RAID 0 SSD or just add?

[decoste007xt]

Hey, I had always heard that reformatting SSD's wasn't the best idea compared to a mechanical drive. But I'm not that up on SSD's other than owning one!

I own a OCZ Vertex 2 Extended Sandforce 60GB currently and saw that NCIX has a sale for another OCZ Vertex 2 Extended Sandforce 60GB for $100 after a $30 MIR. I'm terribly low on space, and I've been installing my less heavy games on my 7200 drives.

My question is would be should I just wait till Christmas and pickup a larger SSD, or is $100 a steal to double my space and have 120GB of SSD. Then the next route is RAID 0 or just have the 2nd SSD jam packed with more games. I don't know if theres anything new around the corner that I should be waiting for, so I figure its best to ask here, considering I know there's people with a lot more knowledge about SSD's and HD's in general.

[ajrettke]

The second gen sandforce drives are supposed to offer twice the performance, intel's 3rd gen is a supposed to be a smaller increase. The biggest change will be price. SSD's have dropped incredibly fast in the past 3 months.

They'll continue to come down in price, but at the same time they're still worth it now. 100 bucks for 60GB and you'll have RAID 0 so you'll have twice the bandwidth (close to at least).

Also, the second gen sandforce drives really need SATA 3 to show thier true gains as current drives are almost peeking out SATA 2.

So I would get the drive and reinstall windows and run a RAID 0 array.

[EarthDog]

$100 is a great deal (I paid $150 for mine). I also have 2 SSD's but they are not matching. So I have my OS and major stuff on the Vertex 2, and my other larger items and some games on the Summit. Best of both worlds really. :)

Regardless, I prefer fast boot times and a R0 array, at least mine with 2 30GB Vertex's didnt boot noteably faster b/c of the raid bios having to load. Outside of game level loads and large file manipulation there isnt much benefit to R0.

[decoste007xt]

Yeah my stuff already loads pretty fast, and I almost consider it a hassle to reformat and throw a bunch of stuff back on a R0 array. But who knows I may give it a shot.. I also have 2 SATA 3 ports I think on my board ..

But I'll be buying that drive for sure =)

[Randyman...]

The Intel ICH controller will likely surpass the onboard SATA-6 chip for SSD use. It's not just about SATA-II vs SATA-6 - the controller itself plays a BIG role in a SSD's performance, and the ICH10R is tough to beat for SSD's.

RAID those puppies and stand back :)