Raid question. Need controller card or not?

[RumbleBee]

SO I have the following drives set-up as I was considering raid a while back, but had so many problems setting up my Gigabyte DS3 I just gave up and used 3 drives separately. I probably could have researched further, but thought I'd just leave it till next time.

300gb - Windows, applications and Virtual Operating systems
300gb - Games
1000gb - Public Folders and all my media files, plus backups of particuler files form the other drivers.

I'm now upgrading my motherboard to:
MSI 790FX-GD70 AMD 790FX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

So I'm now considering taking advantage of the raid option once again for the 2x300gb drives. I here people recommend getting a good raid controller. Is this really necessary for just 2 drives set-up as Raid 0? Does the controller provide the speed. Is it pointless using on-board raid?

I'm aware of the speed differences in Raid 0 and weather it's worth it or not, but I'm just keen to try it out as I already have the essentials, with every intention of keeping it set-up.

 

[Fahim]

I use the same MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard, and the SATA7 and SATA8 ports are exclusively for RAID. And it is a hardware raid, so it is much better than software controlled raid cards you can buy. Just plug to hard drives, go to BIOS and go to driver booster option, it is so easy to build RAID.

 

[RumbleBee]

Excellent. Thanks for the reply.

So I assume you had no problems installing Windows to the raid. You just installed the raid driver during install using floppy or USB?

Also. as my Vista64 is OEM so I'll be using Windows 7 RTM for the now, as the activation thing of Vista will probably not like the change.

 

[jbloggs]

...SATA7 and SATA8 ports...and it is a hardware raid, so it is much better than software controlled raid cards you can buy..

SATA ports 7 & 8 are attached to the JMicron JMB322 which is used by Gigabyte as its Gigabyte SATA2 chip on some of its motherboards and a worse SATAII controller you could not find. You also use the term "hardware raid;" the jmicron jmb322 is certainly not a "true" hardware controller (which have their own onboard processors + ram), it is simply a software RAID implementation and a poor one at that, so I would suggest that the OP does not use SATA ports 7 & 8 for RAID...

 

[leexgx]

the RAID thats on the MSI 790FX-GD70 is should be good , you should avoided using on onboard JMircon/others RAID, Use the onboard raid that the Chipset provides as they can be Toped out at 700-800MB/s (norm the first 4 ports think the 790fx has native 6 Sata ports not checked)