Should I get a SATA III raid controller?

H

HardyOne

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 17, 2004
Messages
179
I have a X58 M/B with only sata ii ports on the ICH10R. I would like to get a Micron M4-256 SSD and either connect to the sata ii ports or get a sata iii controller card. The other option would be to get 2 each M4-128 SSD's and put them into raid on the controller card. So, here are my questions:

1) M4-256 on sata ii or on a sata iii controller card? If the controller card, suggestions?

OR

2) 2 each M4-128's on a sata iii RAID controller card? If so, suggestions?

BTW, I am willing to spend about 100 to 200 dollars on the controller.
 
my vote is 2 m4-128's in raid0 on a controller card. m4's really do require sata3 for there to be any advantage over c300's, since their main appeal is the higher sequential read and write.

I personally would recommend c300's if you don't want to spend money on a card, since they won't be gimped as much by sata 2 ports and they'll have higher 4k speeds as well.

that said, if you're looking for a good card, the 9260 series is one of the best you can do, but it's about $310 retail. I'll sell you one (9260-4i) for $249 if you decide to go for it.[/shameless plug] I'm not sure what is good in the lower range. benchmarks for 9260-4i on 4 c300's are here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1613236
 
I am willing to spend about 100 to 200 dollars on the controller.
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Not enough.

You'll need a 9260 + FastPath software for @ 450.00.

Stick with your SATAII ICH10 chipset if you can't afford it.
 
It looks like the Fastpath route is the best, however, I am not willing to spend that much. I have to believe that the 9260 or something like THIS will be better than just using my ICH10r. It's like you get what you pay for. That is, from to low to high: 1, 2, 3, 4

where
1=ICH10/1 C300-256
2=ICH10/2 C300-128
3=9260/2 C400-128
4-Fastpath/2 C400-128
 
You will not gain your money back in performance by adding a sata3 card. The Intel chipset will limit you to 300MB a second (ish) but seriously, you will be very hard pressed to tell the difference in real world performance. In normal use, (OS and apps) you will almost never hit 300MB a second anyway, and if you do it's literally for fractions of a second. The same goes for putting 2 SSDs in a RAID0, it's neat for benchmarking but in reality, you gain little.
 
The Intel chipset will limit you to 300MB a second (ish)
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That's per port up to two ports.

The ICH10 does @ 550-600MB/s in RAID.

It looks like the Fastpath route is the best, however, I am not willing to spend that much. I have to believe that the 9260 or something like THIS will be better than just using my ICH10r.
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Been there done that and I gave you the conclusion of my experience.

All I can say is "Go for it"! :D
 
All I can say is "Go for it"!
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Are you saying, based on your experience, that the 9212 or the 9260 DO give you a noticable increase in performance?
 
HardyOne said:
Are you saying, based on your experience, that the 9212 or the 9260 DO give you a noticable increase in performance?
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I'm saying that if you don't want to pay for a 9260-4i card + FasTrack software you will not see an overall performance increase over the Intel ICH10 chipset.

The LSI 9212 is basically an HBA with no balls for SSDs and the 9260 needs the FP software or else it's slower than the Intel ICH10.

Sorry, go big or go home. :)

PSSS...Just to let ya know, I went home. :)
 
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Sounds like I will be going home too. My other thought is to move some storage drives to a cheap sata controller and put 2 of the M4's (or C400) to the ICH10 ports in raid0. Would this be faster than putting one larger one on the ICH10? I do have 2 spare HD's that I could test in raid and then alone and see what the difference is in performance.
 
put 2 of the M4's (or C400) to the ICH10 ports in raid0. Would this be faster than putting one larger one on the ICH10?
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SSDs scale very well in RAID0 set-ups and normally you will see an increase in speeds but with the normal cavets of RAID0.

Mechanical HDs don't scale nearly as well.

Sounds like you're a RAID novice so the best advice I can give you is "Backup your data" cause a screw-up on RAID0 has little recourse for data recovery.
 
I am really anal about backups. I have a removable drive bay that I use. I have 2 HD's - one for weekly backup and one for monthly backup. The drive for monthly backup is stored off-site. I use Acronis True Image and I assume I can backup a raid volume as if it were a regular drive? And yes, I am a raid newbie. I understand that raid drivers that come with ICH10 are pretty good. Is this correct?
 
HardyOne said:
I am really anal about backups. I have a removable drive bay that I use. I have 2 HD's - one for weekly backup and one for monthly backup. The drive for monthly backup is stored off-site. I use Acronis True Image and I assume I can backup a raid volume as if it were a regular drive? And yes, I am a raid newbie. I understand that raid drivers that come with ICH10 are pretty good. Is this correct?
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yes, when you backup the volume it will just be an image the size of the entire drive array. you can back that up later using any drive or array of at least that size.
 
I use Acronis True Image and I assume I can backup a raid volume as if it were a regular drive? And yes, I am a raid newbie. I understand that raid drivers that come with ICH10 are pretty good. Is this correct?
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Yes and No.

Acronis works fine but W7 installs MS's default drivers which aren't quite the equal of Intel's drivers.

As with most computer components you're generally better off getting the latest drivers from the components' manfgs. website.
 
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