Which hardware raid controller?

J

jdraughn

Limp Gawd
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Mar 9, 2007
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From what I have read, Areca is pretty much unbeatable in performance and features? Of course you pay for that with $$, but I am tired of losing all my data everytime my motherboard takes a dump on me. With a hardware raid controller card I can move it from motherboard to motherboard as I upgrade in the future and not lose all my data correct?

I need a 8 drive controller at a minimum, but would feel better with at least a 12 port for future upgrades.

If I had two 8 (or more) drive controllers, could they work together to create a 16 drive array? I don't understand most of the terminology when the features of the cards are given.

If I had 3 drives in raid 5, then wanted to add 2 more. Would the card be able to add them to the array and rebuild it? If so, can I still access the data on the first 3 drives while it's rebuilding the array?

Final question. Where is the best/cheapest place to buy Areca raid cards. Newegg seems to be one of the most expensive places on the net. www.pc-pitstop.com seems to be about the cheapest. Anyone have any opinions on where to purchase? Thanks
 
high point rocketraid 2320, 8 ports, compatible with majority of os (osx, win, linux, bsd), reliable, cheap, can link 2 together for 16 port controller.
 
I did some research and saw where someone mentioned it has very poor raid 5 performance. Any cards other then Areca that have good raid 5 performance?
 
jdraughn said:
I did some research and saw where someone mentioned it has very poor raid 5 performance. Any cards other then Areca that have good raid 5 performance?
Click to expand...

I have 8 500gb on 2320 in raid5 the performance is just fine (have to use writeback cache) It's been a while since i ran the test but I think it was ~150MB/s write and over 500 read
 
axan said:
I have 8 500gb on 2320 in raid5 the performance is just fine (have to use writeback cache) It's been a while since i ran the test but I think it was ~150MB/s write and over 500 read
Click to expand...

Im no expert or anything, but with write performance being less then a 1/3rd of what your read is, I would think that is pretty poor. The 150Mb/s sounds kinda impressive until you realize it's 8 hard-drives.

Right now it's a toss up between the Areca 8 port and the Highpoint 3xxx 8 port.
Areca's Pros:
Great performance and features.
Ability to upgrade the 256MB of ram to 1G, just saw a 1GB SODimm on newegg for 18.00.
Areca's Cons:
Horrible support from the sounds of it.
Price
I don't like the fact that there is a fan on the chipset, just something else that can go wrong.

Highpoint 3xxx pros:
Performance? (I assume it's great,but can't find benchmarks)
Cost - Cheaper then the Areca card
Can add up to 4 cards together.
Passive heatsink.
Cons:
Cost - Still pretty expensive.
Stuck with 256MB of ram.

I am also curious of what kind of motherboard support the Highpoint has. I need a file server, it's not very CPU intensive and won't want to spend big bucks on a server motherboard when practically a via powered mini ITX would be fast enough if it had the PCIe slot.

If anyone can add to this list of pro's and cons, i would appreciate it. Right now I am leaning heavily torward the Highpoint 3xxx 8 port.
 
jdraughn said:
Im no expert or anything, but with write performance being less then a 1/3rd of what your read is, I would think that is pretty poor. The 150Mb/s sounds kinda impressive until you realize it's 8 hard-drives.
Click to expand...
That is normal for RAID 5. You won't have write speeds anywhere near read speeds with any controller.
jdraughn said:
Ability to upgrade the 256MB of ram to 1G, just saw a 1GB SODimm on newegg for 18.00.
Click to expand...
The 4 and 8 port cards are not upgradeable.
jdraughn said:
I don't like the fact that there is a fan on the chipset, just something else that can go wrong.
Click to expand...
The cards come with a larger passively cooled heatsink that can replace the smaller one with the fan.
 
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