Im new to RAID. What would be an affordable RAID controller?

^ topic. Im new to raid and need a raid controller. I dont wanna spend too much. What would you consider affordable?

Thanks.

what drive type? SATA? ATA? SCSI?

Sata.

well, i after a little research, i found these:

3ware

adaptec

Promise

which is best?

If you need a RAID controller for that board you have now, then you already have onboard RAID.

And if u need a RAID controller for 2 more SATA drives, u should have 2 spare SATA ports if u have them free according to ur sig.

The DFI board doesnt support onboard RAID 5 which i need. Im starting out with raid 0 which is onboard until i get the raid controller.

millhouse said:

The DFI board doesnt support onboard RAID 5 which i need. Im starting out with raid 0 which is onboard until i get the raid controller.

Click to expand...

Oh now I gotcha, that makes a difference, yeah then in that case, I can't help ya cause I don't know much about RAID cept the basics, and nothing about cards.


BTW Raid 5=sexy!

does anybody know if the onboard raid 5 on the MSI Neo4 is any good?

What controller does it use?

I run RAID 5 on a Pomise SX4 (4x 200GB 7200.7s) and have tried it on the intel ICH7R southbridge using four 74GB Raptors. I have a 256MB cache module on the SX4.

The Promise is read limited by the PCI bus (~100 MB/s), but is quick in writes (~60 MB/s) due to it's onboard XOR processor. It uses ~25% CPU time in HDtach.

The ICH7R controller is obviously not bus limited on reads, but with no hardware XOR processor it barely manages ~40 MB/s in writes.

The 3ware cards are generally considered to be better then Adaptec or Promise. I only access my file server over gigabit ethernet so the 100 MB/s limit on the Promise SX4 isn't a problem for me. If you're looking for more then that much you'll need to go PCI-X or PCIe anyways.

it uses Silicone Image's SATARAID5.

Have a look at this thread: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=389646

I'm not sure what Sil Image controller that board uses, but hyperasus' SI3114R was pretty bad.

here is the link to the mobo on the manufactures website if it helps any.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=637