Most efficient SSD configuration for multitasking system?

Question

Currently, I have a 2x500GB RAID 0 system. I’m thinking about an upgrade but I got held up by a few questions. I need at least 100-120GB for my system and apps and I'm looking for a technological upgrade also. I've ended up with 3 choices:

1. Single 120GB SSD (SATA 6Gb/s drive)
2. 2x 60GB SSD drives, but I've heard it's not possible
3. PCIe SSD drive (~120GB)

They all have very similar read/write values and prices but I was wondering if anyone could give some tips on which way to go. I run Windows 7 64-bit and do a lot of multitasking (especially Adobe stuff).

Answer 1

Single 120GB SSD (SATA 6Gb/s drive)

I would choose this option, by elimination of the two other options...

2x 60GB SSD drives, but I've heard it's not possible

This certainly is possible in RAID 0 but, at the moment, the TRIM command will not work (although Intel plans to correct this). This will reduce the performance of the SSD over time.

RAID 0 is generally faster than a single drive because of parallelism. But a single, larger SSD will usually have more NAND flash chips, which allows for a similar form of internal parallelism. For this reason, larger capacity SSDs are inherently faster than smaller drives from the same product line - see the table here for an example. RAID 0 also doubles the chance of failure.

PCIe SSD drive (~120GB)

This arrangement should be very fast, but it uses up a PCIe (assuming you meant PCIe) slot and might require special drivers. I'd expect it to be more expensive than a SATA SSD, and TRIM support might not be possible.