Good Raid Sata Controller

WesleyBurns

WesleyBurns

WesleyBurns

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Hi i've been looking around for a decient well price hardware raid controller with the following attributes for running some MTron SSD's.

*Vista Support
*4 Ports for RAID0

I have come across the Areca ARC-1210 but doesn't seem like there is vista support?

I am trying to steer clear of problems i have had with certain controllers in the past and also this apparent Intel ICH8/9R issue and get maximum performance.

Anyone got some ideas?

Cheers
 
Well i had some Super Talents that would just not raid on Intel Raid, but would with the Gigabyte Raid, but just did not perform (had some latency issues (erm, just paused for 10 seconds every once and a while :|) and the performance was worse that non raided!).

I am getting a pair of 32gb MTtron 3000's and the word is that mtron advise using a good Hardware Raid or 780i chipset for maximum performance. Apparently there is a ICH8/9R issue and cap at 80MB/s or some sort of limit.

http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/

I currently am using a Adaptec AAR-1220SA that would not even boot into its bios with the Super Talents (i have long since got rid of the Super Talents - the are not good RAID candidates = wasted my money).

Ill wait and see how the mtrons perform on the GRaid / Intel Raid / Adaptec on my X38 before i do anything.

Eventually i may get another 2 MTrons when the prices come down and have 4 disks in a RAID0 giving me 128GB.

I dont want to poke around anymore with controllers that dont perform with SSD, i guess ill know soon enough.
 
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steer clear of adaptecs 1210 and 1220 cards, they are cheap cards that are no better nor faster than onboard raid. We have around 30 spares pulled from new builds that were were going to use until I bench tested them and decided to ditch them. Do not buy a raidf card unless it has some form of cache and battery onboard.
 
Flanno, Im getting my Mobi drives today, and im going to give them a shot on 3 options:

*On board Intel ICH9R
*JMicron Connection on my gigabyte board
*Adaptec 1220

Did you try or have problems with any of the intel onboard / JM stuff?

On the Areca 1210 is there a bios interface or do you have to set it up in an OS using an HTTP interface. I want to use my SSD's at the OS drive, so this is important to know before i buy.

Cheers
Wes
 
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Just tested my 2 drives using the JM port in RAID 0 and got.

Read: 161MB
Burst: 164MB
Random Access: 0.1mS
CPU: 7%

As we can see here the intel 80MB/sec cap per port on the read speed there. (I actually got around 78MB/sec as a single drive)

This drive should give me 100MB/sec easy and 200MB/sec with a good raid card. Similar to Flanno's results in his linked post. except my single drive speeds are 100/80 instead of the Pro's 120/90.

I have just ordered an Areca ARC-1210 card. and later on i can add another 2 MTrons money permitting :)

As they stand now even without the hardware raid, they are quiet impressive. Still yet to try an O/S on them...
 
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