Solid State Drive Questions

[bendorsey]

Hi Folks.

A friend and I were talking about drives and the question of SSD's came up.

1. How much faster would a SSD be then a non-SSD drive (SATA for example) of the same capacity (if capacity makes a difference)?

2. Would a single SSD be faster then a 2 normal drive RAID system?

3. Could the 2 drive RAID system be set up to use 2 SSD's of the came capacity?

4. Would that be faster then all the other options?

Just curious.

Thanks,

Ben

 

[nicky9499]

1. Depending on what drive you're upgrading from (5400, 7200, 7900 or 10K RPM), but generally upwards of twice the read and write speed, and single digit latency (seek times).

2. It will need to be striped raid. Even then the HDDs will lose out on latency, run with much more heat and power and you're looking at double the possibility of failure.

3. Yes, you can use SSDs in a RAID. Simply clone the drives like you would a regular HDD.

4. In terms of speed, you will never go wrong with an SSD, even an entry level one just for Trainz.

 

[bendorsey]

Hi Nicky:

Thanks for the info - will definitely consider that when its buy-a-new-computer-time.

I have an Alienware Aurora tower with the 2 drive raid system.
I've never had any trouble with it and it certainly is faster then my previous computer (which was the top of the line model at the time tho not an Alienware) but I've never understood the RAID system.
Now I don't mean an explanation with mathematical rigor - just what do the 2 drives do?
Drive C is obvious but what does drive D do?
There's nothing in it and I've never tried to put anything in it. Manual doesn't say diddly-squat (its about 95% legal mumbo-jumbo and 5% info some of which is wrong, lol).
Does it do magical things in the background and I should leave it alone or what?

Thanks,

Ben

 

[pdkoester]

Run a single SSD on Sata III, AHCI mode, because RAID modes do not use TRIM to autoclean the files on them.

 

[nicky9499]

Hi Ben.

1. Today, just about any SSD will be much faster than a HDD RAID. It is almost extremely simple to setup and maintain compared to a RAID. RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Drives, unlike his cousin JBOD, Just A Bunch of Drives. To keep it simple, it was designed to increase performance by having the data split across 2 or more drives (RAID0, performance scales respectively), increase data safety by automatically duplicating data across 2 or more drives (RAID1) or hybrid of these two. To the OS, a RAID will appear as 1 drive. If a drive in a RAID0 fails, you lose all the data on the entire array. If a drive in a RAID1 fails, you'll need to replace it and rebuild it, which can take days on huge arrays.

2. You see C/D/E... drives because they are JBOD. You can put whatever you want on it - it's all yours! In fact, I usually advise people (and actually redirect home folders to D drives) to avoid putting important data on the C drive because a) these days it'll usually be a small SSD and b) if the OS goes very wrong, it's simple to wipe it without losing anything.

3. You should probably not mess with RAID if it's not already setup. If you're already running RAID find out what mode it is and as always, RAID or not, backup backup backup!

 

[William0d0]

You will really notice the difference with an SSD.

As far as comparing an SSD to a RAID with mechanical drives, here are some results I got.
On the left are 2 WD Black Caviar drives and on the right is a single Corsair Force GT.

 

[William0d0]

As a test I just did a database repair with T:ANE. With a total installed size of 31.5 GB it took 5 seconds with the game installed on my 120 GB Corsair Force GT SSD. This SSD is over 3 years old.

 

[bendorsey]

Nicky:

This info is strictly for when I replace my current computer. I'm nowhere near savvy enough to go fiddling with drives and all that but thanks for the advice and info.

As for backups. I have three external 1TB hard drives and backup weekly. One is only plugged in to the wall and computer when actually doing backups. Florida is the second most lightening prone area in the world. (some place in Africa has us beat). I also have everything going through a surge suppressor then into a 1500 watt UPS. Me heap big chicken. :hehe:

William:

The image does not show up (all I see is the dreaded little black X in a box).

DBR's on my Alienware are far faster then on my previous computer but nowhere near that fast. Score (another) one for SSD's.

Thanks for all the info guys,

Ben

 

[William0d0]

I think I got the image fixed.

 

[KTOutlaw]

ok another thing to consider with the SSD's is the newest format SSD drives that are available on some x99 chipset motherboards. iCore 7 only socket 2011-v3 using 6 and 8 core CPU's and the increased PCIe Channels (28 for 5820 iCore 7 6 core and 40 for 5830 and above iCore 7 with 8 cores) The M2 format SSD has the fastest current speeds if you are willing to give up on of the 4 video card slot to allow the M2 to run at top speed utilizing the 4th PCIe video card channels. These are an even smaller footprint that any of the previous SSD's sitting down in between 2 of the video card slots instead of in the hard drive containment cages. These are supposed to be faster than the current SSD's but since I had to rebuild this machine ran out of available funds before i could get the M2 drive even though they are a lower cost than the previous drives, last I looked you were looking at $220 for a 512 Gig M2 drive.

 

[JCitron]

Ben,

I just, like a month ago, replaced my system drive with an Intel 240GB SSD. The system boot up time is like night and day. I keep all my data, however, on two separate 2TB internal drives, with one strictly for my docs and TS12 and the other only for T:ANE at the moment.

Even with the data on a separate drive for T:ANE, the program runs substantially faster and performing CM queries is faster as the program resides on the faster SSD.

So after hemming and hawing over the risks, this was the best upgrade I've done in ages and highly recommend doing it when you can.

RAIDs can be pretty interesting... They work, at the simplest level, as a single drive. The biggest difference you'll notice is the throughput being better because the drive can almost double its read/write speed. As Nicky said there's that inherent problem of losing a RAID drive member, and losing all your data in a RAID0 (basic RAID) as the data is striped across the individual drives. Other options such as RAID 1 and RAID5, have a parity built in and redundancy through mirroring. With this setup, you decrease the odds of losing everything, but you also lose one drive as you need one drive equal to the size of one of the member drives. In other words, you setup 3, 2TB drives in a RAID 1 configuration, however, you only get 4TB for use. The other drive acts as a parity drive which is used when one drive dies. The system is "smart' enough to know how to rebuild the bits and pieces from what the parity bits are set at!

Regarding SSDs in general. They read a lot faster than they write due to the way they work, but the write speed is still faster on an SSD compared to any regular platter HD configuration.

I commend you for your backups! Seriously there's too much at stake here, Trainz or not. Lightning can do some real damage whether it's a direct hit or not. I do, however, recommend unplugging your equipment during close storms as the lightning can jump over and through surge protectors and UPSs. I had that occur in a computer room a number of years ago. We lost two data servers and a whole bunch of switches after the hit.

John

 

[bendorsey]

Hi John:

Thanks for all the info. I'll definitely go the SSD route when the time comes.

I do occasionally chicken out and unplug everything. Lightening can get pretty serious here (a little north of West Palm Beach). Surprisingly Orlando (dizzy-world) is the worst as its in the center of the state and gets the most atmospheric heating.

We get minimal tornados but maximum hurricanes and hurricane season has started (O-joy).

Ben

 

[lewisner]

ok another thing to consider with the SSD's is the newest format SSD drives that are available on some x99 chipset motherboards. iCore 7 only socket 2011-v3 using 6 and 8 core CPU's and the increased PCIe Channels (28 for 5820 iCore 7 6 core and 40 for 5830 and above iCore 7 with 8 cores) The M2 format SSD has the fastest current speeds if you are willing to give up on of the 4 video card slot to allow the M2 to run at top speed utilizing the 4th PCIe video card channels. These are an even smaller footprint that any of the previous SSD's sitting down in between 2 of the video card slots instead of in the hard drive containment cages. These are supposed to be faster than the current SSD's but since I had to rebuild this machine ran out of available funds before i could get the M2 drive even though they are a lower cost than the previous drives, last I looked you were looking at $220 for a 512 Gig M2 drive.

The alternative to an M2 SSD is a PCI-E SSD such as the Revodrive 3. I bought an RD3 4 years ago and am using it as the boot drive on my rebuilt rig which is an MSI X99S Gaming 9 ACK motherboard, Intel i7 5960X CPU and an Nvidia Titan X GPU.


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