAID you never buy low end drives like WD Greens or the cheapest you can find. You buy NAS, WD Reds or normal Seagates as they are going to actually work properly.

Either way RAID 0 is not worth it over a current generation Intel 530 or Sansumg 850.

Your ignorance and luck don't change the facts. Read up on enterprise solutions and learn a little.
Failure rates of raids go up substantially with any class of SATA. Even NL-SAS, which is a SATA "raid-rated" drive with a SAS controller card on it does not last nearly as long and is not suitable to a high volume raid but an fine for an archive enclosure.

I have personally seen more than one archive server pressed in to duty as a file server kill its drives within fairly short order.

SATA is not "THE" standard. Certainly not in areas where continuity matters. For example, go look at any higher end server from HP or Dell and they offer whatever you want for drives but recommend SAS for work raids for a reason (those being the ones I outlined above)

If you are going to tell someone they are wrong, it might be shrewd to fact check first.

 

[jimmysmitty]

So I've got a curious question. So you can get a 1tb hdd on amazon for about $50 now, and a 1tb ssd for about $200. but I was thinking, would buying 4 1tb hdd and running them in RAID 0 be faster than one ssd? It would have a lot more storage, obviously. but what about speed?

Raid 0 is not reliable. SATA disks do not hold up in RAID. RAID speeds and spindle counts do scale nicely (much like you envision) but it requires much more costly SAS disks. If you used SAS disks in a 4 drive RAID 0 then they would have close to the same speeds as a single high end SSD and well above that of a low end one. The other thing SAS would do is bring greatly enhanced reliability.
With regards to your speed question, the single SSD will almost certainly be faster than a 4disk raid-0 of low end SATA disks (such as you could get for ~50). The SSD will not be as long lived and having a conventional HD to back it up to would be a good idea.

This is not all true. I have been using SATA based RAID for, well since SATA became a standard and have not had any failures. RAID 0 in and of itself is prone to higher failure rates as is any RAID as the more disks you implement into an environment, the higher the risk of failure and of course chance of data loss.

SAS has higher reliability because it is a standard developed for server use which requires higher reliability as the drives normally operate 24x7. They too have failures though as failure is not determined by the connection interface but the disks.

If you do a RAID you never buy low end drives like WD Greens or the cheapest you can find. You buy NAS, WD Reds or normal Seagates as they are going to actually work properly.

Either way RAID 0 is not worth it over a current generation Intel 530 or Sansumg 850.

Your ignorance and luck don't change the facts. Read up on enterprise solutions and learn a little.
Failure rates of raids go up substantially with any class of SATA. Even NL-SAS, which is a SATA "raid-rated" drive with a SAS controller card on it does not last nearly as long and is not suitable to a high volume raid but an fine for an archive enclosure.

I have personally seen more than one archive server pressed in to duty as a file server kill its drives within fairly short order.

SATA is not "THE" standard. Certainly not in areas where continuity matters. For example, go look at any higher end server from HP or Dell and they offer whatever you want for drives but recommend SAS for work raids for a reason (those being the ones I outlined above)

If you are going to tell someone they are wrong, it might be shrewd to fact check first.

I love being called ignorant. I could say something like that to you but that is not what I am about.

You need to re-read what I said. I basically said that SATA based RAID is not failing because it is SATA but because most SATA drives are consumer rated making them prone to higher failure rates no matter what.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/iio/docs/31512701.pdf

While the technologies of SAS and SATA are similar and compatible, they also have several differences. Disks with SAS interfaces tend to be targeted for enterprise-class environments and have the performance and reliability characteristics required for enterprise-class server arrays and RAID systems. SAS drives retain all of the reliability and performance advantages of traditional SCSI and while eliminating the weaknesses of the parallel interface.

As I said, SAS was designed mainly with servers and enterprise in mind. It was developed to take the advantages of SCSI while using the much higher performance capable serial interface over the parallel interface.

As well, I said this too, SAS drives are targeted for servers and enterprise and are typically rated for 24x7 operation and higher reliability than consumer drives, their MTBF is much higher than their consumer counterparts. Same thing with enterprise grade SSDs.

I happen to work in IT and would never recommend using SATA in a RAID for a high use work environment but I also would never recommend a consumer over spend money for SAS when they can get the performance they need out of a SSD for the OS and some games and a regular SATA HDD for data.

And if you look at what the OP had said, he is focusing on the OS performance and game performance not building a high end server to hold all of his work related data.

BTW, it is not luck that my RAIDs have not failed. I just happen to not buy low end drives nor do I use some random junk RAID controller. I buy based on the quality I have seen in many years of building, repairing and maintaining PCs, servers and networks.

PS. I never said you were wrong, just that not everything you said was 100% true as it is not. SATA drives do hold up in RAID. Just ask my current 4 year old 2TBs or the two 120GBs I had in a RAID 0 for 7 years without a problem.

 

[bjornl]

PS. I never said you were wrong, just that not everything you said was 100% true

This is not all true.

You can't disavow what you said just a 1 reply back. You slandered me, said I was lying. When in fact what I said was true which any actual storage expert could attest.

 

[jimmysmitty]

PS. I never said you were wrong, just that not everything you said was 100% true

This is not all true.

You can't disavow what you said just a 1 reply back. You slandered me, said I was lying. When in fact what I said was true which any actual storage expert could attest.

I never said you, I was talking about the statement you made. Yours on the other hand had the word you in it specifically targeting myself as ignorant not what I was stating.

Either way the OP has yet to respond and this is far off the topic of what he asked so let us just leave it at that and move on.