Current situation
My System (Fujitsu Celsius M730) is currently using the following disk Setup:
Intel C600 series chipset SATA AHCI Controller
- Port0: Samsung SSD 830 (latest firmware)
- Port1: DVD
Intel C600 series chipset SAS RAID (SATA mode) controller
- Port2: SATA HD 1TB (part of raid0 array0)
- Port3: SATA HD 1TB (part of raid0 array0)
- Port4: SATA HD 1TB (part of raid0 array0)
- Port5: SATA HD 4TB (backup disk)
Port 0 and 1 are SATA III capable, port 2, 3, 4, 5 only SATA II!
Now I am thinking about replacing the HD RAID disks with 3x1TB Samsung 850 SSDs and plug them to a new D2616 controller [specs] (provides SATA III).
I am running many virtual machines on my Windows 10 Pro Hyper-V workstation and do heavy photo editing. This is why I need low latency and high bandwidth storage subsystem.
Question
1) The Samsung 850 SSD PRO series is capable of NCQ, is that feature worth the extra money over the EVO series in that configuration?
2) What do you think about this setup in general? Would it be better (in terms of performance) to only have 2x2TB 850 SSDs?
3) Any other considerations I should do?
4) Will I be able to upgrade the SSD firmware using Samsungs Magician Software? Will it effect the RAID Array?
NB
I am aware that the availabilty of my RAID 0 array decreases to the exponent of three... this is what I have my backup disk for, so please let's not get into that discussion. Thank you.