Raid 0+1 vs Raid 5 with Hot-Swap

[smdion]

Hey Everyone.

I came into possession of 4 Seagate 750gb hard drives and want to setup a raid on my multimedia machine.

My current motherboard ASUS A8N-Ehas the capability to do a 0+1 raid, which would give a 1.5TB array, that is still usable unless a drive fails on both sides of the mirror.

The little voice in my head says to pay-up and get a decent Hardware RAID card and setup a RAID 5, with a hot-swap, that would give me much better protection. The 3ware 8506-4lp(yes I know it is at 1.5gbs instead of 3.0gbs, but I am more concerned about safety than speed) I can find NIB for about 75 dollars, which is about the range I am looking to spend on a RAID controller.

I have two questions (I think I already know the answer to one, but will ask anyways )
1. Would you prefer the Motherboard based 0+1 raid or a Controller based raid 5.

2. What is your opinion on the 8506-4lp and would it work in the A8N-E board

thanks!

 

[Blue Fox]

That 3ware card is going to be incredibly slow. If you really want RAID 5, get a PERC 5/i off eBay instead.

 

[Pocatello]

What is your purpose?

Why do you need a RAID card for your new drives?

RAID does not provide data security.

 

[thebeephaha]

That 3ware card is going to be incredibly slow. If you really want RAID 5, get a PERC 5/i off eBay instead.

The Perc 5s are sooo cheap these days. Half what I paid for mine.

I saw a deal for the card, the cache, battery, and two cables for under $150.

 

[smdion]

What is your purpose?

Why do you need a RAID card for your new drives?

RAID does not provide data security.

Purpose: Protection against failure of a hard drive and larger capacity.
Why: My board does not support Raid 5

When I said safety, I wasn't speaking in terms of security, I was speaking in terms of data loss.

 

[Drudenhaus]

I have two questions (I think I already know the answer to one, but will ask anyways )
1. Would you prefer the Motherboard based 0+1 raid or a Controller based raid 5.

2. What is your opinion on the 8506-4lp and would it work in the A8N-E board

1. I avoid fakeraid so I prefer a controller card.
2. 8000 series 3ware cards are ancient and quite slow these days. Even a slow perc card is a better choice.

 

[smdion]

I found this Perc 5i on Ebay, but it says it needs a PCIe x8 slot. My board only has 1 x PCIe x16 slot, 1 x PCIe x4, 2 x PCIe x1, 3 x PCI

Would it still work?

 

[Drudenhaus]

I found this Perc 5i on Ebay, but it says it needs a PCIe x8 slot. My board only has 1 x PCIe x16 slot, 1 x PCIe x4, 2 x PCIe x1, 3 x PCI

Would it still work?

In this case "work" and "fit" are two different things. It will work, but physically fitting the card into the slot may be an issue.

 

[smdion]

In this case "work" and "fit" are two different things. It will work, but physically fitting the card into the slot may be an issue.

Here is an image to help. I understand the difference between work and fit, I don't know how it wouldn't fit...

 

[Drudenhaus]

Here is an image to help. I understand the difference between work and fit, I don't know how it wouldn't fit...

Is the PCI-e x16 slot going to be occupied with a video card? The x4 slot also looks like there is no backing so you could use any PCI-e card in it.

 

[Blue Fox]

It will fit into the PCIe x4 slot because it has an open end. It just means that it will have half the maximum bandwidth available to the card, but don't worry as you won't be limited by that.

 

[smdion]

It will fit into the PCIe x4 slot because it has an open end. It just means that it will have half the maximum bandwidth available to the card, but don't worry as you won't be limited by that.

Is the PCI-e x16 slot going to be occupied with a video card? The x4 slot also looks like there is no backing so you could use any PCI-e card in it.

Yes, the x16 is used and thank you!