Trying to decide on storage configuration for new build

[sugarfreeb]

So I'm getting ready to build a new rig and I'm trying to decide which method to use for storage media. I plan to be gaming and some photo editing, also this will be the desktop in my home network so probably the hub for community storage. And I plan to dual boot with linux and win7.

What I'm looking for is some idea as my best balance of speed and reliability with the different combinations of storage (HDD, SSD, multiple HDDs in RAID +0, hybrids, or hdd+ssd combos, etc). I'm just overwhelmed with the possible combinations. Or am I looking into this too much?

 

[RealBeast]

You do not need to raid ssds -- just use a single good ssd of adequate size. RAID 0 with HDDs will improve speed but decrease reliability. IMO hybrids are useful when you can only have one drive and and ssd just is not big enough. Dual booting can make it more difficult to be the hub for community storage.

 

[sugarfreeb]

What about read/write limits with SSD's? And What if I'm trying to stay more budget conscious? What about putting OS's on SSD's and storage on an HDD? What I'm thinking about community storage is if data is stored in a universal filesystem on it's own partition it should be accessible by any OS.

 

[RealBeast]

You really won't notice any difference between the fastest and average SSDs, they all are a big improvement. I've used several different SSDs on my main rig from an old 80gb Intel X25M to a 240gb Vertex 3 Max IOPS and they all seem similar unless I'm looking at Crystal Disk benchmarks. You won't hit the write limits on your SSDs for many years.

Yes, the best thing to do is put your OSs and most used programs on the SSD and storage on the HDD.

 

[sugarfreeb]

Best answer selected by sugarfreeb.