Well, I mean if you want high capacity the "smarter" way is to get 2 decent size SSDs and raid them together.
That's the exact reason for this product though... in the situation you describe, just HALF of the capacity (two 240GB SSDs) would still more than double the final cost versus the 1TB Hybrid. There are also issues with RAIDing SSDs together... lack of TRIM, and the data risk involved if one should fail in RAID 0 which ya mention yourself!
Like I said what really needs that SSD speed? the OS and your main programs, most larger programs either get cached into memory or don't see (real) improvements with SSDs. Load time may be reduced but who cares if it goes from taking 10 seconds to taking 8 seconds. With games it IMO is hardly worth it for the 2-4 seconds, I don't know about anyone else but dropping $200 on a drive just to speed up game loads by 2-4 second seems just a really bad way to spend money. I mean video drivers can make WAY more difference than that.
Well, we're gonna have to agree to disagree on the need for an SSD!
I would still like to make some comments here, though! A program still has to be read from the disk before it can be cached, which is where the largest gains can be had. Even then, not all data is cached in memory by the OS, nor is it kept in cache once another program evicts it. Even for a game that was loaded twice, every level or map load would still not be cached. Or, even if Photoshop was loaded twice (so it was in cache), any data files you opened would not be in the cache. SSDs just make working with multiple multi-MB photos and files much, much smoother. File transfers, data imports, and things of that nature aren't cached by the OS either.
Also, for games we're not just talking about how long it takes to load a game and get to the menu. We're talking about map & level load times. Each time the game breaks to load more of a level, or changes to load a new map, an SSD can cut a large chunk out of those times. For any immersive game it becomes really noticeable. Portal or Half life are just a few examples for me personally.
I would fully agree in that games are not the best reason for buying an SSD though, they never are. Cutting system boot times from 1:20 to just 0:20 is one reason, and having regular programs launch within two seconds instead of anywhere from 6-12 is another.
Anyways my point is it seems that large SSDs in a raid are just begging for data loss/corruption the hybrid seems like a better option in this case but it all depends on how capable it is of telling you of an impending death of the drive. My feeling on it is whatever is on your SSD shouldn't be the only copy you have and it shouldn't be used for everything as your only form of storage since unlike normal drives you have no so called "warning sounds" before the drive goes so with something as complex as the hybrid whats to say it can accurately report the status of the drives components? I would be less worried about an SSD failure as I would be of some other required part on the drive failing. I mean just look at the last page
Yes, any RAID 0 array will eventually fail. It's just a question of when and why. Regarding SSD failures, the fact is SSD's are terrible about warning for impending failure. So combining RAID 0 and SSDs is just a bad idea, in my frank opinion.
Almost all SSD failures are abrupt and give zero warning. They are also typically the result of a controller problem, or a manufacturing problem, or a firmware bug. Basically not actually due to the NAND wearing out, which is something Intel and SandForce controllers can monitor in real time. If the NAND had worn out the SSD would simply become a read-only device and the original data would still be intact.
