[Solved] Cost effective raid 0 ssd vs hdd

So I currently have x2 128 m4 crucials in raid 0 for windows/gaming and a hdd for everything else. I keep seeing more and more articles that talk about how raid 0 for ssd may not be the best choice. I understand the read/write speed on the hardware itself but I get lost in the raid controllers. So I was considering for my next build to do x1 ssd for windows, x4 7200 hdd raid 0 for everything else, x1 hdd for back up. I am also not sure how much benefit I would get from using a pci raid controller but, if I go with this set up it will be likely. The main question is if I will see better load times in gaming with this setup vs what I currently use. Opinions welcome

If you put the games on the x4 RAID0, you will see slower loading than you do now, since you will be loading off HDDs instead of SSDs.

May I suggest: If you are buying new SSDs, buy one big enough to hold your OS and games. If you are recycling the SSDs, install Win7 on one of them and, when installing large games and apps, specify an installation directory on the other one. Some installation packages are polite enough to ask if you want to change the default installation directory, others can be persuaded with a registry change.

Is this a reasonable answer to your question?

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Unasked-for opinion: The 2x HDD that you have for backup should be external or otherwise removable drives. External because if your backup is inside your machine, and you have a global disaster like an exploding power supply, malware attack, water, or a cat knocking your system off the table, you lose the backup.

Two drives because you need at least two backup sets. If you experience said global failure while backing up, the backup drive will be lost. If you have two, and were backing up to the older set, your most recent set is still good.

Yes, I am a little paranoid. Some people make copies of their backups and store them at friends' houses. It's a question of what level of risk you are willing to assume.

Backup the RAID0 data frequently. They are more likely to fail than single drives, and much harder to recover data from than single drives.

Not sure what you mean by being puzzled about RAID controllers. In my opinion (not due to vast experience), it's not relevant for RAID 0, 1, or 0+1. The higher numbers use calculated parity checks and a high-end controller will calculate these on-board, while a low-end one, or your motherboard, will pass these calculations to the CPU.

Well recycling the ssd's I have and using 1 for boot and 1 for games might be the best option for me based on what I just read. Both of you have given me helpful information. What I meant by raid controllers giving me problems us aparently that is the cause of my speed not increasing as much as I expected. My mobo uses Marvell controllers.

If you have a motherboard with two sata3 ports that are on the Intel controller you would be better off using that. The motherboards that have four sata3 ports usually do that.