Best Raid Setup Card Recommendation...

[dja2k]

I need to setup a stripping\mirrroring. Which is a good pci card for that. I don't know if it is raid 1.5 or 5. Basically the four drive setup one. I don't know if it exists on sata raids, but I have seen it with four IDE-133 drives.

dja2k

[greenmaji]

Does the system have a southbridge that can do Intel matrix raid?
ICH5R or ICH7R?
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848

Otherwise, there are quite a few choices for SATA raid controllers, it depends on how much you want to spend an what you need the array for.

[Geist]

Considering you want 4 drives with stripping AND mirroring I can only think on two good setups: either you´re running RAID 1+0 (2 times 2 drives in strip while one pair mirrors the other pair) which would be 100 % redundant OR a RAID 5 (3 drives and 1 drive mirrors 33% of each single drive, which would give you a redundance of 33%). The difference between both is a) the actual size left and b) the degree of redundance.

But since you asked for a controller card for SATA (<- I personally would´t consider some old IDE-Raid anymore): two things to know first.

1. You want 4 drives, so you have to go for a 4-channel sata controller, which is obvious. There are two possible interfaces for such cards. Either the old PCIx (which reads "pci 64bit slot"...nothing to do with pci-express) or the modern PCIe (pci-express, in case of controller cards the 4x and 8x PCIe slots). Both interfaces have hughe amounts of throughput capabilities not comparable to normal pci 32bit slots. YOU WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY reduce your performance by buying some crappy 4-channel controller with NORMAL pci 32bit interface (because: pci 32bit = 128 Mb/sec. max while i.e. pcix = 533 mb/s which is just fine for 4 modern sata drives).

2. Mainboard: you either need to have some workstation/server board equipped with 64bit pci slots OR you need to get a pcie board with some 4x or 8x pcie slot.

Concerning controller cards itself I´d personally go like this:

1. 3Ware
2. LSI
3. Areca

storagereview.com can be of a great help here, too.



I wouldn´t recommend software raid with Intel southbridge, but as greenmaji already said: it´s all a matter of money: 4x sata drive + some minium 400 dollar raid card (if you can grab one at ebay maybe less).

[greenmaji]

typo.. its the northbridge :(
Not really sure if you can count it as a software raid, those are normaly OS based.

[Geist]

Typo this time m8:) Intel does RAID via southbridge not northbridge.

It is software RAID indeed, because it´s a RAID setup via bios, without XOR unit and cache.

[greenmaji]

greef.. Im not thinking strait.. I thought I listed NB's :eek:
That would be what I was refering to.

the rest was a Q.

[dja2k]

This setup is not for me, but for a friend. Do you think the raid on this board http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813131539 is good for him?

dja2k

[Geist]

Again: Onboard RAID via southbridge or cheap onboard controllers (SIL/HighPoint/etc) would probably do it´s job, but it is not hardware-RAID at all. If your friend is just up to some performance boost then Matrix RAID would be just fine I guess. Besides...I really don´t think any Matrix RAID in Intel 9xx chipsets from 945 up to 975x has any considerable quality differences. So that ASUS board in question would be ok, too.

[greenmaji]

SB to NB bandwith is 2gb/s, the bandwith from the SATA ports is 3gb/s. the onboard raid isn't half bad (heck of alot better then a PCI card!!! :eek: )

[dja2k]

Thanks for the help guys, will probably go with that board and see how it goes.

dja2k

[greenmaji]

Thats a decent PentiumD overclocker :D
pressler, cedarmill, skt775 celerion, presscott, smithfeild :thup: