Onboard raid 10 or hardware raid 5?

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pimpdaddyp00p

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Hey,

I have an Asus p5b-e (ich8r) that I have been using the onboard raid controller in raid 5 with my three samsung spinpoint HD501LJ. I'm hoping to get a little more access speed out of my setup. My question is would it be better to use my onboard controller and just get a forth hard drive and go raid 10 or use a friend's promise fasttrak tx4310? Or is there possibly another controller out there that might work better for me? I don't really want to get like a $400 raid controller, but I would definitely consider one around $100-$150ish.
 
The Promise TX4310 is not a hardware RAID card. Only hardware RAID controller in that price range would be the PERC 5/i, but it will require some modification to work with that motherboard.
 
RAID 10 is faster and if you aren't expecting to need to upgrade your drive sizes in the near future I'd go with that.
 
Lazn_Work said:
RAID 10 is faster and if you aren't expecting to need to upgrade your drive sizes in the near future I'd go with that.
Click to expand...

Raid 10 on his application might not be faster or even fast at all (he's using an onboard controller).


I recommend that you use a real raid controller such as the dell which was mentioned above.
 
For you I would have to agree on the Perc 5/i reccomendation. Switching to R10 you will see some improvement but not much...you will prob be disappointed.

Get a RAID card like the perc5/i and put some tape on it and youll be good to go.
 
Ockie said:
Raid 10 on his application might not be faster or even fast at all (he's using an onboard controller).


I recommend that you use a real raid controller such as the dell which was mentioned above.
Click to expand...

RAID 10 will almost always be faster on the same controller (onboard vs onboard or Perc5 vs Perc5), but comparing onboard RAID 10 vs Perc5 RAID5 I have no clue where that will end up.

Again if he will need to expand the array in the future RAID 10 is not the way to go, but from a performance perspective it is the "faster" configuration. (some file systems can have unexpected results from weird write patterns, but this is a good rule of thumb)
 
brokenarrow03 said:
OK I have to ask just cuz i dont know, why does this card need the tape? Do other cards require this too? and where do you buy these percs?
Click to expand...

It's actually mobos need the card to have that tape. For some reason, the Perc 5/i doesn't work with some motherboards without the tape (Mostly mobos with Intel based chipsets). Other cards don't require that. You buy the Perc 5 cards off eBay.

Read these threads for more info:
Dell Perc 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets

HOWEVER, your mobo only has one PCI-E x16 slot that can actually fit the Dell Perc 5/i card and I'm betting you already have a video card in that PCI-E x16. Unless you're willing to cut away part of the PCI-E x1 slots, you'll have to get a new mobo with two PCI-E x16 slots or switch your graphics card to PCI and forgo any hope of playing games in order to use the Perc 5/i
 
Lazn_Work said:
RAID 10 will almost always be faster on the same controller (onboard vs onboard or Perc5 vs Perc5), but comparing onboard RAID 10 vs Perc5 RAID5 I have no clue where that will end up.

Again if he will need to expand the array in the future RAID 10 is not the way to go, but from a performance perspective it is the "faster" configuration. (some file systems can have unexpected results from weird write patterns, but this is a good rule of thumb)
Click to expand...

Re-read my post and read the op post. OP wants to do raid 10 onboard or raid 5 with a hardware controller.
 
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