[olug] built in RAID vs Indi RAID controlers

[Brandon Lederer]

take the advice and get the 3ware!  It shows up as SCSI, and is excellent.  
Silicon Image isnt that great for SATA.  Just dont really care for it.


On Tuesday 24 August 2004 05:47 pm, Phil Brutsche wrote:
> Charles Bird wrote:
> > I've been checking out new motherboards for a 3000 amd64, the prices
> > are pretty nice right now. I want to do SATA 10K drives in RAID.
> > Every motherboard I have looked at has sata raid built in...I have
> > heard that a controller card is better performing due to the fact
> > that very little cpu time is spent on it...but the question is how
> > much better?
>
> Built in "RAID"... enthusiast-level board... yeah...
>
> There's a 90% chance (there are rare true hardware raid SATA controllers
> built into motherboards) that the built-in SATA "RAID" is software RAID
> courtesy a fancy driver from the controller manufacturer.
>
> If you want an actual RAID controller you would be better off with a
> 3ware 8006-2.
>
> You also need to consider that, when done in software, RAID1 and RAID0
> take very little CPU time.  Given such a powerful CPU, would you really
> notice the difference?
>
> Also, consider SCSI: 36GB 10k RPM drives drives cost under $130:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=22-116-132&depa=0
> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-141-123&depa=0
>
> and a hardware RAID SCSI card (RAID0 or RAID1 only, no RAID5) is $135:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-118-017&depa=0
>
> Compare that to a 3ware 8006-2 2-port SATA RAID card ($144):
>
> http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-116-025&depa=0
>
> And WD Raptor 36GB 10k RPM SATA drives ($112):
>
> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-200&depa=0
>
> Don't let the fact that the cards have 64-bit connectors scare you, they
> will all work just fine in 32-bit slots.
>
> Don't get me wrong, the WD Raptors are very nice drives, but the prices
> for SCSI drives are in the same ballpark, and when you compare prices
> for a nice SATA RAID controller vs a SCSI RAID controller, well...
>
> > If its gonna get down to "depends on application" then
> > I'll be using this one for audio/video production, some flight
> > sim(flightgear), and umm yeah more video games I guess. Give me input
> > please.
>
> If you are going to do video production, you should seriously consider
> SCSI drives.