I have a Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD with 515MB/sec write and 550MB/sec read.
Should I definitely buy an identical Patriot Pyro if I want RAID? Is mixing brands a bad idea?
What kind of speeds should I expect if I put it in a RAID 0 together with an OCZ Agility 120GB SSD with 500MB/sec write and 525MB/sec read? I had the idea that the theoretical speed would be twice the speed of the slower disk, which would be 1GB/sec.
In a general way, the main issue I see with mixing brands is a RAID will combine the flaws of both models. For example, if one has lower random writes, and one has lower sequential writes, the RAID will end up bottlenecked in both types of operations, preventing near 2x speeds.
However, your main concern with SSD RAIDs will be the lack of TRIM support, which degrades performance over time. Windows 7 sends TRIM commands to SSDs that supports it, but most RAID controllers (notably the intel one) does not support passing those TRIM messages down the SSDs. Intel is planning to support TRIM in RAID 0 in the next Rapid Storage Technology 11.5 driver, I understand sometime in 2012. For more info, see this question.
Identical brands are not necessary.
Yes, you can buy a different drive, size is capped by the smaller one
Your RAID speed boost is limited by the slowest one
(Oh and don't forget to use your SATA3 Ports)
