Built-In RAID vs PCI

[MorfiusX]

I currently have 2x 320gb SATA drives in RAID 1 using the built in RAID of my motherboard. The problem is that it's pretty slow being the it's a cheap motherboard and it offloads RAID processing to the CPU.

Would buying a PCI RAID controller help? I saw a 4 port RAID 5 controllers (in case I ever expand) for under a hundred dollars. Are they worth anything or should I buy a better RAID 1 controller?

 

[drizzt81]

RAID-1 should have virtually no CPU overhead, even if done in software.

I would say that almost every RAID controller under $100 will do software raid, so you'd just be moving the "problem" around.

 

[MorfiusX]

I downloaded and installed an updated driver from ULI's web site. This has improved the speed greatly.

 

[Sovereign]

For the record, PCI RAID sucks for speed. It is limited to 133MB/s (in theroy) but in practice is far slower. Plus it hogs the PCI bus. Onboard RAID on newer, higher end boards usually rides the PCI-E bus, seperating it from the other data moving about. Your RAID is probably an example, as is my nVRAID (which does work for me, despite all the horror stories I have heard on nV forums)