Are HighPoint RocketRAID Cards Good?

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ethraax

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 11, 2008
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174
Hey, I currently have a 2x1.5 TB RAID 0 array on my motherboard's ICH10R controller. I'm looking to expand my array and convert it to RAID 5, but I'd like to use a hardware card instead of my motherboard's ICH10R for expandability (I'd like to be able to expand my new array to 8 HDDs) and performance (I've heard bad things about ICH10R's RAID 5 performance, as it's fakeraid).

I should mention that I'm running Windows 7 Professional x64 on a single 500 GB hard drive, separate from my big media array. I'd like to keep my OS (as well as a SATA CD/DVD burner) running on my motherboard's SATA controller.

My plan is to buy 3 more 1.5 TB HDDs and a RocketRAID card, use the new disks to create a RAID 5 array on the new card, copy my existing data over, and then move the 2 drives on my motherboard's RAID controller to the card.

I've basically found two RocketRAID cards that I am considering. The first is the RocketRAID 2680, which is a PCIe x4 card that doesn't have a built-in processor for parity calculations (but supposedly performs better than the ICH10R, and would provide more expandability anyways). The second is the RocketRAID 4320, which is a PCIe x8 card that does have a built-in processor for parity calculations.

The RocketRAID 2680 is $275, and the RocketRAID 4320 is $400.

(They both have two internal SFF-8087 mini-SAS ports. I've never used SAS before, but I think I can just buy a breakout cable that'll give me 4 SATA ports for each SFF-8087 mini-SAS port - can someone confirm this?)

Now, I have a decent processor (i5 at 3.2 GHz), so I assume the performance gain in getting a truly dedicated card wouldn't be significant (I rarely use much CPU anyways, and I don't plan on reading/writing the array often). At least, not $125 significant.

What I'm mostly concerned about is reliability. Does anyone here use RocketRAID cards? If my card breaks 2-3 years from now, will I be able to buy the current equivalent RocketRAID model and still keep the data on my array?

(Also, will I be able to run RAID on both the card and on my motherboard while I copy my existing data over?)

Thanks in advance for the help!

PS: I'd also like to encrypt my new array with TrueCrypt - I assume it'll work fine, but if someone could confirm this, that'd be great.
 
The 2680 seems quite pricey for what you're getting. Personally I would rather get a PERC 5/i instead of that thing while saving $100+. The 4320 is a lot nicer and you'll really like the out-of-band management (ethernet port). Breakout cables are all you need as you guessed as SAS is compatible with SATA drives. I can't comment on reliability, but they do seem pretty decent, and normally you can move arrays between different cards from the same manufacturer. Having a RAID array on one of these cards and your ICH10R simultaneously won't be an issue either.
 
ethraax said:
Hey, I currently have a 2x1.5 TB RAID 0 array on my motherboard's ICH10R controller. I'm looking to expand my array and convert it to RAID 5, but I'd like to use a hardware card instead of my motherboard's ICH10R for expandability (I'd like to be able to expand my new array to 8 HDDs) and performance (I've heard bad things about ICH10R's RAID 5 performance, as it's fakeraid).
Click to expand...

The performance is actually better than most fakeRAID these days actually. 70Mb/s write IIRC. But still that constant CPU usage though

ethraax said:
I've basically found two RocketRAID cards that I am considering. The first is the RocketRAID 2680, which is a PCIe x4 card that doesn't have a built-in processor for parity calculations (but supposedly performs better than the ICH10R, and would provide more expandability anyways). The second is the RocketRAID 4320, which is a PCIe x8 card that does have a built-in processor for parity calculations.

The RocketRAID 2680 is $275, and the RocketRAID 4320 is $400.
Click to expand...
Go with the RocketRAID 4320. The onboard XOR engine helps with performance.

ethraax said:
Now, I have a decent processor (i5 at 3.2 GHz), so I assume the performance gain in getting a truly dedicated card wouldn't be significant (I rarely use much CPU anyways, and I don't plan on reading/writing the array often). At least, not $125 significant.
Click to expand...
Actually, the performance gain in RAID 5 with a true dedicated card is pretty significant. Not to mention little to no constant CPU usage. We're talking anywhere from 250Mb/s to 400Mb/s read/write here.

ethraax said:
What I'm mostly concerned about is reliability. Does anyone here use RocketRAID cards? If my card breaks 2-3 years from now, will I be able to buy the current equivalent RocketRAID model and still keep the data on my array?
Click to expand...
RocketRAID cards are generally reliable but like all RAID card families, they vary from crap to good depending on the model. Most RocketRAID cards IIRC are backwards compatible.
ethraax said:
(Also, will I be able to run RAID on both the card and on my motherboard while I copy my existing data over?)
Click to expand...
I believe so yes.
 
Danny Bui said:
Actually, the performance gain in RAID 5 with a true dedicated card is pretty significant. Not to mention little to no constant CPU usage. We're talking anywhere from 250Mb/s to 400Mb/s read/write here.
Click to expand...

Compared to what, with a CPU-assisted card?

The most usage the array will get is streaming 1080p video files. All other read/write activity will also have to go through Ethernet, and I'm not connected to a gigabit network anyways.

If it's compared to 50 MB/s, then I can spend the extra money. If it's compared to 150 MB/s, it's not worth it to me.

Also, thanks for your thorough response.
 
If you're only on a 100mbit network, then that tops out at 12.5mb/s before overhead. One thing to keep in mind is that while you may not need the higher speed, the faster the array is, the faster that it will rebuild if you have a drive failure.
 
Hmm. Maybe "all other" wasn't the right way to put it - the array will be inside my main desktop PC, so I'll be using it. What I meant was: I rarely perform big file operations on it, other than copying files to my laptop which has an HDMI output. Said operation would be through a crossover cable, and my laptop doesn't have a gigabit Ethernet card.

Also, I won't necessarily always be on a Fast Ethernet network. If I find myself on a gigabit network a year or two down the road, I'd rather not be needlessly constrained by my RAID card.

Still, I could be happy with even 50 MB/s, if it could save me a significant sum of money. I mostly want a RAID card so I can expand my array later, something I can't do with my motherboard's RAID. I also don't want to break my bank.
 
If you're doing mostly reads from this system, you won't be constrained with either card. If you want expandability however, go with the 4320. You can expand your RAID array and add more ports to it with a SAS expander.
 
ethraax said:
Compared to what, with a CPU-assisted card?

The most usage the array will get is streaming 1080p video files. All other read/write activity will also have to go through Ethernet, and I'm not connected to a gigabit network anyways.

If it's compared to 50 MB/s, then I can spend the extra money. If it's compared to 150 MB/s, it's not worth it to me.
Click to expand...
Well IIRC, that RocketRAID 2360 card can hit about 88Mb/s write. The ICH10R can hit 70Mb/s.

Remember that even when you're not even using the array, parity calculations still have to be done. Hence the constant CPU usage with software RAID based controllers.
 
Danny Bui said:
Remember that even when you're not even using the array, parity calculations still have to be done. Hence the constant CPU usage with software RAID based controllers.
Click to expand...

Not that I don't believe you, but why? And when you say "constant CPU usage", do you mean a low level of usage that jumps up during periods of drive activity and back down when you stop, or is it ubiquitous?

I've been trying to figure out how much CPU it would use, and the best estimate I've gotten (for an i5-750 @ 3.2 GHz) would be around 10%. Does that sound about right?
 
ethraax said:
Not that I don't believe you, but why? And when you say "constant CPU usage", do you mean a low level of usage that jumps up during periods of drive activity and back down when you stop, or is it ubiquitous?

I've been trying to figure out how much CPU it would use, and the best estimate I've gotten (for an i5-750 @ 3.2 GHz) would be around 10%. Does that sound about right?
Click to expand...

I am honestly not sure why there is constant CPU but everything I've read about software RAID always mention it. It's basically a low level of usage that jumps up during periods of drive activity.

Not sure about your estimate.

IMO, it would be not that great of an idea to run a software RAID array off an OC'd CPU, no matter how stable it is. A few wrong CPU calcs from an OC'd CPU might end up corrupting the RAID array itself. With that said, that's just my thought/theory.
 
I've found adaptec 8-port sas cards for less than that RockeRaid on eBay. Consider LSI Logic as well, they are the industry standards.

The CPU usage is calculating what to write where. Each bit written to a given address on each hard drive in the Raid has to be used in a calculation for the XOR operation to write the correct information to the parity drive & address. With Raid 5, that parity section changes drives every so may bytes, and will wrap around. Off loading this calculation to a hardware Raid Card saves the computer time to think about other things, like rendering the video rather than where to put it.

Finally, the hardware raid will probably have a more efficient algorithm for the XOR calculations, both for writing and rebuilding, reducing the time to rebuild the array if one drive goes down.

How to calculate the CPU usage, I'm not sure of. But I'd prefer to off load the calculations in a server w/ more than a simple Raid 1.
-Steven
 
A second reason that I just though of why you have constant CPU usage is that the CPU may be actively checking to make sure there is no bad sectors/bits at regular intervals to alert you when your drive failed, but I'm not super convinced about that.

Good Luck,
-Steven
 
I would recommend against Adaptec. Many of the people using them on this forum have had nothing but headaches with them. You'll also need some sort of forced cooling for them.
 
I have a 4320 and it works fine, I also use it w/ a Chenbro SAS expander.
Just make sure that the HDDs you plan to use are compatible.

I've had arrays built from the 2000 series read fine on a 3000 and 4000 series card
so if there's a new lineup I'm sure the array metadata will be compatible too.
 
alamone said:
Just make sure that the HDDs you plan to use are compatible.
Click to expand...

Compatible with RAID, with the specific RAID card, or with the SAS breakout? Right now I'm using these two of these drives on my ICH10R, and they seem to work fine. I was going to buy three more of the same model for compatibility sake, since I'm not sure if it's good to build a RAID array using different HDDs, even of the same size (perhaps it's me being paranoid).
 
Compatible with the controller you plan on using. It's best to stick with similar drives, but you don't have to.
 
RocketRAID 2680 is hardware assist SAS raid card, it mean it will use host CPU to run/calculate parity in raid5..

Good things about this controller are:
-It can expand up to 128 drives with SAS expander
But it takes hrs if not day to initialize the raid (depend on the size)
- Very fast you can get over 300MB/sec if you have decent CPU and 7200rpm HDD

I think most of the raid controller out there is too pricy and performance for home usage

I would prefer to use a simple Hardware raid with port multiplier built-in base on jMicron 393/394. It's a driver-less controller, all it needs is a SATA port

For technical jargon you can go here: http://www.jmicron.com/Product_JMB393.htm
to buy go here: http://www.datoptic.com/5x-drive-hardware-raid-controller.html

Just connect to your MB sata port you can see a raid5 as big as 8.0TB (5x 2.0TB) shows up in DM, format it and done. It will take about 45sec to set up raid5

It transfers about 220MB/sec, if the SATA port set as enhance mode. it can server 5x 1080p streams easily!

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Edit: This controller does offer password protected raid

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I used to run a RR2600 and I certainly wouldn't recommend any of their (but to be fair, any other company as well) software RAID products. It was a cheap card and I didn't expect much, but it seems like you get much, much better value from the PERC series on the low end and if you have an actual budget to use (3-500), then you can go for one of the higher models from various companies.
 
Danny Bui said:
Remember that even when you're not even using the array, parity calculations still have to be done. Hence the constant CPU usage with software RAID based controllers.
Click to expand...

This sounds like a load of crap to me. It shouldn't have to use CPU usage except when doing disk writes. If its only writing a very small amount of data then it should use a very small amount of CPU. I can tell you for a fact that mdadm and zfs do not always use high CPU usage when your not using the array and both are software raid.
 
houkouonchi said:
This sounds like a load of crap to me. It shouldn't have to use CPU usage except when doing disk writes. If its only writing a very small amount of data then it should use a very small amount of CPU. I can tell you for a fact that mdadm and zfs do not always use high CPU usage when your not using the array and both are software raid.
Click to expand...

Just what I've read with Windows software RAID.
 
It was a right direction to create a raid in home/SOHO.

I highly recommend this hardware raid controller - Guarantee you will be happy as I'm

This is a driver-less raid controller! It take 50sec to built an array, instead of hrs if not days

I bought one and love it. If you have question let me know
230MB/sec data transfer

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