Adding a second SSD: advice?

[reignsupreme11]

Hey all, i have 140$ in gift certificates to a preferred computer store of mine (canada computers) and am debating adding a second solid state drive. this is my system that i use mostly for gaming and some video encoding and occasional CAD work:

MSI P67A-GD80 B3 mobo
Intel 2500K CPU
2 x 4GB Patriot Sector 5 RAM
Sapphire 6950 2GB video card
Noctua C-14 Cooler
Corsair 750W PSU
OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD (boot)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB HDD
Windows 7 Home
Azza Solano 1000 Case

Accessories:
gaming mouse and keyboard that i really like.
24" LED asus monitor
have a PS3 at home so i don't see a point in buying a BD drive

My SSD is full, mostly with games but also some programs that i use daily: e.g. itunes, chrome, anti-virus and video program etc.

Should I invest this money into more SSD storage? If so do I have to pair the same model and size SSDs together? Is it difficult to set up? what about a RAID 0 array? and of course, is there something else that will be a better investment for me.

thanks in advance!

 

[foscooter]

Do you not have a hard disk drive for all your storage? If not, get a large hard drive (i.e. 1TB-2TB) for less than another SSD.

Use it for the Libraries (i.e. My Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Gaming data).

See my signature below.

Ok I see that you have a 500GB hard drive, what is on it?

 

[geofelt]

You can add a second SSD of any size, size, speed, just like you could add a hard drive.
Since your storage needs seem to be modest that makes sense.
I would not fool with raid-0. You will not detect any performance improvement in real life. Sequential benchmarks will look great, but that is not how we really use a ssd.

If you have files that you would hate to lose, consider an external hard drive for backup.

 

[photonboy]

An SSD for storage is generally a WASTE of money.

RAID0 can't use TRIM and I doubt your RAID controller on the motherboard would actually be much faster than with the Agility 3 by itself.

My advice is get a Western Digital 2TB drive for the large files, including the STEAM game folder and also use Acronis True Image (free WD version) and make a backup of your SSD drive.

 

[photonboy]

6Gb/s
Also, I just want to confirm that you hooked your SSD up to the 6Gb/s SATA connector.

 

[geofelt]

Are you out of room on the 500gb hard drive too?

Or, are you considering adding the SSD for some frequently used apps that you want to load quickly?

If you went to 16gb, windows 7 will keep lots of stuff in ram, ready for instant reuse. That would not cost much.

Or, how about adding a second monitor?

 

[reignsupreme11]

an additional SSD would not be for storage but for high usage apps. i am thinking of putting music on it so that itunes can be accessed more easily. also for a new games and a few that i have uninstalled from my current SSD.

i've considered RAM, but i am not sure if it will fit with my cooler. will take a look at low profile stuff and do some measurements.

monitor is not for me. i've been thinking of speakers as well i have pretty bad ones...like 6 year old generic ones haha. i will likely just get some speakers anyways and add on either:

SSD (120GB, any recommendations?)
RAM 8 GB of low profile

also: i do have it hooked up to sata gb/s

 

[geofelt]

I would look at the Intel 330 series. They are budget priced, at least for Intel. Samsung 830 is another solid drive.