Purchasing RAID control card to fully support trim on an xps 720 motherboard.

[zerophase]

I'm at a point where my HDD is starting to die, but have to wait a month before buying a whole new system. So, I'm picking up an 850 Pro planned for my build. The only thing is the Xps 720 motherboard doesn't have full ahci support (It's a bit unclear if the the 2.0 sata chipset supports any of the ahci features) first off would a raid controller allow my current system to fully support the SSD? Will 1 SSD function in a RAID controller?

I will be getting a Rampage V Extreme. Is the on board RAID support fairly good on those? If the RAID support isn't that great I might as well get a decent raid card. As I will eventually be running 2 ssds in raid 0. Have any suggestions for good RAID cards between 200 and 500 price range, if it's worth it? Any suggestions for the lower end between 30 and 150? I don't really see much of a point in spending a ton on a raid card (currently) if I'll only be using it for a short time span. I'm mostly picking one up, so the lack of ahci doesn't damage the lifespan of the drive. I couldn't really find many reasons reviews on raid cards at the lower price point.

 

[USAFRet]

As I will eventually be running 2 ssds in raid 0.

Might we ask why you want to do this?

 

[zerophase]

Might we ask why you want to do this?

For the increased speed. I already have a back up drive, and will be getting one of those archive Hdds from Seagate. Other than that most of my important stuff ends up on github. So, I don't really worry about data loss.

 

[USAFRet]

For the increased speed.

Read this all the way through before you go down that path:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

 

[zerophase]

If it can speed up compiling it's probably worth it for me. From my understanding there's a huge amount of variables with setting up raid 0 from making sure to use the Intel sata ports, or even high end raid controllers affecting the performance. I'll have to look into the high end controllers, for sometime down thevlime.

more importantly I'm looking for a cheaper raid card so I can at least get current ahci features, that sata II lacks, during the month period or so I have to wait before picking up the rest of the parts for a current system.

 

[USAFRet]

I'd enjoy seeing a real world before and after SSD RAID 0.
-is it actually better...

 

[zerophase]

Of course with all the work and the price you'd have to pay for a real world Raid 0 setup being worth it it's probably more worthwhile to just get PCI-E SSD, like this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231819

I still do need suggestions for the lower end raid cards, though.

 

[freeskier93]

Just run the SSD on whatever your motherboard supports. For the month or so until you upgrade the motherboard it really doesn't matter, your SSD will be fine. Running it on whatever built in RAID you current motherboard has or buying an external RAID controller is just silly.

To answer your question though, yes you can run a single drive on RAID but TRIM support is not guaranteed, it's really controller dependent. You also can't just flip the switch to RAID, your current Windows installation won't be able to boot on RAID because it doesn't have the proper RAID drivers installed. You can't just install the RAID drivers either, Windows won't do it unless there is a detected RAID array. Normally you have to install the RAID drivers at the time of Windows installation.