mSATA, SSD, RAID, please help!

[ApplesDaMan]

So I'm about to purchase a so-called 'Gaming Laptop' and I'm having problems understanding the deal with the harddrives. I understand the basic point about a normal harddrive and a SSD however, I've never seen mSATA SSD's.

So I have an option to buy mSATA SSD's and chose Crucial as my brand.

2x Crucial 256GB Solid State mSATA's

and it's asking for a RAID 1, RAID 0 or do nothing about it. What is RAID 1 and RAID 0? Could someone explain to me very simply? The wikipedia page doesn't shed much light for me...

 

[Onus]

RAID-1 mirrors the contents of the drives. Total capacity is the size of one drive. If one fails, you don't lose any data. Backups are still necessary to account for viruses, data being accidentally deleted, controller failure, etc.
RAID-0 stripes the data across the drives. It is faster, but that really only matters with mechanical hard drives, because SSDs are fast anyway. Capacity is 2x the smallest drive. If either drive fails, all your data is lost.
"Doing nothing" most likely leaves them as two separate drives.

 

[Dereck47]

I understand the basic point about a normal harddrive and a SSD however, I've never seen mSATA SSD's.

So I have an option to buy mSATA SSD's and chose Crucial as my brand.

2x Crucial 256GB Solid State mSATA's

FYI, mSATA SSDs can only be connected to mSATA ports.
So if you are buying 2 mSATA drives, make sure your laptop has 2 mSATA ports.

 

[USAFRet]

"Do nothing" would 99% be the proper choice here.

If it has (and verify this) 2 mSATA ports, you'll just have 2 drive letters. C and D.

 

[ApplesDaMan]

I'm planning to get the computer with 2 mSATA Drives and buy 2 of my own harddrives/ssd's to put into the computer. Would it not be better to get the 2 mSATA drives as a RAID 0 to combine the space?

 

[USAFRet]

I'm planning to get the computer with 2 mSATA Drives and buy 2 of my own harddrives/ssd's to put into the computer. Would it not be better to get the 2 mSATA drives as a RAID 0 to combine the space?

1. A laptop with space for 4 drives?
2. RAID0 makes zero sense with SSD's. You increase the complexity and potential for failure, with no increase in performance or 'space'.

 

[Metaspherz]

I'm planning to get the computer with 2 mSATA Drives and buy 2 of my own harddrives/ssd's to put into the computer. Would it not be better to get the 2 mSATA drives as a RAID 0 to combine the space?

1. A laptop with space for 4 drives?
2. RAID0 makes zero sense with SSD's. You increase the complexity and potential for failure, with no increase in performance or 'space'.

 

[Metaspherz]

My MSI GT60-475 has 3 msata slots and a mechanical drive slot. That makes a total of 4 drive slots. Also, my laptop came with a single 128GB msata so I'm looking to add two more. The pro version of my laptop comes with 3 msata drives already installed in RAID 0. It's not uncommon for laptops to have that configuration -- although, when some people opt to add more drives later they keep them as separate drives just for the faster gaming and multimedia tasks. Others mix RAID 0 and 1. The extra slots mean there's a variety of possible configurations.