Areca 1231ML or Highpoint 3530

[toenexx]

I'm currently getting my parts for a new build and I am looking to RAID-10 eight HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB drives and possibly RAID-0 two Intel X-25M G2 160gb SSD's (undecided if I want to raid them with the ICH10R onboard controller or not).

The two controllers I've narrowed it down to are:

HighPoint RocketRAID 3530 PCI-Express x8 SATA II Controller Card - Retail

or

areca ARC-1231ML-2G PCI Express SATA II Controller Card - Retail

Both seem to have almost identical specs, tho I'm still unsure if the areca one does RAID-10 (says RAID-1E), and the Highpoint one is way cheaper. Does anyone have any expierence with either cards? Thanks!

 

[unhappy_mage]

They're both way overkill for striping and/or mirroring. Using onboard raid is likely to be nearly as fast, or present single disks and do the striping in your OS.

 

[toenexx]

Mmmm really? I am still a noob to all this raid stuff. However, I've been trying to research as much as I can.

One reason I been considering a RAID controller is because my motherboard only has 6 sata ports. But, I was thinking of just buying a RAID controller to accommodate the Hitachi drives (for storage), but leaving the SSD's (which would only house Windows 7, Linux, and apps/games) RAID on the onboard mobo controller.

But does making a RAID on the onboard mobo controller make the system slower? SHould I get a raid controller with less ports jus for the Hitachi drives and leave the SSDS on the mobo? Are there any disadvantages in striping the drives in the OS? Any other suggestions would be beneficial! Thanks!

 

[longblock454]

Since you mentioned Linux, the Highpoint card has built in drivers for Kernels >= 2.6.27. Nothing to compile or load, it will just work.

 

[toenexx]

Since you mentioned Linux, the Highpoint card has built in drivers for Kernels >= 2.6.27. Nothing to compile or load, it will just work.

That's a very good thing to hear, since I have yet to get into setting up a Linux environment of my own which is weird because I only use Linux at work, hah.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Mmmm really? I am still a noob to all this raid stuff. However, I've been trying to research as much as I can.

One reason I been considering a RAID controller is because my motherboard only has 6 sata ports. But, I was thinking of just buying a RAID controller to accommodate the Hitachi drives (for storage), but leaving the SSD's (which would only house Windows 7, Linux, and apps/games) RAID on the onboard mobo controller.

That would work. Or you could add a card which has plain SATA ports (like the AOC-SASLP-MV8, although its Linux compatibility is apparently a bit shaky) and use it to connect your drives.

But does making a RAID on the onboard mobo controller make the system slower?

If you use a poorly done driver-based RAID implementation, it may. Recent motherboards have gotten a lot better about including a good implementation, so I'd try it and find out if it's fast enough for you before spending money on a new controller.

SHould I get a raid controller with less ports jus for the Hitachi drives and leave the SSDS on the mobo?

That's what I'd do.

Are there any disadvantages in striping the drives in the OS?

In both Windows and Linux, software striping and/or mirroring means that array is portable to other installs of the same OS. I can't think of any particular disadvantages offhand, but that doesn't mean there aren't any

Any other suggestions would be beneficial! Thanks!

If you want to play with hardware RAID, by all means go for it. But striping and mirroring are cheap to do in software, so you might as well at least try the inexpensive software-based option first.

 

[toenexx]

I think for now I will hold off on buying a raid controller. I think what I will do is just get 4 hitachi 7k1000.c 1tb drives (use raid5 instead of 10) and stick with the 2 intell ssds and see how they fair up in the mobo raid controller. And if later on, if I get more drives, I will get a raid controller. Thank you for the input, unhappy_mage!

 

[Nacho]

Raid 5 or 6 over 10 would be advisable, since capacity loss on r10 is highest. Running that however, I would stick to a hardware raid card... or performance may be pretty horrible.

As a side-note for controllers, areca > highpoint only because of cache difference, and even then.. for < 8 drives go with what is cheaper.