Would I better off using on-board RAID?

[KuJaX]

I have an Adaptec 1210SA RAID/SATA controller that i have used for quite a while. I just upgraded to two 74gb raptors (my 34gb raptors are for sale), and was curious if I would be better off running off of the Adaptec 1210SA controller of my ONBOARD RAID system (Abit AS8 motherboard). Will there be any difference at all? I would rather use the onboard RAID, only because I hate having the PCI slot taken up for the controller that essentially my motherboard can already do.

 

[defakto]

Well, if the hardware controller is a good hardware controller and does all the work, the card it's better than the mobo based controller, as most onboard use spare cpu cycles to perform their operations instead of a dedicated chip that a nice card based solution would use.

 

[gerbiaNem]

The onboard will give you better performance. I many reviews the addin cards actually used more cpu than the onboard and were limited to 133MB PCI speed.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Using raid 0? Then the onboard is probably just as good. However, you'll probably have to rebuild the array, reinstall windows, etc. If it were raid 5 it'd be a different story.