Want to get into RAID 1

[Stinger836]

I think I am going to try and get into RAID. I have decided I want to use RAID 1 and I will have 2 identical 80GB drives. My problem is what controller to get. I have heard good things about Promise and 3ware but I don't know whats good and not really. Any help is appeciated thanks

[dabiggoober]

Promise controllers are always good in my book

[Menelmarar]

Highpoint is also affordable and good.

Its not going to matter much which controller you get. If your only planning on a mirroring array sounds to me like your more interested in redudancy than performance. Mirror arrays require little cpu overhead even in the cheap cards.

I've used highpoint, you can schedule times to do a verification of array, configure a spare drive, have the service email you notifications, build, verify, rebuild, and destroy arrays with their remote console, and probably more

[dave_graham]

3ware is overkill for your situation.

promise makes reasonable cards.

cheers,

dave

[Stinger836]

What if I already have the one HDD setup and crap how I like it and I want to build the RAID 1 array? Will it just write to the other HDD for 11 hours and get caught up or do I have to have both drives formatted when i start?

[Ice Czar]

you mirror the current drive
you have to be able to do that
otherwise if a drive fails
how could you rebuild the array? ;)

for what your looking for Id agree with Dave, 3ware is overkill, a reasonably priced Promise or Highpoint would be the way to go ;)

when you decide, I'll link you to a manual for that card, there are slight differences in the exact steps employed to build mirrored arrays, but its typically handled through the RAID cards BIOS

[Stinger836]

I don't have the slightest idea what card to get from Promise or Highpoint though. I have a highpoint hdd controller that is very reliable and I like it but I don't have a clue which card is better then another. I could use some help. I see cards at about $100 then $142 etc.

[Menelmarar]

Again, I only have experience with Highpoint. There are also equivalent Promise products out there.

2 channel:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-115-001&depa=0
4 channel:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-115-016&depa=0