Wich SSD or VelociRaptor?

[MadMan112]

I'm thinking about buying some new HDD's for a RAID0 config in a month or so.
Been looking around and was wondering what would be the best for me to put in RAID0.
(The biggest question is; SSD or VelociRaptor?)

My 3 choices:
1. Western Digital Velociraptor WD1500HLFS, 150GB
2. OCZ Core V2 OCZSSD2-2C60G
3. Supertalent Masterdrive OX - SATA-II FTM64GL25H

Now, mostly I'll be playing games, decoding, ect.
So I do need fast loading times but I also need good writing times.
Now I know the OCZ SSD's aren't the best choise so I added a 2nd SSD.
Don't realy know if there's a big difference in read and write times between the OCZ and the Supertalent.

And if anyone has any other good suggestions I'll be happy to hear them.
My budget is about $550, I won't be spending more then that on it.
Links and reviews would also be appreciated.

Thanks.

[tom10167]

Can't you get a Gskill SLC for $5xx? Those got great reviews. You could buy one of those and use whatever HDDs you have now for storage.

[Neuromancer]

2x300GB velociraptors is under 400 on newegg...

But I would just get a few 640GB dual platters or even some 1.5TB drives since they have some serious performance now.

[MadMan112]

@tom10167, The only one I can get is the G.Skill FS-25S2-64GB (SLC) and it costs around $1100 where I live.

@Neur0mancer, I don't need that much storage for my OS, some apps and some games, even 150GB is enough.
I don't want to use my boot HDD as storage for my data, I have other HDD's for that.
And 600GB is a bit big, 300GB is acceptable but higher is just a waste of money and space.

[dominick32]

Please do not use the Supertalent or the OCZ core. I have personally tested both units with serious random write issues. I was so dissapointed with the OCZ core V2 that I held back my testing results because I received the drive free for testing. Yes you will receive instant random read access, and pretty high sustained throughput performance on both of those drives, but I have experienced on occasion using Iometer less than 100 IOPs random write on both drives. Dont even try and multi-task read/write on either drive as your system will freeze up. Out of those three choices I would absolutely go with the Velociraptor 150. That is my current drive and I love it. Other SSD reco's from me would be Mtron 7500 series, or Intel X25-E extreme SSD if you can afford it. The Mtron has a slightly less probability of random write issues, the Intel X25-E is IMHO the best SSD currently available right now as far as random read/random write is concerned and this is the reason I have chosen to ditch the SSD effort for a velociraptor until I can #1 either afford the Intel X25E, or #2 wait for refined SSD technology.

[tom10167]

Agreed. I have an OCZ and a Raptor. The OCZ is just sitting there as drive #3 with some data on it now. :rolleyes:

[MadMan112]

That's sad to hear...
@dominick32, are you just running one or are you running two in RAID0?

[MadMan007]

Here's an article that tells you why the cheap SSDs are to be avoided: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403

Until there are new controllers the only SSD I'd buy is Intel. Maybe there are some other ones that don't suffer from this problem but they probably aren't cheap either.

[Badbonji]

As the "real" SSD's are still expensive, I would go for 2 150Gb Velociraptors Raid 0. I upgraded from an IDE HD to the old gen 150gb raptor and was amazed how much quicker everything loads. When I have small LAN's around friends I load maps in games around 2-3x faster. I am planning on adding a second soon as I am running out of space for my games.

[Neuromancer]

@tom10167, The only one I can get is the G.Skill FS-25S2-64GB (SLC) and it costs around $1100 where I live.

@Neur0mancer, I don't need that much storage for my OS, some apps and some games, even 150GB is enough.
I don't want to use my boot HDD as storage for my data, I have other HDD's for that.
And 600GB is a bit big, 300GB is acceptable but higher is just a waste of money and space.


I am of the same philosophy. Large drives for OS just does not make much sense to me.

However, if you are going to be spending the money to get the absolute best performance, (although 15k ultra320 SCSI is probably the fastest, its also loud and hot) the large drives offer the best performance. You do not have to use all of it. Personally? 4x80GB WD sataII drives in raid0 :) Raptors are not worth the money IMHO.

Mtron makes the best SSDs IIRC. You will need to use an areca raid controller to avoid any issues though.

[MadMan112]

Well, I don't have the space to get me another 4 drives.
I can fit in 2 for sure but not 4.
And are those 4 faster then 2x 150GB VelociRaptor in RAID0?

[Neuromancer]

Slower access times, but much faster Read Write Speeds. I did not notice any differnce in performance going from dual 80s in a stripe to a 150GB single drive. Never had 2 raptors to stripe though.

[Big Mike]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822116064
I'd get that and a used U320 card from teh ebay if it was me... I love me some scsi 15k drives though. The access noise is a bit disconcerting, but having owned several screamer fans in the AXP days i guess im used to a loud pc... I currently run an IBM server pull 73gb 15k drive that cost me 50 bucks with a pile of other random stuff and a 30 dollar LSI u320 card that was a dell workstation pull...

[ericware]

My opinion, at the moment go for VR150, but why do you choose the HLFS instead of GLFS one?

[flopper]

get the new ocz vertex drive.
has cache, 32/64mb.
allows a 200mb read - 160mb write.
I would take 30% of those numbers for desktop use.
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_vertex_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd

I bet, those in raid0 will be pretty decent.

[UBB]

Ocz guys are saying limited availability in Dec, more in Jan. This might be the one I buy.

[DavidJa]

yes the the more important question is will it suffer from the "stuttering" problems.

[Big Mike]

With 32 to 64mb of cache on board one would hope not, the MSRPs are still pretty reasonable, 250 for a 60GB. Might have to wait on these instead of the solid series for my laptop.

[Shiggity]

I'm anxious to see if many of these SSD issues are cleared up with Windows 7. Supposedly SSD support is vastly improved.

[Endgame124]

I'm actually intrigued with the OCZ V2s on new egg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227359

At $50 each after MIR, I could pick up 6 for 300.

I know they have stuttering problems when used singlely, but what about in a 6 drive RAID 0 array? If I understand the problem correctly, they only stutter because the write cache gets filled up. In a 6 drive RAID 0, that shouldn't be much of an issue, should it?

[Big Mike]

Well the issue is that there essentially is no write cache on these early cheapo drives. If you ran them on a SATA controller with a cache ram onboard you'd see none of the problems normally seen, but getting a controller up to the task (PCI-e x4 with cache probably would be necessary) will get real expensive. Some people have done tweaks to run these drives and had no issues anyways, it seems to be down to how you tweak the system, what you do with it, and what type of controller you run. Honestly the solid series 30 is now available for 69.99, id be apt to buy that over the v2 just because its the "latest and greatest" for 20 bucks more a pop. I want a 60 for my laptop and now that they have stock at 139.99 for the solid my trigger finger is getting the preverbial itch...

[Endgame124]

Any idea what the actual difference is between the V2 and the Solid Series is? OCZ's website isn't exactly forthcoming.

The write cache issue is the reason that I was thinking lots in RAID 0 would work fine -- like say on an ICH 10R or something. Eventually you'd have to get to the point where you had so many drives it wouldn't matter that there is little to no write cache on the OCZ SSDs.

[Big Mike]

I don't think anyone reputable has gotten one to say, OCZ claims it uses a new better controller that should help the situation. I don't know as though any amount of the drives will help if you start throwing lots of little random writes at them, one big sequential write they tear it up, its random writes that hurt them, depending on what you're doing raiding them without a cache could actually make the problem worse.