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I'm upgrading an old Dell T5500... This workstation has built in RAID control, but the controller is only SATA2.

I already have two new mechanical 2TB drives, 7200rpm which I plan to mirror in RAID 1. This will be my secured backup/data/image/video storage.

This machine came with a 128GB SSD, which works fine, but, it is limited to the max it can do under SATA2 (still noticeably faster than a mechanical drive).

What I'm considering is getting two matched SSD drives and running them striped, RAID0. This will be for the OS, software, and anything that needs to load fast. I'm not sure if the Dell bios will allow me to configure two volumes like this (one in raid1, one in raid0), but supposing that I CAN do such a thing...

...on to the actual question...

Will RAID0 on SATA2 actually increase performance for SSDs? Would a single drive perform just as well? I'm wondering if the limitation of the controller will limit throughput anyway, which, regardless of striping, will be no faster than a single SSD.

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  • I don't have a certain answer for you, but it is possible for it not to make a difference. The extra SATA port still goes to the same SATA controller which has its own performance limitations, as well as possible limits on the bandwidth between the CPU and this SATA controller too. These things depend on the particular motherboard in your system and that RAID controller the system came with.
    – Romen
    Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 18:26
  • I also feel compelled to point out that RAID 1 is not a "backup" solution. It's good for keeping a system running even after a drive failure, like what a server needs to stay online 24/7. RAID 1 doesn't actually protect your data from a plethora of other causes of data loss. (RAID controller failure, power surges, fires, user error, etc.) If the RAID 1 is the only place you keep the data, it's not "backed up" at all.
    – Romen
    Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 18:28
  • @Romen Sure, I hear what you're saying with the term "backup". I'm not trying to keep a production accounting system backed up, just some redundancy for family photos in the event of a drive failure. Thanks for the responses. I've decided to just go with one SSD for my main drive.
    – slambeth
    Commented Mar 14, 2023 at 13:32

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