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I have a 850 EVO 250gb as win/programs/games disk and I am thinking buying more SSDs to go with RAID 5 in order to gain more speed. I know the pros and cons of RAID 5.

The question is: 5 cheap 120gb SSDs (surely dram-less, maybe tlc), or 3 EVO-class SSDs? What combination is going to be faster/better?

Side note and question: My matx mobo is old, has no nvme, no extra pcie slots from GPUs (hence no nvme adapter), so good old SATA, and of cource all this in software RAID. The side question, in case of URE during a rebuild, how to know if I just lose just a sector or two OR if I lose all the data?

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  • A rule from RAID is that the smaller the hard drives, the faster it will be because it will have smaller data to read at a time. You're going to need 4 drives. 3 for data and 1 for parity.
    – xR34P3Rx
    May 9, 2020 at 14:31
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    For speed, unless I am wrong, disk size doesn't matter. Stripe size does. Unless you talk about rebuild. Also the minimum drives RAID 5 needs is 3.
    – selfmade.exe
    May 9, 2020 at 17:04
  • its not about disk size, its about how you use it xD
    – QuickishFM
    May 9, 2020 at 17:08
  • @selfmade.exe im aware the minimum is 3 but you should always have a spare, or you'll be freaking out when one dies rushing to buy another one.
    – xR34P3Rx
    May 9, 2020 at 21:14
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    @xR34p3rx your rule about RAID being faster on small drives is incorrect. If anything, when it comes to SSDs the reverse will be true. (On hard drives, there is a concept of short striking disks for higher iops, which is something different. On SSD larger disks will have more space overprovisioned and be faster longer)
    – davidgo
    May 10, 2020 at 3:05

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The 850EVOs will be better. I wouldn't RAID5 them due to the calculation costs - especially in software. I would use RAID0 and spend some money on a HDD to back them up.

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  • Just to clarify, 3 "good" SSDs WILL BE better than 5 "bad" SSDs in RAID 5? (good = EVO class SSDs, bad = cheap SSDs)
    – selfmade.exe
    May 10, 2020 at 18:27
  • @selfmade it depends on what you are trying to achieve. RAID5 (particularly software RAID5) exacts a significant performance penalty for calculations. RAID5 is not a backup and SSD is much more reliable and much more expensive then HDD. You also have questions of trim. As you need speed, RAID5 is a step backwards.
    – davidgo
    May 10, 2020 at 19:00
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    Also, as a rule, when SSDs fail they tend to do so catastrophically.
    – davidgo
    May 10, 2020 at 19:01
  • I just want more speed, for example load a game faster. I know that RAID 5 is relatively slower when you write files, but when you read files it's on par, if not the same, as RAID 0. Also nowdays XORing (parity calculation) isn't as taxing as it would be 15 years ago. I know that RAID is not a backup solution, that's the first thing you have to keep in mind so you dn't find yourself freaking out when things go wrong. But RAID5, lets just say, adds a layer of extra protection.
    – selfmade.exe
    May 10, 2020 at 19:22
  • As for SSDs are much more reliable than HDDs, is another subject. I believe that both are pretty much the same.Keep in mind that HDDs are very matured and not so frail, and SSDs can go kapput in a split second, whereas HDDs will warn you with symptoms.
    – selfmade.exe
    May 10, 2020 at 19:31
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2xSSD, RAID 0, HDD backup, will easily outperform the rest of your hardware - the weakest link for your gaming will be elsewhere - bus, PSU, GPU or CPU. Just be careful that the next weakest link is not too close to the one you are solving with the SSD's - drive access times. Otherwise you will not get the UI improvement you expect: that is your 2xSSD might not give you any better gaming experience than your 1xSSD.

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  • I have thought of this (RAID 0 & backup, the bottleneck you describe it's true - I am aware of this too), and I will start another question about this in the next days, so stay tuned. But first I need to know how SSD class affects the RAID 5 array. It will be key for my invest, and after long search I have settled in RAID 5 configuration. It'smore like the "middle ground".
    – selfmade.exe
    May 10, 2020 at 20:46
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Don't use RAID 5 on a workstation. Maybe on NAS... and not even then. On NAS use RAIDZ or Btrfs. On a workstation, use fast SSDs with a good backup strategy. I use two main volumes in mine, and I just assume I'm going to lose either or both any minute. I run a single NVMe for my system drive (pic 1) with dual SSDs as a Windows striped RAID 0 volume for my "data" drive (pic 2). Performance is excellent and the (possible) gain using hardware RAID is negligible. I use Veeam and Duplicati to NAS and cloud to ensure a 3-2-1 backup.

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