RAID controller $24 + shipping

[ozone13]

Koutech I/O Flex Raid controller for only $24 + shipping.

Ultra DMA (ATA) 133MB/sec data transfer rate
Two independent Ultra ATA/133 channels
Supports up to four (4) IDE devices
Supports RAID function (RAID 0, 1, 0+1)
ATA clock independent from PCI bus
256 Byte FIFO per ATA channel
Large FIFO independent
Supports Ultra DMA 6/5/4/3/2/1, PIO 4/3/2/1/0, DMA 2/1/0 modes
IDE drive types support ATA, Fast ATA-2, EIDE, Ultra ATA/33, Ultra ATA/66, Ultra ATA/100, and Ultra ATA/133
Can share interrupt (IRQ) level with most PCI cards
32-bit 33/66MHz PCI interface
PCI specification v.2.2 compliant
Fully Plug-N-Play compatible
Supports Windows® 95/98/98SE/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP, and DOS

This is a pretty generic-brand RAID controller, but one that seems to have quite a bit of features. It comes with a 5 year warranty.

 

[db]

Anyone have any experience with the reliability of this card or the manufacturer?

 

[Ian@CDRlabs]

Product info:

http://www.koutech.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=105

 

[Mallow]

I've been in computers for a while but I have never fully understood the potential of what a RAID set up could do for me. I know if you have two (identical?) HD's on a raid with stripping 0(?) it will write everything twice. However, some people say using a RAID makes the system run faster?

Can anyone provide info or a good web site explaining the exact function and benefits of a RAID set up? Besides making a duplicate of everything on a HD.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: Mallow
I've been in computers for a while but I have never fully understood the potential of what a RAID set up could do for me. I know if you have two (identical?) HD's on a raid with stripping 0(?) it will write everything twice. However, some people say using a RAID makes the system run faster?

Can anyone provide info or a good web site explaining the exact function and benefits of a RAID set up? Besides making a duplicate of everything on a HD.

Raid 0 splits that date between two hard drives which the increases your drive access times. That will then increase your computer speed. How ever raid 1 in mirroring that copies that same date on both hard drives at the same time. Thant way you have a backup. But this does not speed anything up.

 

[CherryBOMB]

Originally posted by: Mallow
I've been in computers for a while but I have never fully understood the potential of what a RAID set up could do for me. I know if you have two (identical?) HD's on a raid with stripping 0(?) it will write everything twice. However, some people say using a RAID makes the system run faster?

Can anyone provide info or a good web site explaining the exact function and benefits of a RAID set up? Besides making a duplicate of everything on a HD.

Text

Mallow

Try these links!. You can get a good understanding of what Raid has to offer, and with a visual.... Text2 Text3Text3 is what you can achieve as far as performance when using Raid 0 versus none Raid

 

[jimmyjam]

Originally posted by: Mallow

Can anyone provide info or a good web site explaining the exact function and benefits of a RAID set up? Besides making a duplicate of everything on a HD.

here you go

 

[ezland00]

Does the drives have to be the same in order to raid them up? i got one maxtor and WD.

 

[ZooOYorK33]

It is better to have the same brand, you should also have the same amount of space on each drive.(ex. 2 60gig drives)
if 1 is 30 gig and the other is 60 you will only have 60 gigs available.

 

[CherryBOMB]

Originally posted by: ezland00
Does the drives have to be the same in order to raid them up? i got one maxtor and WD.

As long as your drives are the same Size* and RPM* you should be fine Other wise (2) of a like Manufacture Model would be best as ZooOYorK33 suggests

 

[hevnsnt]

I will ask it again for ya db

Anyone have any experience with the reliability of this card or the manufacturer?

 

[ozone13]

Originally posted by: hevnsnt
I will ask it again for ya db

Anyone have any experience with the reliability of this card or the manufacturer?

I've done searches on the net, and this card seems to basically be a reference card from SI (Silicone Image). According to the documentation, the chipset is a SIL680. SI handle's a lot of OEM RAID chipsets. Apparently you can download the reference drivers from www.cmd.com if Koutech ever goes under.

I figured that at $25 its definately worth it. I've had Promise raid controllers in the past that I've paid 3x more for and they've crapped out on me.

 

[jTek]

I have one of these running 2 Maxtor 60 gig 5400 rpms in a RAID 0 setup. I use a dual boot setup so it works in both Win 98 SE and XP pro fine. Haven't ran any tests on it though.

 

[shr]

hmmm, wouldn't doing something like that saturate my PCI bus?

 

[ozone13]

Originally posted by: shr
hmmm, wouldn't doing something like that saturate my PCI bus?

My memory could be off a bit, but IIRC, the standard pci bus can handle 133MB/sec.....more than any two harddrives can saturate in real-world performance. There may be spikes of higher bandwidth, but never consistantly.

BTW, I've installed this card and its working perfectly in WinXP Pro....no problems whatsoever.

 

[hevnsnt]

well crap, I just bought one..

 

[RazeOrc]

ozone13 you're correct about the bus spec but off on the fact that more than 2 hdds in a performance raid setup 0, 5, ect would not help. It does, on a 4 channel raid controller you can easily max out your PCI bus with 4 fast hdds and attain consistent speeds of well over 80mb/s with IDE 7200rpm drives. This may seem unusual that it doesn't acheive the magical 100/133MB/s but you have to remember that the PCI is shared by all of your PCI devices, not just your HDDs and there will always be a bit of degredation over the bus due to lack of the best optimized drivers.

4xRAID0 is insane, it's faster than SCSI hands down, gives you tremendous storage (even using boring 40GB HDDs) but you have to be concerned about corruption of a disk or failure of a disk. However if you're putting together a 4 disk RAID0 you're probably a system screamer who just wants pure speed at any cost (besides Norton Ghost takes care of those failures/corruptions quickly and painlessly).

 

[mgos]

Just an FYI.
You dont have to use the same size hard drives. Say you have a 20gig and a 40gig(which is what I am using). You would have 40 gigs on a Raid 0. It just uses 20 of the 40 gigs on the second hard drive. You are wasting space, but if you dont need that much space, then it would work for you.
Most of you probably know this, just making sure.

 

[ozone13]

Originally posted by: RazeOrc
ozone13 you're correct about the bus spec but off on the fact that more than 2 hdds in a performance raid setup 0, 5, ect would not help. It does, on a 4 channel raid controller you can easily max out your PCI bus with 4 fast hdds and attain consistent speeds of well over 80mb/s with IDE 7200rpm drives. This may seem unusual that it doesn't acheive the magical 100/133MB/s but you have to remember that the PCI is shared by all of your PCI devices, not just your HDDs and there will always be a bit of degredation over the bus due to lack of the best optimized drivers.

4xRAID0 is insane, it's faster than SCSI hands down, gives you tremendous storage (even using boring 40GB HDDs) but you have to be concerned about corruption of a disk or failure of a disk. However if you're putting together a 4 disk RAID0 you're probably a system screamer who just wants pure speed at any cost (besides Norton Ghost takes care of those failures/corruptions quickly and painlessly).

Thanks for the info! Yeh, I'm aware of the sharing of the pci bus, but most people will not run into the problem of saturation unless you're a total tech geek

You did mention Norton Ghost: do you use that with a RAID setup? I assume you have to tell Ghost to use the RAID drivers when creating the image otherwise it wouldn't see the harddrives, correct?

 

[iamme]

I'm running two 80GB ATA 100 5400 RPM HD's in a striped RAID setup. If I upgrade to ATA 133 and 7200 RPM HD's, am I going to notice a big jump in speed?

 

[ozone13]

Originally posted by: iamme
I'm running two 80GB ATA 100 5400 RPM HD's in a striped RAID setup. If I upgrade to ATA 133 and 7200 RPM HD's, am I going to notice a big jump in speed?

Basically...no. Sure you can run benchmarks and you'll see numbers increased, but you probably won't see any difference yourself.

 

[DEFIANT1]

Not really....Mainly in noise and inside-the-case heat. Performance gains would be marginally better w/the 7200's, but probably not so that you'd notice.

 

[TheMouse]

Is this a hardware RAID controller or just an IDE controller w/ software RAID Drivers?

VP

N/M... Newegg had the card for 29.99.. and it says in the details

Supports software RAID function (RAID 0, 1, 0+1)

 

[db]

Hmm, anybody found a price better than NewEgg's $82+6 s/h?
(for the tx2000)

 

[TheMouse]

Originally posted by: db
Hmm, anybody found a price better than NewEgg's $82+6 s/h?
(for the tx2000)

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