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Which RAID controller Question (HDD setup)

Finny76

Finny76

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 31, 2002
Messages
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I have 2 WD Black SATA 6.0Gb drives and want to put them in RAID 5 for better/faster performance.

Just bought an ASUS Z68 Pro mobo and Core 2600K processor.

What kind of Controller do i need to setup a RAID configuration? :confused:

Ive seen controllers priced from $25 all the way upto a few hundred dollars. Ive been looking on NEWEGG but need help with selecting a RAID controller.
 
finny76 said:
I have 2 WD Black SATA 6.0Gb drives and want to put them in RAID 5 for better/faster performance.

Just bought an ASUS Z68 Pro mobo and Core 2600K processor.

What kind of Controller do i need to setup a RAID configuration? :confused:

Ive seen controllers priced from $25 all the way upto a few hundred dollars. Ive been looking on NEWEGG but need help with selecting a RAID controller.
Click to expand...

Please read up on RAID levels.
There is no RAID5 with 2 drives.

Do you mean RAID 0 or 1 ?
 
I meant RAID 5 with 3 drives in total (2x WD SATA 6.0 1TB and 1x VelocityRaptor 300)
 
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Please look up what RAID 5 is. That drive combination is abysmal in regards to using RAID 5.
 
even if you do create a raid5 with the 2*1tbs and the 1 raptor, you'll be limited by the size of the smallest drive for the array.

just get another 1tb and use that with the other 2*1tb and create a raid 5 then use that for storage and the the raptor for the OS ???
 
raid5 is not generally for performance especially if you use only 3 drives. For performance you need a non windows OS and software raid or a HW raid card with 512 MB+ cache and either a BBU or a firmware that allows you to turn on the write cache when you do not the BBU. This is dangerous to run a raid card in write back mode without the BBU however raid5 (like all other raid levels) is not meant to replace a backup so should you loose data from that setup restore it from your nightly backup.
 
Well what is the best RAID option & controller for using 2 or more SATA 6 HDDS in Windows?
 
For a home user I would just use raid 0 or 1 that is builtin to the Intel chipset and use an external drive for a backup. For more speed get an SSD. A $450 hw raid card with cache + $150 BBU does not make a lot of sense to me for less than 8 drives.

SATA 6 HDDS
Click to expand...

Also remember that SATA III is no better than SATA II for hard drives. Drives are just beginning to break the SATA I speed limit of 150 MB/s this year.
 
rive22 said:
That's like asking what is the best way to prepare/cook pizza
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Agreed. One thing that could help is for the OP to specify what the usage of the array is for. Are we optimizing for desktop loads, database loads, video editing gaming ...
 
drescherjm said:
For a home user I would just use raid 0 or 1 that is builtin to the Intel chipset and use an external drive for a backup. For more speed get an SSD. A $450 hw raid card with cache + $150 BBU does not make a lot of sense to me for less than 8 drives.



Also remember that SATA III is no better than SATA II for hard drives. Drives are just beginning to break the SATA I speed limit of 150 MB/s this year.
Click to expand...


YES it is a home setup but the only thing i will be doing is video/audio encoding, copying large files to and from the HDD's (no gaming). So i need a setup that maximizes the HDDS performance in read/write times.

I have a SSD for bootup.
 
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WD Black drives are *not* for RAID arrays in Windows. [Link to FAQ]

I've had poor experience with WD drives even in RAID1. They do seem to work okay in RAID0.

If you want to maximize rw *throughput* [not seek times] you can use RAID0 with your two drives and your onboard controller. Note you have 0 disk failure tolerance with this [aka, if either drive fails you will lose your data]. However this sounds like the closest thing you want, and its likely your ASUS motherboard already has ports that support RAID. You may need to change your storage controller settings in your BIOS to RAID, and reinstall your windows install to support this change.
 
hotcrandel said:
WD Black drives are *not* for RAID arrays in Windows. [Link to FAQ]

I've had poor experience with WD drives even in RAID1. They do seem to work okay in RAID0.

If you want to maximize rw *throughput* [not seek times] you can use RAID0 with your two drives and your onboard controller. Note you have 0 disk failure tolerance with this [aka, if either drive fails you will lose your data]. However this sounds like the closest thing you want, and its likely your ASUS motherboard already has ports that support RAID. You may need to change your storage controller settings in your BIOS to RAID, and reinstall your windows install to support this change.
Click to expand...

I have a P8P67pro Motherboard. Is the On board raid controller sufficient or do i need to buy a standalone raid adapter?

RAID 0 might be fast but i don't want to loose data, so either a RAID 1+0 or Raid 5 is what i need.

I don't mind purchasing the WD RE4 drives over the Black.
 
finny76 said:
I have a P8P67pro Motherboard. Is the On board raid controller sufficient or do i need to buy a standalone raid adapter?

RAID 0 might be fast but i don't want to loose data, so either a RAID 1+0 or Raid 5 is what i need.

I don't mind purchasing the WD RE4 drives over the Black.
Click to expand...

Onboard is fine for RAID 0, 1, 10. It is aweful for 5. RAID 10 sounds like a good fit, as long as you have 4 drives. Keep in mind you can still loose data. Controllers, cables, drives can all fail. RAID just offers a measure of redundancy from physcial hardware failure, but does nothing to protect your data. Still need a data backup for that.
 
Chrisroman said:
Onboard is fine for RAID 0, 1, 10. It is aweful for 5. RAID 10 sounds like a good fit, as long as you have 4 drives. Keep in mind you can still loose data. Controllers, cables, drives can all fail. RAID just offers a measure of redundancy from physcial hardware failure, but does nothing to protect your data. Still need a data backup for that.
Click to expand...

as long as it can give me better speeds than w.o being in a RAID then im fine.
 
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