How much performance if any will I see if I put Two 120gigs as apposed to One 240gig
I've been trying to dig up info on this subject but I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info on gaming performance.
 
...Help

Get the 240. More channels = higher performance, and the larger SSDs will perform better, still have BCG and TRIM support. RAID on SSD doesn't always work out properly. 

RAID 0 is asking for trouble. If one SSD has a problem then you'll lose everything. And given the history of SSDs, it's very possible the drives would work, but some hardware or firmware glitch could happen and still hose the RAID array. Also, as Mac_Vista said RAID means no TRIM support either.
 
Performance would be admittedly lower with a single 240GB drive, but honestly any high-end SSD would be fast enough to nearly max out the SATA 6Gb/s interface anyway... there's not any real need for something faster!
 
For game performance, SSDs won't help with FPS, just level loads, texture loads, and level transitions. Any time something needs to be read from disk. But they will ensure anything running in the background won't slow the game down with sudden disk activity, and it generally keeps the OS running smoothly in the background.
 
 

kougar


RAID 0 is asking for trouble. If one SSD has a problem then you'll lose everything. And given the history of SSDs, it's very possible the drives would work, but some hardware or firmware glitch could happen and still hose the RAID array. Also, as Mac_Vista said RAID means no TRIM support either.

Performance would be admittedly lower with a single 240GB drive, but honestly any high-end SSD would be fast enough to nearly max out the SATA 6Gb/s interface anyway... there's not any real need for something faster!

For game performance, SSDs won't help with FPS, just level loads, texture loads, and level transitions. Any time something needs to be read from disk. But they will ensure anything running in the background won't slow the game down with sudden disk activity, and it generally keeps the OS running smoothly in the background.

 
I have 8x Vertex 30gb turbos for about 4 years now and i have not had any real issues.
 
One of my drives died about a year and a half ago and i am still rocking all 8 til this day.
 
I also have 8x new corsair performance pro ssds that i cannot use yet due to a firmware bug in the marvell controller of the ssd's but i do not think i will have issues with those either.
 
IF you do your research and get the right drive you will not have any issues apart from DOA/ and a drive failing. BUT that can even happen to one drive and you could lose all your data  that way too.
 
IF you dont need the speed from 2x ssd's then go for just one drive and call it a day.
 
I would honestly go for the 2x 120's if i were in your shoes.
 

basicallyevolve

I would honestly go for the 2x 120's if i were in your shoes.

Agreed.

No TRIM support when in RAID 0? Can somebody verify this for the Samsung 830s? I have 2 x 128GB ones that are waiting to be put in RAID 0!

Doesn't matter what kind of ssd, no trim yet in R0.

yeesh no trim in raid 0
I'm well aware of the raid 0 risks its only for os and gaming all the important stuff is elsewhere.
 
hello square one, we meet again...

I'll prob go with the Single 240 for now, Thanks for all the help guys.

RAID 0 is better, my old Agility 2 60GB have a rated 285/275 r/w when i got another to raid my speeds went up to 510/475 r/w
AHCI and RAID have the same properties, it does utilize TRIM.

ill put it this way
 
i went from one 90 gig vertex 2 @ 285 mb max  with an average of around 100 to 2 of them @ 555MB max with an average of 400s and min of 285 (which was rare to hit the min)

I would go raid 0 I have 3 original vertex ssd in raid 0 on my p55 they have been great, it is true that there is no trim support in raid but garbage collection is great on the drives and long as you log out of windows for a night a week the garbage collection will do the same as trim.
Here's a shot of my 3 60gb ocz vertex drives

RAID may be the same as AHCI for all intents and purposes, but most RAID controllers don't recognize/pass on the full command set. So there's a difference. 
 
It's not just RAID controllers, Windows treats it differently and doesn't pass on the same ATA-spec commands. For example this is why the RevoDrive 3 doesn't have TRIM either, because although the SAS controller supports it Windows 7 will not send it the TRIM command. It'll only get fixed when Microsoft deems it worth the time.
 
If you value the performance over reliability/convenience, then yes RAID 0 will give you way better performance. But in my experience, I've personally had an Intel-controller SSD randomly die after a normal reboot, and a well-recognized brand that uses a Marvel controller is currently having a slew of I/O errors I can't resolve. Brand names and types of controllers utilized are not any sort of guarantee.
 
And I say that as an avid SSD supporter. They do have problems, some more than others. But unlike with an HDD you will almost  never get any warning. If you wish to us RAID 0, then just make sure to back up more than once a week.

There is no trim in R0 period, not yet.

Controller, ssd , does not matter, the trim commands never reach the drive in R0.

I Raid0'ed 2 vertex3 240gig SSD's, and it was fast...You actually notice a difference. But i just can't take the chance of losing a drive and all data is gone then. So i put it back to no raid.
The speed difference in real world usage, you will not miss, I'm speaking the difference between the drives that i own.  A vertex3 240gig is faaaaast already.
 
Good Luck

Good to know, this is more of a performance question, there won't be anything that can't be easily replaced. I usually do a fresh install every 6months are so anyways. Looking for faster load/ render times.

Also I'm not looking for benchmarks just real world application.

> ... my old Agility 2 60GB
 
And those were small, low writes to begin with, few(er) channels, and nothing like today's 240GB models, which are what are used for many reviews. 
I tried R0 of a pair of 40s. I find the 120GB size perfect for system OS in my case.  
Do you need 240GB? some use a 2nd SSD for editing and scratch or other functions instead and still keep OS on a single drive (there is overhead to a R0). 
Whatever you use, make a system image. I did SSD to SSD in 3 minutes to clone to my new Intel unit. And not much longer (35GB) to make a restore image.