2x 80Gb X25-M G2 - To RAID or not to RAID...

[idata]

Hello all,

I am relatively new to the forum and have read a lot of the posts, and they are quite informative. I have 2 x 80GB X25-M Gen2 drives. I am currently running them in RAID0 (hardware RAID).

After doing some reading in the forums, I understand that TRIM is not supported via RAID as it would require my RAID controller to support command passthrough - which none do currently (I have an EVGA x58 SLI Micro mobo - using the onboard controller).

I don't have a problem running the drives as two distinct 80GB drives and in turn gaining TRIM support. But my understanding is that RAID0 is a decent speed improvement even with SSD drives.

My use is primarily gaming and working with Photoshop type applications.

So I have a question, TRIM vs RAID0, which is better for overall performance?

[idata]

As ambizytl states the real question is do you notice a difference? Below are AS SSD Benchmarks from a single drive and a raid 0 array.

Notice the 4k (QD1) results don't improve with raid 0? If I was getting any benefit from running two drives in raid 0 I would not have switched to a single drive. Some people will swear that raid 0 is much faster but from my experience at least it did nothing apart from inflate benchmark scores.

Let us know what your verdict is.

X25-E x 2 ICH9r Raid 0 128k stripe

X25-M 160GB ICH9