SATA RAID 5 controller?

N

NecessaryEvil

Guest
My tax refund is enough for me to get 4 250gb SATA hdds...and a RAID controller.

Well, I'm only going to get 2 250gb drives (As I already have 2 250gb)...but I still need a RAID card.

which of these should I get?

Highpoint
Promise

Or should I get something else?


here are my requirements:

1. Support 4 SATA (or more)
2. Support RAID 5, and non-RAID function (i.e. act as a regular SATA controller)
3. Work in a 32-bit PCI slot



The Promise card would probably give me better performance...but I'm not sure it's worth 2x as much as the Highpoint.

This is non-mission critical, but after losing an 8x 80 RAID 5...I don't feel like fucking around with something that is likely to die on me(the RAID stripe got corrupted somehow, and I lost everything). I'm still unhappy about all my mp3s and videos I lost with that crash...so I'm debating whether I want to do a RAID 5 or just do things on individual drives.
 
I guess if I had to pick out of those two I'd pick the promise card. For about $80 more you could get 3ware. Newegg is out of stock on them right now but I figure you might not get your refund check for a while.
 
the 3wares are all 64 bit...I'd need 32, as I'm using an MSN K8N Neo2...and am not planning on changing the motherboard.
 
3ware cards CAN run in 32bit/33MHz PCI slots just fine. You'll get slower throughput than if you ran it in a 64bit/66Mhz PCI slot but it dont matter anyways since you'll run all 3 cards in PCI 32/33 anyways.
 
I use the 3ware 4 channel IDE Raid card in one of my systems and its been pretty solid..

I use it with 4 80gb 8mb WD's and in a 32bit Slot..

Runs pretty good.. its no speed demon but it does the job.
 
but..that doesn't support SATA.

I'll look into the 3wares.
 
look at the wd sata RAID drives.. ( new) .... but you'll need the promise controller
 
actually, I needed to go with the 2500JD drives for them to match the harddrives I have on hand.

As it is, I've gone with an LSI MegaRAID 150-4.

The 3wares were $470 to start out with for 4x SATA, and I have an LSI MegaRAID i4 in the past and had great luck with it.
 
hi,

I am currently running The promise SX4-M (the one you linked to) in my Dell SC420 with 4 Samsung drive (160GB each Spinpoint 1416C). I am somewhat disappointed with the write speed (I figured that having a HW controller would make them write reasonably fast), i get very low scores in ATTO for a 4 disk array. It also tells me that something is fishy with one of my HDD's (got one timeout and some weird error code that dosen't tell me much), but doesn't tell me whether it's fixable, whether i need to get the drive replaced or what.

However, even though a drive has timed out before, the RAID set was not broken and it has survived a check disk and a defrag. I have heard good things about the Capacity Expansion over at storagereview.

Here is a screeny of my boot drive (80GB Maxtor):
ATTO-boot.png

and here is my raid array:
ATTO-raid.png


i think i have a configuration problem, but i am not sure.
 
NecessaryEvil said:
but..that doesn't support SATA.

I'll look into the 3wares.
Click to expand...

understood... but I was commenting more on the general quality of the 3ware..

I tried for my 4 disk 74gb Raptor raid5 array the following cards..

Adaptec 4 channel SATA Raid card and the LSI card you just got..

both were not good.. Adaptec was especially terrible.. the write performance was abysmal.

I ended up using the onboard Sil3114 Sata Raid on my Motherboard and running the 4 drives in a Raid 10 config.
 
LSI would be my pick. Or even any 4 Port Sata Controller and run Software Raid.

I wont turn this into a Soft/Hard argument though.
 
Have you considered buying a new mainboard with onboard SATA that supports RAID5?

The MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum (for example) has 8 SATA ports. The four Silicon Image SATA ports can be set up for RAID5. I'd think onboard would be faster than a 32-bit PCI slot, esp. if you have other PCI peripherals. I'd guess DFI would have a similar solution with its new boards, but I haven't checked. I know you'd have to go with a PCIe graphics card too, but it looks like a better long-term solution to me.
 
thought about it, lonewolf, but decided against it.

My motherboard is fine, and I plan on using all 4 SATA ports.

I would need a board with 8 SATA, which I know the Asus SLI board has. However, this system isn't just a server yet. It's still the system I game on...and I'm not going to go out and buy a PCI-Express card to replace my 6800GT. That, and if I go with an external solution, I can carry the RAID over into another system should the need arise. That, and I can get a hardware RAID, rather than a software one(my software RAID5 died...my hardware RAID5 was just fine)

the DFI board I'm most interested in is the Pentium-M one, especially with the 64-bit PCI slot (at least, in conjunction with the card I bought, it'd be nice). However, I'm very happy with the K8N Neo2...and the dual onboard gigabit is a great thing to have.
 
Does the ASUS SLI board allow you to RAID across all 8 ports? Or just two RAID-5 arrays at 4 drives each?
 
the nvidia RAID doesn't allow RAID 5.


the other RAID does. beyond that, I don't know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top