Intel Matrix RAID (on the ICH8R) - worthwhile?

jhmaeng · 26 Jul 2006 at 00:42

Just a quick question, really:

I was looking at the new ABIT board for the Conroe and it seems to have the Intel Matrix Storage RAID, which includes RAID5 right on the motherboard. I'm pretty sure this would be a software RAID solution, so what kind of performance could I expect from it? Would it be any better than something like the RocketRAID 1640?

Cyber-Mav · 26 Jul 2006 at 01:24

hardware raid is the best solution. also raid with sata and ide drives i no like. since their reliability is no where near as good as scsi. (raptors excluded)

stoofa · 26 Jul 2006 at 01:51

Raptor drives are no more reliable than any other SATA HD out there.
If you want a RAID 5 SATA colution then it doesn't matter if your using the ICH8R or one of the "cheap and cheerful" SATA RAID controllers.
Performance is never going to be that great and there is going to be a fair amount of CPU overhead from their use.

If you want RAID 5 then I can only assume you're looking to build a server of some description (as RAID 5 really doesn't hold that much benefit to a workstation).
In which case don't try and cut corners - there are £200, £300 SATA RAID controllers out there on the market for a reason and that is they do the job and do the job well.
If you're planning on spending any less then stick to a software solution.

Imy · 26 Jul 2006 at 09:53

From what I know, RAID 5 run off motherboards and off controllers with no XOR processing onboard will run pretty poor. The more disks you add the slower it'll probably get which is not how its meant to be. Get yourself a serious RAID 5 controller and you'll get blistering read and write performance - the more disks the merrier!

RAID 0/1 are not too bad when run off a motherboard's controller.

As for reliability, there is no longer a significant gap between SCSI and desktop drives. The warranty (5 years) is also the same. If you're running RAID 5 then it will support up to 1 disk failing and continue to run. Just replace the disk asap. For added peace of mind RAID 6 supports up to 2 disks failing simultaneously.

RAID IS NOT AN ALTERNATIVE TO A GOOD BACKUP SOLUTION. IT SHOULD BE USED IN ADDITION.