How to best set up two SSDs in RAID 0

Question

How to best set up two SSDs in RAID 0

Ok so I have an early 2011 17" MacBook Pro, 8,3 mod so I have SATA III connection in the mainHD bay but I have SATA II in the optibay. Ok so what I am looking to do is put in two 3g SSDs and format them through RAID 0. What I am looking for is if anyone has any advice on the best way to go about doing this, how and when do I format the drives. Can I put both SSDs in separate externals and then just format them to RAID 0 through disk utilities before I swap out the hardware? Is there a better way to do this? I appreciate all the advice in advance

MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 5, 2013 5:21 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 5, 2013 5:31 PM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

I generally recommend setting up, and testing, your RAID 0 in the device/enclosure you're going to use it in.

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Answer 2

Nov 6, 2013 8:50 AM in response to infinite vortex

That is pretty solid advice from what I have been reading, thank you. I think I have figured this out but please let me know if I am off on this. I will take my current HD which has everything on it out of the MacBook Pro and put it in an external case. I will put the two SSDs in the MacBook Pro and connect the external via firewire or USB. I will then start it up and boot off of the drive in the external, the orignal drive. Once it is all up and running I will open disk utility and format the drives together with RAID 0.

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Answer 3

Nov 6, 2013 9:07 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

That's about it. There are a couple if things I'd note though.

1) While there is advice out there that erasing one's SSD can/will decrease performance, I do recommend using some way to read/write test your while RAID 0 volume… more than once. The last thing one needs with RAID 0 is one drive getting kicked so knowing it will stand up in heavy usage before you put it into use is highly recommended.

2) Do you really think there's going to be that much of a performance gain by going with a RAID 0 2 x 3G SSDs rather than going with a single 6G SSD? It's not like you will get 2x performance from the RAID where the gain is more like 1.5x over a single 3G's performance.

3) Yes, I enable TRIM, even for drives that supposedly don't require it. More for wear and tear on the SSD rather than performance.

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Answer 4

Nov 6, 2013 9:20 AM in response to infinite vortex

Hey that's all great advice. I do not believe that I will get numbers in real life that will mimic the benchmark potentials of two SSDs in RAID 0 however the only reason I am doing this is because I want the size of 2TB HD with the speed of SSD and since there is no 2TB 6G SSD at this time that is the solution I came up with. Now you can count on a 2TB drive comming out now that I have done this!

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Answer 5

Nov 6, 2013 9:26 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

Is having one volume rather than 2 volumes that important to you? You can easily go with a 1TB 6G in the drive bay and a 1TB 3G in the DVD bay and be happy with not having to deal with RAID. It's just whether you want 1 volume or 2.

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Answer 6

Nov 6, 2013 9:55 AM in response to infinite vortex

That has been the hardest choice for me to decide on. I like the convenience of having one drive if that counts for anything. I think, and I may be making a crazy choice here, that I will try the two 3g SSDs with RAID 0 just for the fact of having one large drive that will potentially work at faster than 3g speed. If it works great, if not, I suppose I will be posting here how much everyone told me to stay away from RAID 0 and how I didn't listen. I actually just ordered the dual 3g drives and they will be in tomorrow so hopefully I will be able to get it all installed and running properly and I will be able to update everyone here on my success or failure!

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Answer 7

Nov 6, 2013 9:59 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

Just as I post this I find a 2TB SSD in 2.5" enclosure haha! Solidata makes the K8 1920E makes them special order. Only draw back, in excess of $5,000 each!

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Answer 8

Nov 6, 2013 10:11 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

Sure it counts for something. I've cut down on my partition/volumes significantly of late and nice to have all in the one place. This is the nice part of SSD where performance isn't affected by volume usage. I've got similar issues with my storage where I should be doing something but I'm not as I'm waiting for the next "leap" in storage size in the 2.5" size. Good luck to you and I hope it works out well for you!! 🙂

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Answer 9

Nov 8, 2013 8:58 AM in response to infinite vortex

I just installed both of those SSDs in my late 2011 17" MacBook Pro with that data doubler and configured them together in a RAID 0 configuration and all I have to say is she is a whole new machine! I have never used anything so fast in my life. Next purchase will have to be bumping this 8GB RAM up to 16GB!

As you are well aware there are many different SSDs on the market at various different price points. In my search for what SSD to put in my MacBook Pro I probably spent the better part of a month actively researching, reading through every forum comparing the drives. Many forums talk highly about the OWC products. Many say that they are overpriced and not economical at a $/GB rate however there were some very helpful comments I had read which talked about the durability and longevity of the OWC drives being top notch. That is all great however what really sealed the deal in my decision to purchase these drives from OWC were, one, my own past experiences with OWC which I have always been more than pleased with and two, the comments from other OWC customers who spoke so highly about the company and their customer service experiences. I don't believe there is any other SSD manufacture out there that sells the entire package quite like OWC. From the top notch products to in depth how to videos, to the outstanding customer service, it is truly a no brainer. I cannot tell you how many times I read through those forums where so and so got this ultra fast 6g SSD from company x for half the price of company z but when it stopped working they could barely get through to customer service. To me OWC is much like Apple in the sense that they are perhaps a bit more expensive than the competition however you can rest assured that you are purchasing a top notch quality product and you are buying into a customer service base which is beyond reproach. I am certainly not saying that other SSD manufactures do not make quality products however OWC has certainly gained a loyal customer out of me.

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Answer 10

Nov 8, 2013 9:02 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

Congrats on getting it to work. If you recall, I was a bit dubious... but I can now enter your experience in my Mac Tidbits database!

Clinton

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Answer 11

Nov 8, 2013 11:28 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

I just installed both of those SSDs in my late 2011 17" MacBook Pro with that data doubler and configured them together in a RAID 0 configuration and all I have to say is she is a whole new machine! I have never used anything so fast in my life. Next purchase will have to be bumping this 8GB RAM up to 16GB!

Wicked! Really glad it worked out for you.

Until one actually does it, it's hard to really apreciate how going from HDD to SSD can really speeds things up breathing new life into aging hardware. In some ways it's better than RAM. The OWC SSDs are a solid product and what's great about them is that they make it easy for Mac users where so many other manufacturers don't, just as you noted. And so what if they're a little more expensive as what price does one put on happiness. 🙂

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Answer 12

spi_pol

Level 1

0 points

Jan 20, 2014 2:05 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

I have a late 2011 MBP 15" and the 2nd ssd doesn't work at all. The raid 0 setup is imposible. It won't write anything on it. It will not boot if an SSD is in the optibay. The HDD works fine. It boots if the ssd is on the normal place. I tried 3 crucial SSD's on the optibay but none worked.

Does anyone know of a fix?

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Answer 13

Apr 27, 2014 11:06 AM in response to Semper_Fi_Mike

I have a similar set up in my MBP i7, howver I did not set the SSDs as a RAID. The speed increase from the SSD alone over the 5400 RPM HD is astounding anyway. The risk of RAID 0 is too high for me. I have been using RAID 0 for since the days of the Mac 840 av and SCSI interfaces for video editing and I can assure you no one with a lot of RAID 0 experience would use it for their boot drive. One small problem with one drive and you lose everything. It just isn't worth the risk when the SSD alone is so very fast.

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Answer 14

Apr 27, 2014 11:11 AM in response to Digitalclips

Digitalclips wrote:

One small problem with one drive and you lose everything.

Thats only ONE reason why its an incredibly horrible idea

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Answer 15

Apr 27, 2014 11:25 AM in response to spi_pol

You are better not even trying. Be happy with the SSD speed. RAID 0 across drives that you use every day is ludicrousously dangerous. RAID 0 is very prone to glitches especially in DIY set ups with unmatched drives and controllers. It is used by pros in situations where they know the risk and are willing to live with it for speed (usually in video editing) and even then I back up the RAID to a non RAID regulary when editing client video projects. Pro RAID systems are very carefully set up with the correct drives and controllers and even then are risky.

Just to reitereate, a glitch in RAID zero is most often terminal. The only way out usually is to re format the drives.

I am currently running RAID 0 on a new Mac Pro using Thunderbolt but due to the cost of SSD this is using HDs. This only used for FCPro X data.

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