Help with RAID 0 Corsair Force GTs alongside an HDD and another SSD

[los pollos]

Tried posting at Toms Hardware and didn't get any responses. Hopefully someone here can help out .

I currently have 1 Corsair Force GT 120GB, 1 WD Caviar Black 1TB, and 1 OCZ Vertex 2 60GB. I plan to buy another matching Force GT for RAID 0. I have never set up a RAID array before so I have a bunch of questions.

First is TRIM support. I guess with intel based system there is the intel RST which supports TRIM for SSD RAID, but what is the situation with AMD systems? I can't seem to find much information regarding this. Is TRIM really that important?

Second thing is mobo support. The M4A89GTD does support RAID 0, so I know that I will be okay there, but I am wondering if I can still connect my other two (the Vertex and WD) alongside the array of Corsairs. It looks to me in the manual (download link - 3-13 is storage config and 4-14 is RAID) like I will be able to run the WD and Vertex on SATA Port 5 and Port 6, but the only issue would be the fact that the two ports share a SATA type, while the WD requires IDE, and the Vertex prefers AHCI. So is it possible to run the WD in AHCI mode or would I just let the Vertex run in IDE mode? Hopefully someone understands what I mean, because I sure am confused.

Third thing is cloning. I am positive I want to avoid a fresh OS install at all costs, so I am going the cloning route. Since I will not be able to use an optical drive with the storage setup I have planned, I was thinking about just creating a system image with Clonezilla on a USB. I have been recommended Acronis TrueImage, but I prefer to go the free route . Has anyone got any experience using Clonezilla? Since this will be a hardware level RAID setup I think it should work out, but I am just double checking. Will I run into any odd problems with alignment when cloning from a single SSD to the RAID configuration? I should also mention that my current OS drive is the Corsair (one of the two for RAID).

And last thing is just general tips/anything I missed. Do I need special drivers for RAID? If so, will I still be able to flash the old system image to the array without any problems? A lot of these might be silly questions but this is my first attempt at configuring RAID and I want to make sure things will go as planned. Any help at all will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Realee]

Most people around here will suggest you not RAIDING SSD's as it can increase the overhead (Booting times especially)

Why are you looking to RAID the drives - why not just have them as separate drives?

If you are intent on RAIDing the drives - have you considered a software RAID?

 

[los pollos]

Most people around here will suggest you not RAIDING SSD's as it can increase the overhead (Booting times especially)

Why are you looking to RAID the drives - why not just have them as separate drives?

If you are intent on RAIDing the drives - have you considered a software RAID?

I want to go with RAID because I need it be one big partition. Specifically I want to keep steam and my steam games on the main OS drive, and I don't want to mess around with symlinking or anything like that. I suppose I could get the new drive as a steam specific drive though..

Haven't considered software RAID. Seems like most people say go with hardware RAID when possible and I figured that it would probably be easier to use Clonezilla if it's a hardware based RAID.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

1. TRIM - Only available in RAID0 with IRST on Z77 platform from what I can tell. TRIM does not work in RAID0 on any AMD platform. This said, TRIM doesn't matter as much as it used to I don't think - everyone has garbage collection in their firmware pretty much these days. I would not expect noticeable performance impact with regular desktop usage.

2. Both drives work in AHCI mode, while the others can be in RAID0. No problem here.

3. You will run into alignment problems unless the cloning software you use is specifically advertised as supporting cloning in the method you choose. I'd start a separate thread to ask this specific cloning question, as I know people have experience with cloning and SSD alignment, but it probably needs better exposure to get you the quality of information you are looking for. It can go overlooked when bundled up with these other questions - a good title including the keywords cloning and ssd alignment can get you pointed in the right direction I expect.

4. If you are using onboard raid, you'll want to load the chipset drivers. If you are using a 3rd party raid controller (I haven't looked at your mobo specs), you'll need the 3rd party raid drivers as well. I'm not sure about the driver question you are asking in regards to imaging arcoss to a different storage controller - I think it can be done, I just don't know how, but someone probably does around here.

Welcome to the forums.

 

[Realee]

Most STEAM games don't benefit from the speed of the SSD anyway - sure it might be a fraction faster to load but otherwise you're far better off going with the (now) traditional setup of an SSD as the OS drive and a large mechanical drive for storage.

What I would do with your current drives is keep the 120Gb as the OS drive, move steam to the 1Tb Drive and maybe use the other drive as a cache drive or something like that.
Or chuck it in my spare laptop and give that a boost.

RAID will just add unnecessary headaches.