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Silicon Image Vs. Promise

CSSmitty

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 7, 2003
Messages
248
I'm building a new server with an A7N8X Deluxe with 2 36GB Raptors in Raid 1, i was wondering if there would be any advantage of shelling out the money for a Promise FastTrak S150 SATA controller instead of using the onboard Silicon Image Sil 3112A RAID Controller


i also think that i may be a little paranoid
 
Well call me stupid but there isn't a whole lot of difference with software based RAID (the onboard stuff) and a discrete RAID card, that is unless you have a slow processor. I would hope that your getting a 2500+ Barton and OCing it.
 
If memory serves, the SiImage onboard is actually a hair faster than the Promise card - even if it might tax the CPU a bit more.

Somebody smack me around if I'm wrong here...
 
Promise all the way. Silicon Image is just plain garbage, nothing but problems.

Promise is faster uses less cpu, and it doesn't take 4 god damn hours to rebuild a mirror.

Plus drivers for silicon image are trash to boot. But what do you expect for 40 dollar raid card.
 
Originally posted by Wrench00
Promise all the way. Silicon Image is just plain garbage, nothing but problems.

Promise is faster uses less cpu, and it doesn't take 4 god damn hours to rebuild a mirror.

Plus drivers for silicon image are trash to boot. But what do you expect for 40 dollar raid card.
I use a Si3112A chipset and have none of the problems you describe... I also find their drivers nice... Not one stability problem and my benchmarks beat my old controller...

End user perhaps?
 
I've been using a SiliconImage SATA PCI controller for bout a month in my IC7 Server runnin 24/7 as RAID1 - NO PROMBLEMS AT ALL

Now i have a SiliconImage PATA PCI Controller since 2 weeks in my temporary Epox KT333 Server runnin 24/7 too - NO PROBLEMS AT ALL

Rebuilding needs bout two hours with 2 160GB Samsung disks ... not sure bout that though ...

And theres a nice Windows tool that lets you check the stats to your array :)
 
I was running a Silicon Image PCI RAID controller a year or so ago, and the damn thing stopped working. I RMAed it, and put in the new one, but could not recover my data. I was running RAID 0 on a home server. Lost over 120GB of data. Now I am using a Promise card, and have had no problems at all. I just dont trust Silicon Image products anymore.
 
Originally posted by saturnine2
I was running a Silicon Image PCI RAID controller a year or so ago, and the damn thing stopped working. I RMAed it, and put in the new one, but could not recover my data. I was running RAID 0 on a home server. Lost over 120GB of data. Now I am using a Promise card, and have had no problems at all. I just dont trust Silicon Image products anymore.
When using raid0 you can't really complain about data loss. You shouldn't put anything on a striped array you don't mind loosing. Now if you'd have lost 120 gigs of mirrored data then I'd be bitching and moaning right along with you...
 
Yeah, I know about the risk of data loss with RAID 0. Only thing is, the card died, not my array. I learned my lesson though. I do monthly backups now.
 
I had my RAID1 on the Sil.Img. SATA Controller (drives connected with Abit Adapters), when swapped to the PATA SiliconImage controller the RAID1 worked as if nothing happened ... i had tranferred the data to another array but did not delete the partitions before the swap so i was a little surprised when i noticed that everytjhing was still there ...
 
Thats the trick is to redefine the array without also wiping the data. You just have to select menu options carefully and be sure of what you are agreeing to when you hit the y-key. ;)
 
Originally posted by dewhite
Thats the trick is to redefine the array without also wiping the data. You just have to select menu options carefully and be sure of what you are agreeing to when you hit the y-key. ;)

Heh ... i did nothing at all ... just slapped in the Controller and hdds, installed driver, reboot ... look into disk management - everythings still there :)
 
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