Add on card peripherals.........

[mrblotto]

Good day all,
I've been pondering purchasing either an Serial Attached SCSI or a SCSI Ultra320 80Pin RAID card (both PCI-Express flavor). Currently I have a couple 10K drives RAID'd using the onboard controller (nvidia 590)

Now, what I'm wondering is this:
Does adding an 'addon' card reduce the amount of 'work' that would normally be done by a mobo's integrated RAID solution, thereby increasing performance (however small it may be)?

In other words, would there be a performance gain by using an addon card vs. the mobo's own integrated one? I have access to a few 73.5G 15K Ultra320 drives already, but I'm not quite sure which one of the above (SAS or Ultra320) offers more throughput, or if it even matters.......

Thank you for your time and responses!

Cliff notes....

Want to swap out 10K SATA IDE drives for 15K SCSI
Add-on SCSI Raid card, better performance wise than mobos integrated one?
Serial Attached SCSI or Ultra320 80Pin for better throughput?

Edit: I told myself to google this question before I posed it, but noooooooooooooooooo......of course, there's a whole lot of hits out there. Curse me and my typing skills!

 

[corkyg]

Not necessarily. Many such performance gains are visible only in benchmarking programs, and not in the real world of applications. Add to that the additional cost, and I would opine that the most cost effective solution is on board.

 

[mrblotto]

*looks up opine......* OK. I see where you're coming from. Basically the reason I am thinking this, is because I can move 'up' from 10K drives to 15K. I would think there would be a noticeable difference in that. The only cost to me, per se, would maybe be a controller card. I already have the drives, and may be able to get a card at work from a friend.

 

[Zepper]

Many on-board functions are just there to fill a check mark on a features list. Whereas the add-on card maker's rep flys with the specific function. If I really wanted to go SCSI again, I'd think long and hard. Difficult to justify the expense. And even though the drives are quieter than they were, they are still considerably louder than SATA.

.bh.

 

[corkyg]

In that specific case you would see a performance gain that would be worthwhile and cost effective. Go for it!

 

[mrblotto]

OK. I have a PCI Express SAS/SATA RAID adapter and 1 SAS 15K drive. I'm expecting another SAS 15K drive next week.

I have 2 PCI Express slots left in my machine:
-1 real short slot (like 2 inches long). I think its called a 'PCIEX1 slot'
-1 full size slot (PCI EX16)

My Question is:
Is it possible to put the RAID Card (which is either PCIEX1 or PCIEX8) into the PCIEX16 slot? Aren't they backwards compatible or something?

I think I read somewhere that they are........ *shrugs*

This isn't a waste of time/money for me yet. I havent spent a penny so far.

Edit: Found it- PCIEX16 slots appear to be backwards compatible with x8, x4, and x1 cards:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/13790/2

towards the bottom

"With three double-wide graphics cards installed, there won't be room for any other expansion cards. Fortunately, such configurations are likely to be uncommon. Even with a two-way SLI config, you'll still have access to standard PCI and PCIe x16 slots. And because PCIe slots are backwards compatible, an x16 slot can also handle x8, x4, and x1 cards."