Raid Controllers

steveinspain

steveinspain

steveinspain

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Joined
20 Oct 2008
Posts
586
Location
Cornwall
I want raid, and my mobo doesn't support it (asus P5QL pro)
Having looked at the ones for sale on OcUK I am tempted to change my mobo, but a look at a well known auction site shows plenty of raid cards at low prices.
So, can you clever folks tell me what I need to look for ?
I want at least 4 ports, use sata H/D's and want to mirror (raid 0 ?) my data

OS is XP if that makes any difference, and Thanks !
 
Well, the well known auction site has several from hong kong for 7 quid plus 4 postage..

I had thought abot selling my mobo to help fund the new one, but it will still cost me around 60 pounds doing it that way - for just over a tenner one of the Hong Kong cards seem a bargain, but is it or not - being a beginner i have no idea what is important etc..
This is what it says, which is all way over my head..!


* True 32-bit PCI-Bus IDE card. It supports the following I/O features:
* Silicon Image SATALink 3114A chipset
* Supports ATA 150 Rates of up to 1.5Gb/sec
* Supports Hard Drivers over 137GB
* PCI "Plug and Play" compatibility
* Serial ATA Specifications 1.0 compatible
* Provides 2 x dual Serial ATA channels (up to 4 drives)
* Co-resides with motherboard IDE devices
* 1.5GB/second maximum burst rate
* Integrated PCI DMA engines
* Supports Spread Spectrum in receiver
* Support co-exist RAID set and Non-RAID HDD
* Support RAID functions 0 and 1
* Allow HDDs with different sizes to be configured in a RAID set
* Support Windows 98SE/ME/NT4.0/2000/XP and Linux

RAID Functions (Optional):

* Supports RAID functions 0 or 1
* Supports co-exist RAID set and Non-RAID HDD
* Allow HDDs with different sizes to be configured in RAID set

System Requirements:

* One available PCI slot
* MicrosoftR WindowsR 98se/Me/2000/XP/ Vista
* 64MB RAM (128MB recommended)
 
Hi Steve, have a look for SATA II cards as the one you posted is only SATA I so is limited speed to the older standard, and for mirror RAID you want RAID 1.
 
Thanks Si - you seem to be able to put me right whenever I mess up, which is every other post...
So, Raid 1, and sata II - does the speed matter if it is just for keeping a copy of data ?
AND, how can you tell it is only sata I - I have looked at the spec I posted and can't see where it says sata I ?
 
Supports ATA 150 Rates of up to 1.5Gb/sec = Sata1

speeds up to 3gb is Sata II
 
Just to bump up my question - does it matter if I only have sata 1 speeds as I am wanting RAID 1, so creating a copy of my data.
What difference would it make to the computer - I only really store music and photos on it..
It seems that for a tenner I can get sata 1, but it would cost me way more for sata 2 !
 
Hi again Steve, I guess for a tenner it sounds quite a good buy, but I wouldn't spend any more on it than that just in case (as I've heard some horror stories of products bought from Hong Kong...) - it basically depends if you are willing to gamble a tenner imo! For your purposes the fact that it's SATA I shouldn't matter too much, but I doubt it'd be much good for RAID 0 if you decide to go down that route eventually.
 
Hi Si - an old duffer like me doesn't need speed - inco-pants are more likely..!
I am in no real rush I suppose, so may hold on incase one comes up on the members market, but as you say, for a tenner it does sounds interesting.. (its also a small package - way easier to get past Kate than a new mobo...)
 
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