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Best SSD For RAID: How To Apply It In Your Business

Written byHeloise Montini
Heloise Montini

Heloise Montini is a content writer whose background in journalism make her an asset when researching and writing tech content. Also, her personal aspirations in creative writing and PC gaming make her articles on data storage and data recovery accessible for a wide audience.

Edited byLaura Pompeu
Laura Pompeu

With 10 years of experience in journalism, SEO & digital marketing, Laura Pompeu uses her skills and experience to manage (and sometimes write) content focused on technology and business strategies.

Co-written byBogdan Glushko
Bogdan Glushko

CEO at SalvageData Recovery, Bogdan Glushko has over 18 years of experience in high-security data recovery. Over the years, he's been able to help restore data after logical errors, physical failures, or even ransomware attacks, for individuals, businesses, and government agencies alike.

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When it comes to storage technology for your business, you may be wondering if an SSD RAID is the best option. And, as a good manager, before changing your entire system, you’re looking for information and details about the benefits of using a RAID with SSDs and see if it’s worth setting up an SSD RAID. In this article, we present how to use an SSD RAID as your company’s storage system and how you can find the best SSD for RAID.

The best solid-state drive for RAID is not necessarily the most expensive or the newest model on the market. In general, any modern SSD will offer good performance for a RAID array. The key is to choose an SSD with a good read-and-write speed and reliability.

TOP SUMMARY: By taking the time to choose the best SSDs for your needs and following best practices, you can ensure that your data is well-protected and that your business can take advantage of the benefits of using a RAID array.

How to choose the best SSD for RAID

By taking the time to choose the best SSDs for your needs, you can ensure that your data is well-protected and that your business can take advantage of the benefits of using a RAID array.

Speed

When it comes to speed, the SATA III interface is currently the best option available. With a maximum transfer rate of 600MB/s, it provides enough bandwidth for even the most demanding applications. If you are looking for even higher speeds, you can consider using an NVMe SSD. These devices use PCI Express lanes instead of a SATA connection and can offer transfer speeds of up to 3500MB/s. However, they are more expensive than SATA SSDs and are not compatible with all motherboards. Therefore, check compatibility connections before investing in NVMe SSD.

Reliability

Reliability is also an important factor to consider when choosing an SSD for RAID. All SSDs will eventually fail, but some are more reliable than others. To find out how reliable an SSD is, you can look at its mean time between failures (MTBF) rating. This is the average amount of time that a driver can operate without failing and is typically expressed in hours. The higher the MTBF rating, the more reliable the drive is likely to be. You can also check for the disk total terabyte write (TBW), which indicates the total amount of terabytes of data that an SSD can write in its lifetime.

Manufacturer warranty covers

No matter which SSD you choose for your RAID array, you should make sure that it comes with a good warranty from the manufacturer. This will give you peace of mind in knowing that if something does go wrong, you will be covered. Check how long the warranty lasts and also the type of damage that it covers.

Hard Drive Comparison Table
Size Read/Write
Speed
TBW Warranty
Western Digital Red 500GB
1TB
2TB
4TB
530MB/s
560MB/s
350
600
1300
2500
5 years
Seagate IronWolf 250GB
500GB
1TB
2TB
4TB
540MB/s
560MB/s
300
700
1400
2800
5600
5 years
Western Digital Blue 250GB
500GB
1TB
2TB
4TB
525MB/s
550MB/s
100
200
400
500
600
5 years

What RAID is best for SSD

You can use SSDs for any type of RAID since the most recent bays are compatible with both SATA and NVMe.

However, RAID 10 is the best option for SSD.

An SSD RAID configuration at level 10 uses a RAID stripe and mirroring. This provides high fault tolerance when using a minimum of four SSDs. SSD RAID 10 also offers high performance. The downside is it has low storage efficiency, with only 50% of effective storage capacity in a four-disk solid-state drive RAID array.

RAID Calculator: Learn the RAID configuration requirements, redundancy, parity, and disk availability with our real-time RAID calculator. This feature can help you choosing the best combination of RAID configuration and SSD.

What are the best practices for using a RAID with solid-state drives?

There are a few best practices that you should follow when using an SSD RAID:

  • Use a minimum of two SSDs in your array to ensure data protection in case one drive fails.
  • Use drives from the same manufacturer and model number to ensure compatibility.
  • Make sure that your motherboard is compatible with the chosen SSDs.
  • Ensure that your SSDs have a good warranty from the manufacturer.
  • Make sure all drives have the same storage space to avoid wasting space from SSD with more space.

By following these best practices, you can ensure that your SSD RAID is set up correctly and that you are using it in the best way possible.

What are the benefits of using an SSD RAID?

The main benefit of using an SSD RAID is the speed increase that you will see. With HDDs, the data is stored on spinning disks. This means that there is a delay when the disk starts spinning up to reach the correct speed before it can start reading or writing data.

With SSDs, there are no moving parts. This means that they can start reading and writing data much faster than HDDs. Another benefit of using an SSD RAID is increased reliability.

As mentioned earlier, SSDs have no moving parts. This means that they are less likely to fail than HDDs. Using SSD on RAID stead of HDD is also the best option when you consider the performance and rebuild time. SSD RAID can respond faster if a disk ever fails. It makes the SSD RAID a better option for data protection.

What are the disadvantages of using an SSD RAID?

The main disadvantage of using a RAID system with a solid-state drive is the cost. SSDs are more expensive than HDDs, so you will need to factor this into your budget when deciding whether to use an SSD RAID.

Another potential disadvantage of using an SSD RAID is compatibility. As mentioned earlier, not all motherboards are compatible with NVMe SSDs. This means that you will need to check the compatibility of your motherboard before choosing this type of SSD.

Frequently Asked Questions about SSD and RAID

Which RAID type can you use SSDs with?

You can use SSDs with any type of RAID array.

Can I use SSDs with my existing RAID?

Yes, you can use SSDs with your existing RAID. However, you will need to make sure that your motherboard is compatible with the SSDs that you choose.

Do I need special software to use a solid-state drive RAID?

No, you do not need special software to use an SSD RAID.

How do I set up an SSD RAID?

The process of setting up an SSD RAID is the same as setting up any other type of RAID. You will need to connect the SSDs to the controller and then configure the controller to use the desired RAID type.

TL; DR: The best SSD for RAID is the one that has great read/write speed, good warranty coverage, and is reliable. And, the best RAID for SSD would be RAID 10 due to its high performance and fault tolerance. Using SSDs for RAID has several benefits, but the big drawback is its high cost.

Improving performance and durability in your business is a valid goal, and an SSD RAID is a great way to do it. Just remember to do your research and choose the best SSDs for your needs. With good planning, you can take full advantage of this storage technology. If you’re having any trouble with your RAID array, contact SalvageData experts 24/7 for specialized and certified data recovery.

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