[SOLVED] Two NVMe in RAID 0 for boot or data?

[shen.matt92]

Im re-doing my build and just picked up an ASRock Taichi motherboard with 3 M.2 slots. I was advised by my local PC store associate to use two in RAID 0 for my boot, then a single drive for storage/data. But Ive also heard some say it should be the opposite, one for boot, two in RAID 0 for data.

I know a lot of people think theres no performance gain with NVMe for gaming and its already fast by itself, but still, which should be better? Also, the general advice is Windows and apps on the same drive and games on the second? One more thing, all those NVMe won't hurt the bandwith of the GPU? I understand one is controlled by the CPU, and the other the MB chipset, correct?

Im using these strictly for gaming. My other specs will be:

i9-9900K
Taichi Z390
16GB RAM
RTX 2080 TI

Thanks in advance.

 

[13thmonkey]

There is no performance gain, there is only risk, your local shop does not know what they are talking about. So run them at data as it'll be better to lose your data than lose your OS. If the mobo fails the data is lost, if one drive fails the data is lost.

 

[Barty1884]

RAID 0 might provide you with a bit of a speed boost, but beyond that, it's a waste.

RAID 0 for your bulk data would speed up an HDD, but if you're using NVMe for all, RAID 1 would likely be a smarter idea, providing you with redundancy of your bulk data.

The "general advice" you mention, is typically aimed at 1x SSD + 1x HDD setups. Windows & commonly used apps/programs on the SSD, bulk storage (game files, media etc) on the HDD.

With an all SSD setup, there's likely very little benefit in splitting up the storage spots for each (although certainly no harm in doing so).

 

[USAFRet]

2x NVMe + RAID 0 may be slower than individual drives. At best, zero gain.
This is an older test with 950 Pro's, but http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-950-pro-256gb-raid-report,4449.html


OS and applications on one drive, other things (games) on other individual drives.
No RAID 0 at all.

 

[shen.matt92]

Man, thanks for the advice and quick responses. Yeah, I did hear a lot about it possibly being slower, but wanted more opinions. I guess its not worth the risk to set up RAID 0 with NVMe when not only may it be slower but I could lose my data. With individual, I take zero risk and its still fast as can be. I guess its just in our nature to always want better. But its already a 3500mb/s read speed (Samsung 970). If the speed was advertised as say, 2000, Id just be wanting 3500. But yeah, with a i9-9900K and RTX 2080 TI I guess I had fears not doing RAID 0 may be some sort of bottleneck to the drives.

Are you guys absolutely positive there will be no performance gain in games? Even after reading that article on the 950's I still can't wrap my head around there being no gain or worse performance. Just doesn't make sense. But I think what Ill do now is just use a 250GB for my boot and the other two slots for data. But I also heard bigger drives are faster?

Does that mean I have to use a 500GB as my boot instead? So confusing. Especially since Samsung advertises both 970 250GB and 500GB to have the same speeds.

 

[USAFRet]

No, you don't have to use a 500GB for the OS drive.
You can use the NVMe drives in whatever size...just don't RAID them.

The OS drive would be the C, the other drives would be D and E.

RAID 0 does not stack performance like it did with HDD's. There, you would see a gain.
But with SSD's, the overhead of the RAID sucks up any potential performance gain.

There are some rare use cases where it makes a difference. Large sequential data, copying from one RAID 0 to another.
Movie production, for instance.

For the vast majority of uses, especially gaming...nada.

 

[bmockeg]

I just use a 960 EVO 1TB for everything. There's no reason to put different things on different drives unless you think you will run out of space.

 

[shen.matt92]

Makes sense. I use to put everything on one drive but then I heard Windows will share bandwidth with the apps and data, slowing stuff down. So it doesn't hurt to use two. But just as RAID 0 is only beneficial on HDD, does the same hold true for separating drives with SSDs? Just as Barty1884 pointed out, SSDs, especially NVMe is already so fast does it really matter if theyre separate? Id imagine unlike RAID 0, there would at least be nothing to lose speedwise like those 950s.

 

[USAFRet]

Makes sense. I use to put everything on one drive but then I heard Windows will share bandwidth with the apps and data, slowing stuff down. So it doesn't hurt to use two. But just as RAID 0 is only beneficial on HDD, does the same hold true for separating drives with SSDs? Just as Barty1884 pointed out, SSDs, especially NVMe is already so fast does it really matter if theyre separate? Id imagine unlike RAID 0, there would at least be nothing to lose speedwise like those 950s.

Having things on individual SSD's is no speed issue vs all on one drive.

I have things on multiple drives, mainly for organization.
OS and applications on one, photo work on another, CAD/video on another, etc...
All SSD's.

This allows easy upgrading drives. I recently changed my Photo drive from a 250GB 840 EVO to a 500GB 860 EVO. Copy/paste, swap the drive letters, done.

Or if I need to reinstall the OS. Just disconnect all the others, do whatever, done. Data on the other drives is not affected.

Other people like the simplicity of everything on one drive.
Whatever works for you.

 

[shen.matt92]

So just to clarify, Windows and Steam on the 250GB drive, then all games to the second individual drive?

So right now, my current setup is a 250GB 970 Evo with Windows and Steam, and my games on the D drive (500GB 970 Evo). This is the first time I've done two hard drives. My first setup with the same PC specs had all my stuff on one drive, a 1TB 970 Evo.


Im a big Mortal Kombat fan, and in MK10 there were never any issues. I haven't installed the game on my dual drive setup, and just did about an hour ago. Immediately, I noticed when youre entering the fight, when the little cutscene plays where the two fighters are introduced, it lagged and stuttered severely. One other change was in EVGA precision OC software I increased the memory clock by 500, from 5500 to 6000. But all other specs and settings remained the exact same as when I only had one drive. The next few times I restarted the match, it stopped. Just that first time it happened.


Since no other change was made, I cant help but blame the dual drive setup. Is it possible that since larger drives are faster the 250 and 500 aren't "in harmony"? Or was the 1TB simply faster since its the largest of the three despite the fact I used it for everything? Im seriously getting sick of all these problems, you spend thousands on the best stuff and you just wanna play your games in peace and instead you end up troubleshooting.

 

[USAFRet]

"So just to clarify, Windows and Steam on the 250GB drive, then all games to the second individual drive?"

Yes.

Multiple drives is a very, very common setup.
Steam is just a launcher. The game runs from whatever drive it is installed on.

Any speed difference between the 250 and 500GB is theoretical only.
A LOT of people have the OS and Steam client on an SSD, and the actual games on an HDD. Far larger speed difference, with zero issues.