RAID 0 SSD considerations

[jlparsons]

Hi Folks,

I have an unused 128gb lite-on SSD which I immediately replaced when I bought a thinkpad a year ago and I've managed to buy an identical one on ebay for next to nothing. I have a computer downstairs that me and my kids use to play games on which has a Win7 install on it and I'm going to RAID0 the two SSDs using the Asrock 970 Pro3 motherboards' built in RAID controller and move the install over to that for faster load times. I have not played around with RAID before though I do understand it and am quite happy with RAID0 for this purpose (the same machine has a HDD with a linux install for anything important, only games allowed on windows). I've been using linux of various flavours pretty universally since about 2001 so I'm a total Windows noob. Some questions;

Firstly there is the issue of free space. I tend to keep 20% of my SSD disks unformatted to leave the controller plenty of space for wear over time. With a RAID 0 setup, would I be best to do this by creating an 80% partition on each disk then making a logical drive from these, or create a single logical drive from 100% of each disk then only format 80% of this on the install? I'm guessing the former but not sure.

Secondly, how do I align the filesystem correctly with this sort of setup? I know that Windows 7 apparently automatically does this just like current fdisk/lvm/mdadm on modern linux distros, but will it do so effectively given that there's another 'layer' of logical RAID volume between it and the actual SSDs themselves? Do I therefore need to align the primary partitions when setting up the RAID controller instead?

Finally, how does TRIM work with windows 7 and this sort of setup? I know that with Linux trim needs to be enabled on each virtual disk layer, does this need to be the case with Windows?

 

[drtweak]

1) Going RAID 0 on those you should get some good boot times and you get twice as much speed

2) if one failes though ALL DATA IS LOST

3) When you make a RAID - Windows sees the drive as one big 256 GB Disk. There is no need to partition it before because the RAID will just erase EVERYTHING on the SSD's. Once make you can then make a Parition with 80% of the SSD if you want

4) No need to do any aligning or anything with windows.

5) TRIM is a different story. As of now (and as far as I know) TRIM is only supported on Intel 6 and 7 series chipsets in RAID 0. I can't say for any thing else, but since you are saving some space on the SSD it should be as much of an issue. If you aren't going to be doing a lot of Writing but more so Reading (Loading games etc) I would't worry about it as much.