Question New RAID with existing OS

[Scratillion2]

Hey all.

Recently, my HDD died and I lost a lot of data. My current setup has an SSD running my OS and I purchased two Samsung 1TB M.2 SSD's in order to raid them together for gaming purposes via stripe. The issue I had at first as that my MSI z390 BIOS didn't recognize them at all. I reformatted and labeled one with a letter and kept the other without so when I raided, it would be more optimal. ( In my mind it worked that way. OCD. ) In the followup attempt, it showed the OS SSD and the first M.2 SSD but not the other, and the raid setup attempted to link them together causing a bluescreen. I managed to revert to a prior state and got my computer to 'normal' sans the extra space but I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong.

Afterwards, I used the setup for intel chipsets on the MSI site itself but the instructions mentioned items in the list that were missing in the BIOS and it felt it was more for fresh installs rather than existing setups.

At this time, I'm unsure if the information I've provided here is enough to help rectify the situation, but I can happily provided screenshots or information that can help get me on the right path.

Thanks in advance.

 

[kanewolf]

Hey all.

Recently, my HDD died and I lost a lot of data. My current setup has an SSD running my OS and I purchased two Samsung 1TB M.2 SSD's in order to raid them together for gaming purposes via stripe. The issue I had at first as that my MSI z390 BIOS didn't recognize them at all. I reformatted and labeled one with a letter and kept the other without so when I raided, it would be more optimal. ( In my mind it worked that way. OCD. ) In the followup attempt, it showed the OS SSD and the first M.2 SSD but not the other, and the raid setup attempted to link them together causing a bluescreen. I managed to revert to a prior state and got my computer to 'normal' sans the extra space but I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong.

Afterwards, I used the setup for intel chipsets on the MSI site itself but the instructions mentioned items in the list that were missing in the BIOS and it felt it was more for fresh installs rather than existing setups.

At this time, I'm unsure if the information I've provided here is enough to help rectify the situation, but I can happily provided screenshots or information that can help get me on the right path.

Thanks in advance.

RAID is not the best answer for data security. You need automated backups.

 

[USAFRet]

I purchased two Samsung 1TB M.2 SSD's in order to raid them together for gaming purposes via stripe.

1. Striped drives, RAID 0, is the very antithesis of 'data security'.

2. You can't take a current drive + data, and simply add another one and make it a RAID array. Everything needs to be reformatted.


Let's get to the real 'problem', and then a real solution will present itself.
And almost assuredly, RAID of any type is not that solution.


So, what are you actually wanting to do?

 

[Scratillion2]

After this loss, data security is not the focal point. I have my data on a backed up external drive now. I have taken those steps.

What I am trying to do is just raid the two new SSD's for Steam only. I wanted the drives only for gaming purposes and according to what I've read, raid 0 is best for read and write times. I am trying to incorporate the two new drives as a raid onto the existing setup which includes an SSD with OS installed already.

 

[USAFRet]

After this loss, data security is not the focal point. I have my data on a backed up external drive now. I have taken those steps.

What I am trying to do is just raid the two new SSD's for Steam only. I wanted the drives only for gaming purposes and according to what I've read, raid 0 is best for read and write times. I am trying to incorporate the two new drives as a raid onto the existing setup which includes an SSD with OS installed already.

With solid state drives, RAID 0 might be a touch slower than individuals.
The RAID overhead negates the SSD benefit.
These from several years ago, but I've not seen anything to negate these results:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-950-pro-256gb-raid-report,4449.html

One SSD Vs. Two In RAID: Which Is Better?

One SSD is good, right? So, two SSDs in RAID 0 must be better. That’s certainly the case when you're benchmarking sequential performance. But we're finding that, except in extreme examples, one SSD that's twice as large is often better.

www.tomshardware.com

Steam is VERY good at managing multiple drives. You can have an install folder on each drive. 0 performance difference, and mostly transparent to you.

 

[Richj444]

After this loss, data security is not the focal point. I have my data on a backed up external drive now. I have taken those steps.

What I am trying to do is just raid the two new SSD's for Steam only. I wanted the drives only for gaming purposes and according to what I've read, raid 0 is best for read and write times. I am trying to incorporate the two new drives as a raid onto the existing setup which includes an SSD with OS installed already.

You will never, ever, be able to tell any real life difference by combining two SSDs into Raid 0. Not remotely worth the associated headaches of setting it up.

 

[lantis3]

RAID 0 is the worst solution for data security. And RAID 0 only make sense when you have slow HDDs with backups.

Absolutely no benefit to use RAID 0 on fast SSD since you will never saturate the bandwidth under any circumstances.

RAID 1 (mirror) also does not make sense since it's not backup, unless you are in a enterprise environment that can't tolerate downtime . You could lose 2 SSDs at one time. Use a external backup, even if you have RAID 1 in place.