FRAID on Nvidia boards

bigdogchris

bigdogchris

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Feb 19, 2008
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Is hardware raid really that much better that it justifies buying a $60 controller for since my 750i FTW only supports software raid? I'm considering picking up a second WD6400AAKS and going raid but the CPU (e3110) hit scares me for gaming. I understand it's a good CPU but I don't want to take a 5-10% hit, but I don't know the real #'s since I can't find benchies online.

Or I could buy a software raid card like this that people claim helps over the motherboard supported raid, but since it's still software, I don't know what this card could add besides perhaps better drivers, and possible better performance, than what Nvidia has for their boards.

Thoughts?
 
First of all, you don't get real hardware RAID until you get cards in the $300 and up range generally. All others are just software assisted RAID, just like your motherboard.
Secondly, if all you're doing is RAID 0 or 1, there's virtually no CPU hit, since there's no parity calculations. You may be able to find some benchmarks, but I doubt there would be any appreciable decrease in gaming performance.
 
The Hunter said:
First of all, you don't get real hardware RAID until you get cards in the $300 and up range generally. All others are just software assisted RAID, just like your motherboard.
Secondly, if all you're doing is RAID 0 or 1, there's virtually no CPU hit, since there's no parity calculations. You may be able to find some benchmarks, but I doubt there would be any appreciable decrease in gaming performance.
Click to expand...

QFT.

If you're sticking with RAID0 or RAID1, you're set.
 
Vista x64 has drivers for the raid, right? If not, does Vista's 'load driver' allow you to pull from a USB?

Thanks for the insight guys, appreciate it.
 
Just added a pair of VelociRaptors in RAID-0 to my box. One thing that scared me a bit was the 780i board does not seem to support S.M.A.R.T. Apparently SMART results, if any, were iffy when you run in a RAID configuration - but it was a bit of a shock to me as I put the drives in and started doing a basic health check.

Install the nVidia drives, SMART monitoring goes away. Install with the Windows drivers, you still get SMART updates.

Not that SMART is the end all for drive health... but a nice to have when you are running fast and loose...
 
heelix said:
Just added a pair of VelociRaptors in RAID-0 to my box. One thing that scared me a bit was the 780i board does not seem to support S.M.A.R.T. Apparently SMART results, if any, were iffy when you run in a RAID configuration - but it was a bit of a shock to me as I put the drives in and started doing a basic health check.

Install the nVidia drives, SMART monitoring goes away. Install with the Windows drivers, you still get SMART updates.

Not that SMART is the end all for drive health... but a nice to have when you are running fast and loose...
Click to expand...
On the Nvidia site, they have the MediaShield guide which shows you must install MediaShield, then go into the options to enable SMART.

I have only 4 sata ports, which is 2 channels. Should I have 1 drive per channel or both drives on the same channel? I was thinking separate channels.
 
SATA ports are only 1 channel per port. You can connect 1 drive to 1 port and that's it (there are port mulitpliers, but that makes little sense for an internal arrangement).
 
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