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Onboard RAID -- ICH5 or Silicon Image

S

spectrum

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 30, 2004
Messages
185
I have an Abit IC7-MAX3 and am waying the pro's/con's of the RAID controllers. From everything I've read the Intel controller has much less overhead than the SI 3114. But here is where I want opinions. Use the Intel controller for RAID-0 on 2 drives or the SI controller for RAID-0 on 4 drives...? Would the added performance of the 2 extra drives outway the negativity of the overhead on the SI chip assuming 2x 160GB drives on the Intel or 4x 80GB on the SI?
 
The 4 drive setup will most likely be considerably faster. However, please keep in mind that if you run a 4 drive RAID0 setup, you are increasing the likelyhood of TOTAL data loss by 4x (or more, depending on who you ask). Two drives in raid0 is plenty fast for most people, especially via the ICH5.

If you don't care about losing your data (and make no mistake, you WILL at some point)run the 4 drive RAID0 setup and enjoy the speed!
 
well, I'd say 2x 74GB Raptors on the ICH. Any controller uses the precious PCI bus, and until we get PCI express around here, 133MB/s just isn't enough. You can get 1 or 2 large drives for storage, too. It may be quirky, but it will most likely be faster than the 4 drive setup (definitely so in nonsequential and random, multitasking, transfers)
 
I'm using ICH5 myself right now in raid 0. Just to hedge my bets I made an image of the drive to another parallel HD. I felt that the ICH5 would not be hampered by the PCI bus interface ,ala the SI chip, and ergo give me a faster setup. I never ran off the SI chip, so I won't vouch/knock its' transfer speeds. the rig below runs at 84Mb/s in sisoft sandra file transfer and HDtach 2.70, run about 5 mins ago says, read burst is 116.5 Mb/s and 8.7 ms access . The numbers are broken down to 99.5 Mb/s max read speed, 38.1 Mb/s minimum 69.4 Mb/s avg. Those aren't steller numbers, I know there's more there, just haven't stopped long enough to tweak it up.
 
You see, those are real performance numers. That's what I want. RAID-0 with access time of a 7200RPM single drive. Oh yeah.
 
Thanks for the info. Think I'll go with 2 drives on the ICH5 and spend the extra $ on more RAM :D

S
 
4 raptors....shit dude, your going balls to the wall arent you? im not sure if either of the raid controllers on the ic7 are capable of this but id put 2 drives stripping, one as a parity, and one as a hot-spare.
 
Heh 4 Raptors would rock for sure but I don't wanna spend 600+ on drives :p
And no, neither controller allows a parity drive or hot spares. As far as data integrity goes I back everything important up to my Sun box on a 100Gig RAID5 array. Then if its really important it goes to tape too :cool:

S
 
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