[SOLVED] Would a RAID-0 SSD array significantly increase loading speed of an older laptop?

[force1x]

I'm currently using an older ASUS G75VW laptop with an 860 Evo SSD drive and have noticed that certain programs like Photoshop, Premiere Elements and larger games take quite a while to load (8-15 seconds). I already own a second identical 860 Evo SSD and was wondering if I would see any notable speed increase from installing the 2nd drive and running in RAID-0.

Also, if it does make things faster, would I be able to back up the partition onto a single backup HDD in case one hard drive fails and have it be recognized by Windows as a single partition?

Thanks for your time!

 

[RealBeast]

I'm currently using an older ASUS G75VW laptop with an 860 Evo SSD drive and have noticed that certain programs like Photoshop, Premiere Elements and larger games take quite a while to load (8-15 seconds). I already own a second identical 860 Evo SSD and was wondering if I would see any notable speed increase from installing the 2nd drive and running in RAID-0.

Also, if it does make things faster, would I be able to back up the partition onto a single backup HDD in case one hard drive fails and have it be recognized by Windows as a single partition?

Thanks for your time!

SSD RAID 0 is essentially useless for other than benchmarks. No real world benefit and the increased risk of data loss. I advise against it.

If you have a second SSD, use at least a part of it for an Adobe scratch disk, which will vastly improve program performance.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm currently using an older ASUS G75VW laptop with an 860 Evo SSD drive and have noticed that certain programs like Photoshop, Premiere Elements and larger games take quite a while to load (8-15 seconds). I already own a second identical 860 Evo SSD and was wondering if I would see any notable speed increase from installing the 2nd drive and running in RAID-0.

Also, if it does make things faster, would I be able to back up the partition onto a single backup HDD in case one hard drive fails and have it be recognized by Windows as a single partition?

Thanks for your time!

You actually mean decrease, not increase.
But no. SSD + RAID 0 is NOT the magical speed benefit we all would like it to be.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

What are the rest of the specs of this system?

 

[force1x]

SSD RAID 0 is essentially useless for other than benchmarks. No real world benefit and the increased risk of data loss. I advise against it.

If you have a second SSD, use at least a part of it for an Adobe scratch disk, which will vastly improve program performance.

Thanks for the info! I think I'll avoid trying the RAID-0. I haven't heard of an Adobe scratch disk, I'll have to look into it as I'm planning lots of Adobe work in the future with Premiere and Photoshop.

 

[force1x]

You actually mean decrease, not increase.
But no. SSD + RAID 0 is NOT the magical speed benefit we all would like it to be.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html

What are the rest of the specs of this system?

Thanks for the advice, that benchmark article really makes the case against the RAID-0! I think I'll avoid trying it. Since you asked, the computer has an i7-3610qm, GTX 660m, 16gb of 1600mhz RAM and the 512gb SSD with a 1tb data HDD in the second bay.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the info! I think I'll avoid trying the RAID-0. I haven't heard of an Adobe scratch disk, I'll have to look into it as I'm planning lots of Adobe work in the future with Premiere and Photoshop.

I use Adobe Lightroom daily.
Settings in Preferences:

Photoshop and Premier has similar.

 

[force1x]

I use Adobe Lightroom daily.
Settings in Preferences:

Photoshop and Premier has similar.

Is your K: drive a separate SSD than your boot drive? It seems that I have my scratch disk settings now to save in the "project file" folder and the media cache in the Appdata/Roaming Adobe folder.

 

[USAFRet]

Is your K: drive a separate SSD than your boot drive?

Yes.
A 250GB Samsung 840 EVO.
(parts list below)

All of my major applications have a space there for scratch space.
Lightroom, Paintshop Pro, Hitfilm Express, Rhino3D, etc.

 

[RealBeast]

Thanks for the info! I think I'll avoid trying the RAID-0. I haven't heard of an Adobe scratch disk, I'll have to look into it as I'm planning lots of Adobe work in the future with Premiere and Photoshop.

HERE is a lot of detail on Adobe Photoshop scratch disks. They also have details for Premiere. Bottom line use the fastest separate disk from the OS disk that you can. I usually use old SSDs that are still in good working order but on my last build I added an extra smaller NVMe drive.

 

[force1x]

Yes.
A 250GB Samsung 840 EVO.
(parts list below)

All of my major applications have a space there for scratch space.
Lightroom, Paintshop Pro, Hitfilm Express, Rhino3D, etc.

Okay great, thanks!

 

[force1x]

HERE is a lot of detail on Adobe Photoshop scratch disks. They also have details for Premiere. Bottom line use the fastest separate disk from the OS disk that you can. I usually use old SSDs that are still in good working order but on my last build I added an extra smaller NVMe drive.

Thanks for the link! I recently found out I can replace my barely-used optical drive on the laptop with a third SATA drive so I'll look into getting a cheap small SSD for the scratch disk.

 

[RealBeast]

Thanks for the link! I recently found out I can replace my barely-used optical drive on the laptop with a third SATA drive so I'll look into getting a cheap small SSD for the scratch disk.

Perfect!

 

[geofelt]

Cheap and small may not be the best metrics for a scratch file.
Larger devices will have more free nand blocks available for faster updates.
And cheap drives may not perform as well as better ones.
You can compare the performance of prospective ssd drives at anandtech ssd bench:
https://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD18/2447