RAID controller $24 + shipping

[XxDaTxX]

Originally posted by: RazeOrc
4xRAID0 is insane, it's faster than SCSI hands down,

really? ..... so ... you are saying that a 4 drive ide raid0 array would outperform a 4 drive scsi raid 0 array with equal speed hd's??? ... even though the scsi protocol produces much less overhead for the cpu and the bus than IDE .... thats interesting.......

On another note .... since you make no mention of how fast of an ide hd you are comparing to the scsi hd ..... lets go with the fastest from both categories ...... this is interesting ...... since my 15k.3's max out at about 75M/s sustained on the outer edge, and taper down to about 51M/s when aproaching the inside .... while the fastest ide's start at about 56M/s on the outer edge and quickly dwindle down to a mere 33 M/s on the inside .... not to mention the fact that this scsi drive handles on average 3x more i/o per second than does the fastest ide (WD2000JB) .... just to lay it on thicker, the 15,000 rpm drive is quieter than the 7200 rpm WD .... so whats the WD's strong point??? ..... seems that it runs about 5 degrees cooler ..... insane huh???? yep .... hands down.
(read with a copious amount of sarcasm)

Let me remind you, just in case you have forgotten, or maybe by chance you never had a freakin clue, that SCSI is the protocol that pioneered the way with RAID. SCSI RAID was around before anyone even thought to apply it to IDE drives.

Please dont see this as a thread crap either, I use IDE RAID as well, however I know better than to compare it with my SCSI array .... nevertheless .... good deal.

 

[huesmann]

Originally posted by: XxDaTxX

Originally posted by: RazeOrc
4xRAID0 is insane, it's faster than SCSI hands down,

really? ..... so ... you are saying that a 4 drive ide raid0 array would outperform a 4 drive scsi raid 0 array with equal speed hd's??? ... even though the scsi protocol produces much less overhead for the cpu and the bus than IDE .... thats interesting.......

On another note .... since you make no mention of how fast of an ide hd you are comparing to the scsi hd ..... lets go with the fastest from both categories ...... this is interesting ...... since my 15k.3's max out at about 75M/s sustained on the outer edge, and taper down to about 51M/s when aproaching the inside .... while the fastest ide's <STRONG>start </STRONG>at about 56M/s on the outer edge and <STRONG>quickly dwindle down</STRONG> to a mere 33 M/s on the inside .... not to mention the fact that this scsi drive handles on average 3x more i/o per second than does the fastest ide (WD2000JB) .... just to lay it on thicker, the 15,000 rpm drive is quieter than the 7200 rpm WD .... so whats the WD's strong point??? ..... seems that it runs about 5 degrees cooler ..... insane huh???? yep .... hands down.
<STRONG>(<EM>read with a copious amount of sarcasm</EM>)</STRONG>

Let me remind you, just in case you have forgotten, or maybe by chance <STRONG><EM>you never had a freakin clue</EM></STRONG>, that <STRONG>SCSI</STRONG> is the protocol that pioneered the way with RAID. SCSI RAID was around before anyone even thought to apply it to IDE drives.

Please dont see this as a thread crap either, I use IDE RAID as well, however I know better than to compare it with my SCSI array .... nevertheless .... good deal.

Didn't get any last night, eh?

 

[kevman]

doesn't seem like he got any...EVER!!


hehee, just kdding XxDaTxX

 

[mechsiah]

I am guessing that RazeOrc was suggesting that 4xIDE RAID was simply much faster than SCSI non-RAID disks.

Deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth- there, doesnt that feel better?

 

[SpideyCU]

doesnt it just make sense to get a motherboard with it onboard

Not if you upgrade fairly regularly. Would you want to keep paying more for the deluxe model of a mobo you want each time so you can have RAID on-board? Or pay $30'ish and be able to take it between systems as you upgrade?

 

[Kwad Guy]

With VERY few exceptions...IDE Raid 0 (stripped) makes little sense for anyone.

Gonna run a server? Go with SCSI raid. Looking for speed for a PC or workstation?
I can't think of an app that would stress a high end IDE drive these
days (e.g. the WD or Maxtor 120Gb 8mb stuff). In the days of UDMA33 and
5400 rpm drives (or early 7200 rpm drives), yeah, there were disc intensive
apps like video capture that could overpower your drive. But the high end
drives today, along with the faster controllers, make that a thing of the past...

The way I see it, IDE Raid 0 is for bragging rights and precious little more.

IDE Raid 1, on the other hand, is extrememly useful if your computer stores
important data. But it's relatively expensive (you have to "waste" a second
drive as a mirror) and it SLOWS DOWN your disc access to a modest degree.

Bottom line: The average person doesn't want an IDE raid controller for what
it's best used for, and doesn't need one for what they think it's best for.

Kwad

 

[Chu]

>>
With VERY few exceptions...IDE Raid 0 (stripped) makes little sense for anyone.

Gonna run a server? Go with SCSI raid. Looking for speed for a PC or workstation?
I can't think of an app that would stress a high end IDE drive these
days (e.g. the WD or Maxtor 120Gb 8mb stuff). In the days of UDMA33 and
5400 rpm drives (or early 7200 rpm drives), yeah, there were disc intensive
apps like video capture that could overpower your drive. But the high end
drives today, along with the faster controllers, make that a thing of the past...

The way I see it, IDE Raid 0 is for bragging rights and precious little more.

IDE Raid 1, on the other hand, is extrememly useful if your computer stores
important data. But it's relatively expensive (you have to "waste" a second
drive as a mirror) and it SLOWS DOWN your disc access to a modest degree.

Bottom line: The average person doesn't want an IDE raid controller for what
it's best used for, and doesn't need one for what they think it's best for.

Kwad
<<

I have to disagree here. The way most people go with Raid0 is programs on the raid array, and storage elsewhere. There is a *HUGE* proformance difference when you have all your apps on a Raid0 array, load times becomes much faster, and the system feals incredibly snappier. My Windows partation and my apps are on a Raid0 array, and there is a noticeable feal difference between my P4 1.6@2.0 and the P4 2.0ghz machines in the labs here at school. This setup also gets around the worst problem of Raid0 -- reliability. If the array dies, you lost your programs and not your data. A pain to fix, but in the end, extreemly minor compared to real data loss. Also, looking around the hot deals forums, going software raid0 is very cheap. We're seeing hard drives at $0.25/gig here fairly often in the last couple of months in the 40-60 gig range. An extra $40 or so will get you a nice array /w Win2K/XP softwre raid0, and the downside (not cross-platform compatible) is a non-issue to 99% of the people here. As hard drive prices keep falling, Raid0 will start making more and more sense, especially considering that brand new 3.0ghz P4 isn't going to make Microsoft Office much faster, but a raid0 array certainly will.

Also, as for real work, I (sorta) do a ton of encoding, and there are certain parts of the process that need huge disk i/o numbers. Raid0 is a huge timesaver here, although I admit probably 0.0001% or less of computer users really need an array for this purpose.

-Chu

 

[fastman]

So this is a Software RAID Controller, not hardware! Please forgive my ignorance, but how easy is that to set up in XP?

 

[amgine]

Lets not forget to mention with hard drive prices so low, this card lets you put an additional 4 HD's in your machine.

 

[hevnsnt]

wtf does software raid controller mean? I mean Win2k & XP can do raid via software already, what would this card add to that if it is infact "software raid". Are we sure this is not a hardware raid card?

 

[Chu]

Think winmodem here. Hardware raid controllers do all the processing themselves. Software raid offload the parity calculations and such to the processor. Not that expensive for Raid0/1, but you do NOT want to be doing Raid5 "softly". Essentially, what happens is Windows has to install a driver for your RAID card, just like it would have to for an IDE card, but windows doesn't know that what is attached is really an array, and not a single drive.

There is one huge advantage to using a real RAID card then letting windows handle it. If you use other OS' besides Win2K/XP, you can actuially use your array with them. Windows forces you to use a propritary partation format in order to use the built in Raid0. There is only downside however -- Your tied to your RAID card. Win2K software raid arrays are portable between Win2K/XP computers. Hardware raid arrays let you use something besides windows.

-Ch

 

[PELarson]

Just to keep this visible.

Recieved the card Thursday evening. Works with W2k Advanced Server and Linux Redhat 7.3 with no difficulty. Very nice card for a great price. The only downside I found was that I couldn't boot from my CD drive when this was installed. But once the OS is installed on the boot drive everything is good.

 

[fastman]

Did you preform any before and after benchmarks? I would be interested in that!

 

[Chu]

>> Did you preform any before and after benchmarks? I would be interested in that!

I believe storagereview.com has looked at cards with this chipset before, I know there has been some lengthy discussions on "generic" IDE raid controllers in the forums.

-Chu

 

[TheMouse]

I may be wrong... but i believe you cannot boot from a software RAID array.

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: fastman
Did you preform any before and after benchmarks? I would be interested in that!

No benchmarks.

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: TheMouse
I may be wrong... but i believe you cannot boot from a software RAID array.

Not sure who you are replying to, but I want to hit the 200 mark tonight so. THe card is a hardware raid. So you can, and I did move a NTFS partition to Linux from W2k and have it still be accessible. in most cases. Not sure of dynamic disks ut I suspect it wouldn't be useable.

 

[Nosferatu]

I was looking at symantec's site a little while ago. If I recall correctly. Most of the time, Ghost can not do a clone of a RAID.

ghost

Before you scream that it says ghost 2001, look down under solutions where it says 2003 and below....

Now if anyone does know how to clone a hardware array, I would love to know how....

 

[fastman]

So is this Card Software or Hardware based?

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: fastman
So is this Card Software or Hardware based?

Hardware. You create the Raid 0 or 1 through the card not through the OS and then format the partition as you want in the OS. You do need to load drivers if the OS doesn't already have them.

 

[Chu]

I think a lot of the questions here are stemming from confusion over exactly what "hardware" raid means.

If you know the difference between a winmodem and a hardware modem, we're talking about the exact same sort of thing here.

When you buy a "Raid Card", you do have hardware raid. The difference is some RAID cards offload the parity calculations necessary for striping to the CPU, and some have an onboard chip that do its own parity calculations. I will say right now, you are not going to find a recent hardware raid card that does its own parity calculations anywhere near the $50 range. Also, if you've ever seen the *OLD* ISA ide cards, with 10 chips on them, that is about what a raid that does its own parity will look like. Some will have memory banks as well. If you see one big chip and a little one on the board with some resistors and caps, you have a raid card that offloads parity to the CPU. This is not a big deal for Raid0. You do NOT want your CPU doing parity for Raid5.

Software raid is simply letting the OS handle the striping. This usually requires the drives have a special filesystem (on windows, change usually to always), and then something in your OS will read these filesystems as a striped array. Microsoft does this with dynamic discs. Unix systems have various ways depending on the flavor you are using.

-Chu

 

[ElectricLegs]

There's virtually no actual performance difference between these lower end hardware or software raid cards. Until you get into cached/high end scsi they generally perform within about 5% of each other in striped pefformance. I've even seen $40 software cards beat $130 hardware cards by a few %.

 

[uncleX]

Despite many people's enthusiasm for 2 drive RAID, the thorough tests I have looked over at StorageReview show very little impovement in speed over a single drive in almost all tests, and a maximum of 10% on a very few. Not 40%. As I understand it, these are on tests that do not access the same data over and over. The tests used both on-mobo RAID and separate card controllers some of which were on the expensive side, and the results were not drastically different. I don't know how this squares with the benchmark test refered to in this thread by CherryBOMB. It doesn't. One of these days, I am going to have to get a RAID mobo just to see for myself. I'd link to it since it is hard to locate, but the one time I did, the link was wrong the very next day.

 

[docinthebox]

Originally posted by: Nosferatu
I was looking at symantec's site a little while ago. If I recall correctly. Most of the time, Ghost can not do a clone of a RAID.

ghost

Before you scream that it says ghost 2001, look down under solutions where it says 2003 and below....

Now if anyone does know how to clone a hardware array, I would love to know how....

All you need to do is load the DOS ASPI driver before you run ghost. If you boot from your Windows 98 boot disk and choose the "With CDROM" option, the ASPI driver will be loaded. If you now run ghost, you'll be able to clone your raid array without any problem. Without the ASPI driver, DOS will not be able to access your raid array.

I clone my Highpoint 370 raid0 array all the time using Ghost. I've done both backup and restore onto my raid0 array. Never had any problem. Many people on the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage will tell you the same thing.

 

[Nosferatu]

Thanks for the tip doc!

I will have to give that a try