[SOLVED] Raid, Software or Motherboard

[neverknowu]

I want to build a RAID0 with 3 SSD drives. I need super fast read and write for reading and outputting large video files. This is only job per job basis: I dump the files after a couple days. Rinse, repeat.

I already have 2x m.2 drives on my mobo, but no available PCIe slots for a controller. I have 3x 512gb samsung pro SSDs, so to put them to good use, I could do Raid0 for M.2 like speeds.

Should I build this out from the motherboard/bios, or through Windows Disk Management?

Intel Core i9 10980XE
AsRock x299 Creator

 

[USAFRet]

If you absolutely must (and this is maybe one of the very few use cases where it applies)...hardware RAID.

But, speed in outputting still depends on what you are outputting to. Anything except another storage place of similar speed....performance will be dictated by the slowest device in the chain.

 

[neverknowu]

If you absolutely must (and this is maybe one of the very few use cases where it applies)...hardware RAID.

But, speed in outputting still depends on what you are outputting to. Anything except another storage place of similar speed....performance will be dictated by the slowest device in the chain.

Thanks for your reply USAF. Yes, if it dies, it doesn't matter to me. I need speed. I'm outputting large video sequence files, and it's nice to have a place to write them to, quickly. Then I sometimes transcode them to different formats, so again quick read and write needed. From there, I copy them off of the local computer on to a hard drive OR upload to the internets.

I didn't know if the Windows software, or some other 3rd party software, or going through the hardware motherboard would be best. Thank you.

 

[geofelt]

There is another potential issue.
A ssd will slow down when you continuously write to it.
A ssd will have a fast buffer to receive the writes which are later transferred to slower nand blocks.
When you overwhelm this buffer with continuous writes, the process slows down to the speed of the underlying nand blocks.
For sequential output, there is a good case for a fast hard drive.
I came across this product, I do not know if it is commercially available:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-exos-hdd-hamr-mach.2,36719.html

 

[neverknowu]

There is another potential issue.
A ssd will slow down when you continuously write to it.
A ssd will have a fast buffer to receive the writes which are later transferred to slower nand blocks.
When you overwhelm this buffer with continuous writes, the process slows down to the speed of the underlying nand blocks.
For sequential output, there is a good case for a fast hard drive.
I came across this product, I do not know if it is commercially available:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-exos-hdd-hamr-mach.2,36719.html

I write to the drives a dozen times a month on average. Also, RAID0 they would share that write, and they are Samsung Pro 512GB, so they should last a bit. 512GB is too little for 8k files these days, but if I have a 1.5TB fast drive, that would be a lot more useful to me. With those in mind, does it sound like a good plan still? Also, thank you for sending me that info, that's really interesting!

 

[USAFRet]

I write to the drives a dozen times a month on average. Also, RAID0 they would share that write, and they are Samsung Pro 512GB, so they should last a bit. 512GB is too little for 8k files these days, but if I have a 1.5TB fast drive, that would be a lot more useful to me. With those in mind, does it sound like a good plan still? Also, thank you for sending me that info, that's really interesting!

1. RAID 0 is not a method to reduce write cycles to an SSD.
2. Current SSDs dying from too many write cycles is NOT a problem to consider. It will last your next 3 or 4 systems before it may "die" from too many write cycles.

 

[geofelt]

I was not talking about the ssd losing the ability to write(endurance)
I was referring to the performance degradation that can happen when a large flush
of writes hits the ssd fast write buffers and fills them up.
You then degrade to the speed of writing the underlying nand blocks.

This effect is speculation on my part.
You would do best with ssd devices that are slc based, optimized for writing. Not mlc or qlc.
Likely they are found in the server marketplace and will be expensive.