1 SSHD vs. 2 7200RPM/SATA3 HDs in RAID0

[Dimicron]

What would you rather have? 1 SSHD? or 2 HDD's in a RAID0? Why?

I'm in the process of upgrading my computer to use 1 SSD(probably going with a single 512 GB Crucial MX100) for a boot disk, and considering swapping out some hard drives for a SSHD also. Would it be worth it? This computer is mainly used for gaming.

Current hardware specs are:
AMD FX-8120 @ 3.9GHz
Asus Sabertooth 990 FX mobo
16GB DDR3-1600 memory
2 x 256GB HDD's in RAID0 (Boot drive)
2 x 1TB HDD's in RAID0 (Games)
2 x Asus GTX770 Video cards

Thanks all!

 

[h9826790]

Few traditional HDD in RAID 0 may give you the sequential speed that very close to a single SSD or even faster. That means, it's good for handling large files (e.g. movie).

However, there is no way that a HDD RAID 0 can give you the same IOPS that a modern SSD can achieve. Which means, for small files handling (e.g. OS), a SSD will perform much much better than HDD RAID 0.

For gaming, I did try to run the whole game in RAM disk. In fact, not much difference than running the game in a RAID 0 array. So, capacity vs money will become the primary concern.

Therefore, IMO, use a single SSD as boot drive, and HDD RAID 0 for games is a better choice. Which gives a good balance between performance, capacity, and cost.

 

[corkyg]

Short answer - I would prefer the single SSD to the pair of HDDs in RAID0. My main why is that I consider RAID0 to be moderate risk.

 

[Cerb]

Skip the SSHD. They make sense for a narrow range of OS HDD use cases, and that's it.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I agree with Cerb.

For a desktop PC, I don't think SSHD's have enough performance improvement, and on top of that, you get so little NAND for the added cost, and the NAND doesn't even scale with total capacity.

They're a reasonable choice in say, a laptop that doesn't have a 2nd 2.5'' bay, AND don't have msata/m.2 port, AND needs larger capacities at reasonable costs.

 

[LurchFrinky]

The SSHDs are best if you can only use one drive for everything. Since you will have a separate SSD for a boot drive, this is not the case.
SSHDs are not as fast as a single, non-green, HDD for larger, sequential file transfers. Two HDDs in RAID0 would crush a single SSHD as a "Games" drive.

 

[jjmIII]

I agree with the above posters. Get a full blown SSD.

But, to answer your original question: I'd go SSHD over raid. It's easy and you get most or all of the benefits of raid.

 

[Cerb]

I agree with the above posters. Get a full blown SSD.

But, to answer your original question: I'd go SSHD over raid. It's easy and you get most or all of the benefits of raid.

RAID 0 gives +100%/drive the bandwidth, and up to +100%/drive the IOPS. SSHD gives you like 8GB of really slow NAND. If you're going to cache a HDD, and have spare SATAs, use a fast SSD for the job.

 

[Dimicron]

Thanks for the help all!

I'll only swap out my boot drive for an SSD. Won't bother with changing out the 2nd RAID0 with an SSHD