Is RAID0 or SSD really worth it?

[tomballard2]

HD tune says I'm getting 90MB/sec with a single WD2500AKS. When I built this PC, I decided to just spend $50 on a single HD instead of messing with RAID0, because I just didn't think it was worth it.

I know I can get roughly twice the HD tune numbers with RAID0, but is it really worth it?

And isn't the slowdown that even the cool OCZ Vertex SSD that's $149 at NewEgg now, don't they slow down over time?

Will my experience really be worth it? I don't want to have to do a whole lot of work for "eh, my computer still kind of feels the same."

The way it works now is Vista boots up quickly enough for me, because I don't load anything extra at startup, and the first time I run Firefox there's some delay, but everything else is fast enough.

Tell me if RAID0 with two $50 HDs or a single SSD is worth my time...

[SuperMiguel]

its kinda slow, raid 0 will increase those numbers abit depending on the amount of hd being raided

[CGR]

Some things will be faster others wont. Gaming woudlnt get much faster with raid0 other than maps/zones loading a bit faster.

If you do photo/video editing then you would see a speed increase with raid0

[xtkxhom3r]

if you get ssd's its a pretty big performance jump if you just raid 2 hdd's together then your system will feel faster but it wont be a huge performance increase

[SuperMiguel]

then i guess the question would be.. What you do with ur system?

[Tchamber]

Hey all, still new here. Just did my first RAID0 with two 300gb Velociraptors. I ran a test and don't really know what this performance chart means. Is this good, could I get better speeds some how? Too newb for words, so thanks in advance.
-Tchamber
75023

[xtkxhom3r]

run HDtune Tchamber

[dominick32]

SSD will improve both random access time, latency, and sustained read.
Raid 0 of your current Mechanical Drive will only improve sustained transfer rates (double what you currently have theoretically with a good controller) however, your latency will stay the same or increase due to the controller. You can short-stroke to improve latency on the fastest portion of the platter, but this is a whole other topic, and this can be accomplished by creating a smaller partition anyway. But realistically you will not realize great latency benefit on an already slow 16.8 ms.

Unless you are working with larger files, video editing, photoshop, etc. Raid 0 will not show the extreme benefit that moving from your mechanical to an ssd will. Take a look at your current access time of 16.8, a velociraptor is around 5 to 7.8, and an ssd is nilch at .1ms. This creates a snappy feeling that you will immediately notice, and coming from a drive with your very slow access time, this is going to be a night and day difference for you and prob one of the best upgrades you ever made to date. Therefore, my recommendation is a single ssd hands down. Preferably a Vertex or an X25. I would stay away from most others ATM.

[flopper]

absolutly worth it with ssd.
Get the new Intel one, they are simply the best.
get it and never look back. ;)

raid 0 as noted isnt worth it for the average user.