SATAII RAID 5

Dempsey · 30 Sep 2006 at 14:14

I'm thinking of getting a Highpoint Rocket RAID 2310 PCI-Express 4-Port SATA-II RAID 5 Host Adapter
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/SATARAID_Cards.html#aCC_2d017_2dHP

But whats the performance increase for this amount of money, is it worth it?

Would I be better off RAIDing my SATA2 Seagate .10's in onboard SATA1 RAID 5?

Memphis · 30 Sep 2006 at 15:14

Depends very highly on what performance increases you are looking for that you think a RAID setup would provide.

Dempsey · 30 Sep 2006 at 15:26

Higher transfer rate and lower cpu load than onboard, Data redundancy is important for the amount of disc space i'll have, 1TB

The board i'll be getting only does RAID 5 on SATA1 too

rpstewart · 1 Oct 2006 at 12:03

Onboard RAID5 is a bit of a nightmare, without a hardware XOR engine the write speeds will be poor - around 15Mb/s in most reviews, that's USB2 external speed!

The RocketRaid cards are nice, I use the 8 port version myself, good value for money with enough hardware support for a decent write speed (45Mb/s or so), cracking read speed (I average about 150Mb/s) but maybe lacking some of the toys of an Areca or Broadcomm card. That said they're a third of the price of the fancy cards.

Take a look at this thread for my other comments on the RocketRaid cards.

smids · 1 Oct 2006 at 13:35

RocketRAID's don't have onboard XOR processors so aren't actually true hardware raid - they are just an accelerated software RAID. I wouldn't spend money on that. I would save up a bit more and get a proper card.

HEADRAT · 2 Oct 2006 at 11:48

smids said:
I would save up a bit more and get a proper card.

Got a recommendation?

HEADRAT

smids · 2 Oct 2006 at 11:59

HEADRAT said:
Got a recommendation?

HEADRAT

Hmm, now there are some available, but I think I will be berated once people see the prices.

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Auction sites are pretty good for this sort of thing.

The card I'm saving for is the 8 port Areca 1220. Ouch when you see the price

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There are many cheaper alternatives though - lemme have a quick gander

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smids · 2 Oct 2006 at 12:11

Promise SuperTrak EX4350 - comes in at 240 hit points though

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Of course, I'd recommend the 8 port version for 'only' 30-40 hit points more.

Personally, I'd live with the 20Mb/s software RAID5 rather than forking out 100 odd for something which is only slightly better (and only in writes - reads are the same). How often do you write to an HDU? Ok - installing, graphics work/editing