The chaps over at MadShrimps have tested 6 different RAID stripe sizes and 3 different RAID configs in 4 different storage benchmarks, some synthetic, others real world operations. More than 1200 benchmarks results summed up in a few charts!

Performance wise with RAID 0 we saw a performance boost over single SSD up to 250% in certain tasks; on average it will give you a 100% boost in all disk related tasks; so it's certainly a recommended path if performance is your main goal.

Cost wise buying two smaller SSD drives will be more expensive than one larger SSD; but if you invest a bit of time configuring your RAID array you will have a faster system than what was possible with the single SSD.

Reliability of a RAID 0 array with SSD is of course a lot better than what was possible with HDDs, but don't go thinking it's a foul proof plan. SSD can still malfunction, RAID array can still go corrupt and moving between systems with a RAID 0 array install poses an extra challenge. Also don't forget that TRIM doesn't work on RAID arrays, so you'll have to manually perform the necessary steps if you want your RAID array to perform at its best.

The OCZ SSDs drives used in this article are already a bit older, the Vertex 30Gb costs about ~€130, and doesn't have a 30~40mb/s write cap like some other entry products recently launched. When you put two of these drives in RAID 0 we saw speeds close to 200mb/s; definitely enough for most power users.

If you add more members to a RAID 0 array you'll see nice performance scaling; but to get the most out of it you'll have to invest in a dedicated RAID controller which has onboard cache and PCI Express interface; this will allow you to build your own 2000mb/s disk volume. OCZ and other manufacturers have been playing around with this approach (RAID controller + SSDs in RAID 0) since Cebit last year, but as with everything new, flashy, shiny and speedy, it doesn't come cheap.