Dear Community,

 

I recently purchased a ocz vertex 4 ssd, I am going to install my OS and Fsx on it because I don't run many addons. My question is would my ssd make stuff run "faster"

or make any difference if I installed OS on a seperate ssd? Or will installing both OS and Fsx on one SSD be fine? Also what are the benefits of ssd raid 0 for fsx compared to single ssd with OS and Fsx? Does it make a difference in texture loading? Im on a budget and dont want to spend too much on another one, but I'm still worried if one will do the job for overall differences.

I use 2 120gig drives (one is an intel 330, far better than ocz), one for OS and other for games. Massive improvement in load times and stability. I don't think it increases fps, but the load times are heap em good.

I run two SSD's on my rig, one for the OS and one for only FSX and AddOns. I use a large, 3 TB Platter Drive for "storage". That setup as expensive but I really like it, and for me, it was worth it. SSD's run best and last longest when they are not jam packed "full" to the point of bursting. The more free space you can keep available on it, the more flexibility your OS has to best manage the SSD's. SSD's work a little different than platter hard drives. The data on them is always "moving" instead of in a static place like on a platter HD. As such, for wear levelling, your OS will make use of the unused space on them.

 

If you're going for just one SSD...I'd make sure its plenty big enough for your OS, FSX and AddOns, and anything else you may want to install with plenty of room to spare.

 

If you're going with two SSD's, you could put your OS and everything else on one and FSX and AddOns on the other.

 

I'm sure someone here will correct me if I'm wrong, but SSD's are fast already and I don't think you're going to get much advantage from putting them in RAID 0. Lots of guys do it, but in my own opinion I don't think the bang-for-buck value is there.

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Sorry, Wolf, don't even think of RAID 0 as any kind of solution when using SSD's.......

 

The purpose of raid 0 is to write the data stream onto the top platter of a hard disk drive. When that "stripe" is full it will continue on the underside of that top platter: when that one is full the stripe-writing continues down onto the top surface of the next platter, and so on, until all stripes in that single "cylinder of tracks" - one on top of the other - are all written to. This action will move down to the next drive in the array, with the stripe continuing to write into that disk, until all the platters have been written to (assuming just two disks in the array) or the re is not more data to be written. The purpose behind this is to off set, or delay the movement of the writing arm, as it takes 1000 times longer for a read or a write to happen if the arm has to move.

It's much like a record player: the needle can pickup and play music for the whole diameter of the record, but the instant that arm is lifted to move to another piece of music - the music stops until the arm is lowered onto the record again. RAID 0 does not apply to an SSD. RAID 1 would work, but at a high cost - at present prices - with little gain in either reliability or performance.

The purpose of raid 0 is to write the data stream onto the top platter of a hard disk drive. When that "stripe" is full it will continue on the underside of that top platter: when that one is full the stripe-writing continues down onto the top surface of the next platter, and so on, until all stripes in that single "cylinder of tracks" - one on top of the other - are all written to. This action will move down to the next drive in the array, with the stripe continuing to write into that disk, until all the platters have been written to (assuming just two disks in the array) or the re is not more data to be written. The purpose behind this is to off set, or delay the movement of the writing arm, as it takes 1000 times longer for a read or a write to happen if the arm has to move.

 

No, that's not how RAID 0 works. With RAID 0 a given file is split into 2 or more parts which are then written to separate drives (HDD or SSD). The idea being to spread the writing of the file across multiple drives to reduce read and write times. In theory you can double read/write speeds with 2 drives, but in practice, depending on the size of file, partition configuration and RAID controller used, performance increases vary from none to close to twice the speed. Internally, SSDs work very much like this with multiple flash memory channels actually.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

 

Also, for RAID 0 to benefit FSX you really need to be using a proper hardware RAID controller, not the software ones included on most motherboards to really get a speed increase. Setting two drives up in RAID 0 can let you create one partition instead of having 2 separate ones (though you might as well just get one drive then when dealing with SSDs). Be aware that RAID 0 greatly increases the chance of failure. If one drive dies, all data is lost.

 

I use one SSD for the OS, and a second one for FSX and games.

No, that's not how RAID 0 works. With RAID 0 a given file is split into 2 or more parts which are then written to separate drives (HDD or SSD). The idea being to spread the writing of the file across multiple drives to reduce read and write times.

Spot on...

 

Absolutely, RAID0 is simply an equal'ish split of files 2 ways (if using 2 drives), into sized chunks that you choose when building the raid array..

I have 2 x 480GB SSD's in RAID0 on my system, works flawlessly... Motherboard has hardware raid chip on-board..

 

Zero speed increase using 2 x SSD's, as I only did it because I couldn't find a 1TB SSD... So I gain the space along with the SSD speed and install everything to 1 partition :-)

Looks like finally Intel is supporting TRIM for RAID guys, only for 6 & 7 series chipsets though

RC & Goates: You are both describing the mirroring process, and your statement ;

The idea being to spread the writing of the file across multiple drives to reduce read and write times.

can equally apply to a raid 5 array. Here is a raid 0 in action, here is raid 1 in action: Here is that site's main page for the rest of the raid family. Here is an overview of the raid family with descriptions and pics. Here is MS's simplified version.

 

Writing in a raid 0 array begins at the top surface of the top platter of the first disk on the longest track:when complete the write controller will select the identical track on the underside of that same platter. It will repeat this action until the data stream is exhausted, or the write process reaches the bottom of the bottom disk. The controller will then select the next disk in the array, and repeat the process, contuing untill the dta stream is exhausted, or the last "stripe" on the last disk in the array has been written to. The controller will then re-select the first disk again, and move the write head to the second track, starting the process over again, untill the data is exhausted.

 

Writing in a Raid 1 array, begins at whichever disk has a head closest to a writable track, with the same data being simultaneously written to both drive (sets). Numerous algorithms being utilized on a modern raid1.

 

Using raid 0 for a pair of SSD's is pointless.

RC & Goates: You are both describing the mirroring process' date=' and your statement ; [/quote']

 

RC & Goates: You are both describing the mirroring process' date=' and your statement ; [/quote']

 

No, I am describing the striping process which is what RAID 0 does. RAID 1 and the other true RAID levels involve mirroring. Check out the Wiki link I included above. Your first link about RAID 0 even agrees with my description.

 

Where are you getting the MS RAID 0 description from? It is completely different to everyone else's definition of RAID 0.

 

Using raid 0 for a pair of SSD's is pointless.

 

No, it isn't. It may not be the best solution, but it does work with SSDs and isn't pointless.

Raid 0 is designed to minimize arm movement. Period. Each new stripe - top to bottom. When the bottom of the first disk is reached - it's on to the second drive, and when that's done it's on to the next drive (or back to the first if there's only two drives).

Raid 1 is simply a mirror.

 

I rely on my text books, my general knowledge gleaned from 20 odd years in the IT industry at the data center level, and deep experience with the old HSG80, the EVA3000, 7 and 4000. In the data center context only the boot drives are mirrored, and they may be on the individual server or on the SAN or other storage array. Pretty much raid 5 for all other data storage, with arrays of SSD's now introduced in the last 5-7 years doubling as caching drives which supplement hard storage SATA or SCSI.

Raid 0 is designed to minimize arm movement. Period. Each new stripe - top to bottom. When the bottom of the first disk is reached - it's on to the second drive' date=' and when that's done it's on to the next drive (or back to the first if there's only two drives).[/quote']

 

Maybe that's what the definition used to be, but the current definition of RAID 0 is that it stripes data across 2 or more drives. It has nothing to do with internal drive arm movement or platters. The link below has a good animation of how RAID 0 works.

 

http://www.acnc.com/raidedu/0

 

This video also explains it pretty well too.

 

 

And one more explanation of RAID 0.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,1237,t=RAID+0&i=50149,00.asp

 

coates: - the lad in the video is explaining some kind of hybrid raid version I have never seen or heard of, and not matching with anything I have seen, been taught or have ever had demo'd by any storage consultant. Show me this method employed by any of Hewlett-Packard, Oracle-Sun Microsystems, Dell, IBM, Jetstor, or Cisco's. or other's SAN Technology departments, and then we'll have some commercial standards credibility here. The NCIX "tip" doesn't describe data blocks or streams being written - he's talking about splitting alternating bits off to two separate drives. How is this reminiscent of Raid 0? That is not sequential striping, or writing a block or stream of data in a stripe at all. I give no argument against his raid 1 description - it's fine.

 

...and isn't the anc.com animation and the last link exactly what I previously described, but instead used "data stream" instead of "blocks"?

 

I'll say it again - raid 0 was designed to minimize the movement of the read-write arms in an sequential array of disks. To read or write is measured in microseconds, whereas seek time is in milliseconds - several thousand times slower. Old tech - yes, but it's the basis of minimizing/controlling the movement of that p/u arm in almost all the other array types.

 

Lastly, coates - I don't think either of us presenting this technology in an argumentative manner in this forum serves any purpose other than ego, so you can have the last word here - but it will be the last word 'cos we're taking up your time, my time, the readers time, and neither of us will persuade the other: besides - I am retired and and I wanna go to bed. :lol: OK?

From the Jetstor link below:

 

RAID 0 implements a striped disk array, the data is broken down into blocks and each block is written to a separate disk drive

 

http://www.acnc.com/raidedu/0

 

Dell's definition:

 

RAID 0, also known as striping, maps data across the physical drives in an array to create a

large virtual disk. The data is divided into consecutive segments or stripes that are written

sequentially across the drives in the array. See Figure 1-1. Each stripe has a defined size or

depth in blocks. RAID 0 provides improved performance because each drive in the array

needs to handle only part of a read or write request. However, because none of the data is

mirrored or backed up on parity drives, one drive failure makes the array inaccessible and

the data is lost permanently

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/RAID/RAIDbk0.pdf

 

And another Dell link:

 

RAID-0 provides data striping (spreading out blocks of each file across multiple disk drives) but no redundancy. This provides high performance but does not deliver fault tolerance. If one drive fails then all data in the array is lost.

 

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pvaul/topics/en/learn_disk_storage_protection?c=us&l=en&cs=555

 

Maybe I am coming across as argumentative, but every definition of RAID 0 I have seen anywhere defines it as breaking down a block of data and writing it across all drives in the array. I have never seen anything talking about writing only to one platter inside a drive, before moving to the next platter. I would be glad to read any explanation of this method, but so far all definitions or explanations I have come across define RAID 0 as striping data across multiple drives.

 

As for RAID 0 and SSDs, it does work, though it's benefits are limited for most use cases.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/kigston-hyperx-ssd-raid0.html

 

The main benefit I can see for FSX usage is combining multiple cheaper (potentially) SSDs to create a single large partition as Richard did above. I have done this too to hold my Steam folder in the past.

SSD's are the most reliable when used in AHCI and TRIM is active, you do not get the stability benefits of AHCI when using RAID. There are specific drives out there that are designed to run RAID, be very sure you know what drive you are buying if you are serious about going RAID.