[SOLVED] Will buying an extra SSD improve performance AND protection?

Shinsetta

Distinguished
Nov 28, 2012
40
0
18,530
Hi, Guys and Girls,

I never knew what Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) was. I know it's old tech but I never really read the manual. Now reading it and knowing what it does, does getting an extra SSD for my computer make it faster if I already have an SSD?

It looks like with RST, if I get an extra SSD, I can put it in RAID and also get about a 15% boost increase in performance. Is this right?!? Why isn't this a common thing that everyone does or is this just marketing by Intel in which performance really doesn't increase?
 
Solution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_1

RAID 1 is for Uptime. Not data protection.
Let's say you are running a webstore, and downtime = lost sales = lost revenue.
Then you might consider running a RAID 1 array.
But you will ALSO have a good backup. RAID 1 does nothing for all the other forms of data loss.

Accidental deletion, corruption, ransomware, accidental formatting, etc, etc.
The OS, and you, the user, only sees a single instance of a file. Delete it, and it is gone.

Physical file death is actually more rare than the other ways to lose your data.


You want actual data protection?
Backups.


There, does that...
Perceived and practical performance stopped being noticeable beyond SATA SSDs anyway. The jump from an HDD to a SATA SSD was amazing. The jump from a SATA SSD to an NVMe one hasn't really been so. It might look good on paper and in benchmarks, but your 10 second Windows boot time on a SATA SSD doesn't magically go down to 2.
 

Shinsetta

Distinguished
Nov 28, 2012
40
0
18,530
No problem, bruh. Here are all the specs that I think are relevant to figuring out if RST will have an impact if I turn it on and add the same exact SSD. Would it really increase 15% in performance? I've never overclocked anything but thinking about trying to do that tomorrow as well. Need the extra CPU power I think.

With RAID, I know that the SSD will never crash, right? Never even thought of RAID as another method of backup protection.

I also have the Nvidia 1080 that's broken. Keeps artifacting. I'm praying Nvidia are going to send me a new one and I'll see if I can sell it for $600 on eBay and then wait in line to get the Nvidia RTX 3080 at BestBuy for $800. Also, replacing the Gigabyte motherboard. The audio chip is broken and still under warranty and won some money off of them in court. Will replace it with whatever is good.

So, with that said, you think RST and an extra SSD will boost performance by the 15% as they marketed?

Thanks for your help.

  1. CPU: i7-8700k @ 3.7Ghz
  2. Motherboard: Z370 Aorus Gaming 5 (rev 1.0) [Going to replace this with something else tomorrow. Got free money from Gigabyte.]
  3. SSD: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB, M.2 NVMe
  4. Graphics Card: EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 SC GAMING ACX 3.0
  5. Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64 GB, (4 x 16 GB) Dual Channels, 288-PIN DDR4 SDRAM
5. OS: Windows 10
  1. Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-212UBK
  2. Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
  3. OS: Windows 10

For most systems RAID is probably going to more trouble than benefit.

That said, update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

There are some expert Storage/RAID folks here but more information is needed.

What would magically decrease NVMe SSD boot time from 10 seconds to 2 seconds?

Perceived and practical performance stopped being noticeable beyond SATA SSDs anyway. The jump from an HDD to a SATA SSD was amazing. The jump from a SATA SSD to an NVMe one hasn't really been so. It might look good on paper and in benchmarks, but your 10 second Windows boot time on a SATA SSD doesn't magically go down to 2.
 

Shinsetta

Distinguished
Nov 28, 2012
40
0
18,530

Shinsetta

Distinguished
Nov 28, 2012
40
0
18,530
Colonel,

A little friendly advice. Instead of saying "Completely incorrect.", I think you should be a little less brusque. You could say something like, "Many people believe so but that is not the case." Then, you can explain why. This is how normal people talk.

With respect to my statement, why isn't that true with respect to my specific scenario. If I have 2 SSDs in RAID 1, then how would the drives together ever crash? One could crash but you would have the other as a backup. At that point, you can immediately replace the drive that crashed.

Is this correct? (I don't have much experience with RAID.)

Can you explain why ignore the IRT thing completely?

You should explain. Please don't take this too harshly but what you are asking is a little ludicrous. That's like asking everyone to take whatever anybody says at face value. But, what most people say on these forums is unresearched and usually just guesses based upon anecdotal evidence.

What if I told you in return, "Believe me. Bill Gates personally told me that it improves bootup speed a multiple of 10." Just believe me. When I don't believe you, I get extremely angry because you just don't believe me automatically. Would that be reasonable?

I'm not trying to be argumentative but wanting to know the reasons for your answers.

Completely incorrect.




Nothing.


My recommendation?
Ignore the IRST thing. Ignore it completely.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_1

RAID 1 is for Uptime. Not data protection.
Let's say you are running a webstore, and downtime = lost sales = lost revenue.
Then you might consider running a RAID 1 array.
But you will ALSO have a good backup. RAID 1 does nothing for all the other forms of data loss.

Accidental deletion, corruption, ransomware, accidental formatting, etc, etc.
The OS, and you, the user, only sees a single instance of a file. Delete it, and it is gone.

Physical file death is actually more rare than the other ways to lose your data.


You want actual data protection?
Backups.


There, does that merge with your recommendation on advice?




IRST
That Note 1 at the bottom of the Intel page stated pretty clearly.
IRST + 2x SSD + RAID 0, might gain you 15% performance improvement.
Huge complexity increase and fail potential, for tiny performance increase.

Oh, you need info on the RAID 0?
Here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_0

Data striped across 2 drives. One drive dies, or the RAID controller burps...all data is losta cross both drives.
And with SSD's, RAID 0 is mostly useless, outside of a tiny realm of use cases.
Read more here: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nemesia
Solution