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I have 2 850 evos in raid 0 currently. I'm getting 2 more from a co worker and I'm wondering if I add them into my current raid would I get any notable increase in speed or is 2 drives pretty much hitting the max?

ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

*Meant to say its the onboard raid controller running the raid.

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  • Do you have a dedicated RAID controller card? You could theoretically be bottlenecked by PCI-E if you only have a 1x or 2x slot.
    – Jonno
    Jan 16, 2016 at 8:36
  • @jonno No its software raid. Jan 16, 2016 at 8:38
  • So you're using the SATA ports on your motherboard, yes? Can you confirm your motherboard model, and what software you're using for your RAID? Please edit and add this information to your question.
    – Jonno
    Jan 16, 2016 at 9:07
  • Added the info to my question Jan 16, 2016 at 9:39
  • You would be better off migrating to RAID 5 if you plan to use 4 disks. That will give you both the speed advantages of RAID 0 and the ability to lose a disks ( RAID 1 ). But by using all your ports you will lose some of your speed performance but in my opionion the advantages of RAID 5 would overcome that.
    – Ramhound
    Jan 16, 2016 at 13:00

1 Answer 1

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Looking at your motherboard manual, your machine has a total of 4x SATA3 ports, and 4x SATA2 ports. However, 2 of your SATA3 ports are provided by a different ASMedia chipset, and as such can't be added to your RAID.

Intel Z77 Express Chipset

2x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (gray) with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support

4x SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports (blue) with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support

So you could add two more SSDs but they would be limited to 3.0Gb/s, losing around 200MB/s+ off the max speed of an 850 EVO.

I'm not sure if the cost would justify the speed in this case, and the added risk of failure with a larger RAID, as when using RAID 0, should ANY drive in the RAID array fail, you will lose all of your data.

As pointed out by @Ramhound:

You would be better off migrating to RAID 5 if you plan to use 4 disks. That will give you both the speed advantages of RAID 0 and the ability to lose a disks ( RAID 1 ). But by using all your ports you will lose some of your speed performance but in my opionion the advantages of RAID 5 would overcome that.

This is, if you plan to upgrade to a dedicated RAID controller. This would give you the ability to rebuild your array without losing anything other than time. Note also that this is only viable for a single drive failure, should two drives die at the same time you would be in the same position.

EDIT for below point: Different sources are giving me different figures, so I can't confirm this math is correct.

If you really wanted to get the best storage speed, your best bet is a dedicated RAID card using 8x or 16x PCI-E 2.0, or a PCI-E 3.0 4x or above, with at least 4x SATA3 6.0Gb/s ports. The speed of 4 SSDs in RAID0 can be utilized, with the right hardware.

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  • What if I bought a raid enclosure? Jan 16, 2016 at 10:01
  • A RAID enclosure connected to what though? Have added to my answer @Penguino7777777
    – Jonno
    Jan 16, 2016 at 10:06
  • @Penguino7777777 - You would have a NAS if you did that.
    – Ramhound
    Jan 16, 2016 at 14:17
  • @Ramhound I wondered if he meant eSATA, USB3 or Thunderbolt. Either way, they'd be massive bottlenecks unless it were Thunderbolt 3.
    – Jonno
    Jan 16, 2016 at 14:22

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