Samsung SM961 SSD in Raid 0 No Issues here

[David Moheban]

Hi,

Just wanted to report that unlike in the review of the SM961 I did not encounter any issues yet running two 256GB drives in Raid 0 except maxing out the read performance DMI Bandwidth which was basically the same as running a single drive. Write speeds doubled maxing out the bandwidth as well but my needs are read centered and I try to minimize writes for obvious reasons. Makes me wonder what the endurance rating of the SM961 is if anyone knows? I'm guessing between 100TB to 200TB on the 256GB drive. The 960 EVO is rated at 100TB and the Pro at about 200TB so its got to be in that ball park.

Anyhow I think the raid issues the reviewer encountered could have been related to the motherboard. I used my on-board m.2 slots and had a hard time setting up the array with my modded bios on an Asus Z170-WS. Had to downgrade my bios efi raid module from 15.9 to 15.5 to get it working. So much for mods..

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

Hi,

Just wanted to report that unlike in the review of the SM961 I did not encounter any issues yet running two 256GB drives in Raid 0 except maxing out the read performance DMI Bandwidth which was basically the same as running a single drive. Write speeds doubled maxing out the bandwidth as well but my needs are read centered and I try to minimize writes for obvious reasons. Makes me wonder what the endurance rating of the SM961 is if anyone knows? I'm guessing between 100TB to 200TB on the 256GB drive. The 960 EVO is rated at 100TB and the Pro at about 200TB so its got to be in that ball park.

Anyhow I think the raid issues the reviewer encountered could have been related to the motherboard. I used my on-board m.2 slots and had a hard time setting up the array with my modded bios on an Asus Z170-WS. Had to downgrade my bios efi raid module from 15.9 to 15.5 to get it working. So much for mods..

Thanks

So, in your demonstrated usage, the RAID 0 with 2 of those drive leads to no read performance increase.
Then why do it?

 

[geofelt]

What app are you using that is read centered?

Out of curiosity, did you test your actual app on a single drive and compare it to the same app running in raid-0?
I ask because ssd tests use special coding and buffering to elicit maximum device speeds.
Most apps do not do that kind of thing.

As to writing and endurance, raid-0 may have a negative impact.
But, the endurance of larger ssd devices we see today makes that no big issue.