Internal vs External Raid0 and 5 cards

[Cyber Akuma]

Never setup a RAID system before, and what I want to do is a little on the unorthadox side. I am planning to setup the OS drive as RAID0 with SSDs and the storage to be RAID5 HDDs. The RAID5 isn't really going to be a problem, but I have a lot of questions about the RAID0.

First of all, the whole point of the RAID0 is read/write performance above all else, and the RAID5 for redundancy and fault tolerance. Would I then be better off getting a seperate card for the RAID0 array rather than use the motherboard's built-in RAID0? And if so, I would like to avoid if possible having two seperate RAID cards, are there any good cards that can handle both a seperate RAID0 and RAID5 array at the same time? And if so, would the performance of the RAID0 suffer?

I also know that Intel only a few months ago released an update to support TRIM over RAID0 on some of their motherboards, do any of the 3rd party RAID cards suppot TRIM over RAID0 yet? And is TRIM only used to increase the efficency and lifespan of the SSD, or does it improve performance as well?

Come to think of it, what are even some good brands of RAID cards that don't cost something ridiculous? All I get when searching Newegg are brands that I know are total junk like Rosewill or SYBA.

(P.S. Would I need PCI-E for the 0 or 5? Or would plain PCI be fast enough?)

[jdc2000]

For SSD Raid, you want PCIe. You may have trouble finding a decent PCI RAID card these days also.

What price range are you looking at? What motherboard do you have, or are you looking at possibly replacing that also?

Reviews to read:

Good info:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816103224

Good laugh:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816118177

[Cyber Akuma]

What price range are you looking at?

$150-200 is a bit pricey for me but I guess I can make that my ceiling for a single card, especially if the card can do TRIM over RAID0. $300 if the card and handle both a separate RAID0 and 5 array at once without the RAID5 impacting the performance of the RAID0.

That $375 card you posted is a bit too expensive for me, especially if it can't do both arrays at once.

What motherboard do you have, or are you looking at possibly replacing that also?

Its going to be a new build, haven't decided on the motherboard yet, I wanted to know how many expansion cards I would need like these RAID cards first before deciding on the motherboard since I would need enough expansion ports on it.

[Steve R Jones]

Are you doing this just for a learning experience?
Six hard drives in one system is asking for trouble.

Do you invision being being able to clone the Raid0 to the Raid5?

What really read/write intensive apps will you be running?

[jdc2000]

One reviewer of the $375 card noted that he got better RAID0 performance for his SSDs from the motherboard controller (ASUS board).

[Cyber Akuma]

Are you doing this just for a learning experience?
Six hard drives in one system is asking for trouble.

Building a new system, I understand I am going quite a bit overboard with it, but I have been stuck with very low-end systems for nearly two decades and for once want to have a very high-end build.

And its more 2 and 4 drives, rather than 6. Two SSDs in RAID0 and four HDDs in RAID5. Not like all 6 will be part of the same array. (My current desktop, which is a Pentium 3, has four IDE drives in it and runs fine..... well, as fine as a P3 system in 2012 can run).

Do you invision being being able to clone the Raid0 to the Raid5?

I plan to create backup disk images of the 0 on the RAID5, or just backup the irreplaceable files. I plan to store almost no irreplaceable data on the RAID0, it will just house my OS, apps, and games. The RAID5 will store my irreplaceable media (photos, home videos, documents, etc) as well as images of my disk software and other backups.

What really read/write intensive apps will you be running?

Its mostly to decrease loadtimes, although depending how much space I have left I might also use it for HD relatime video capture.

One reviewer of the $375 card noted that he got better RAID0 performance for his SSDs from the motherboard controller (ASUS board).

Hmm...... strange to hear. Most motherboard RAIDs use software for it, a dedicated card with it's own CPU should be able to far outperform it. Can a motherboard's built in RAID be bootable? I was told its hit-or-miss of you can boot from a motherboard's built in RAID features.

[Cyber Akuma]

I was talking to a few people and was told that no RAID cards support TRIM over 0, only the internal RAIDs on Intel 7 series motherboards, and that there would be very little performance difference between motherboard RAID 0 on SSD and a RAID card for RAID0 on SSD. So I guess I will have to look for a mobo with the 7-series chipset and use the card just for RAID5.