Adeptec raid cards - software raid?

[Cybermastif]

Ok there was a lot of discussion about IDE verse scsi in this thread/poll. Some of the things mentioned often enough was about SCSI raid, IDE raid, hardware raid and software. I have been doing some studying up on this, and I have found something that just does not make sense, who knows it might make sense to someone else. I found that according to this web page, that Adaptec raid cards do not actually provide raid, instead that they depend upon an esternal source for Raid functionality.

(here is the exact quote, pulled from most of the way down under the header software raid.)


<< Adaptecs RAID controllers are another example, they have no RAID functionality whatsoever on the controller, they depend on external drivers to provide all external RAID functionality. >>



Now I would has assume that an Adaptec Raid card would provide the raid functionality on the card. If this is true (is it?) then what is the use of buying an adaptec card. Would you not lose your raid array if you lost the OS? what do you think?

 

[SCSIRAID]

Adaptec provides both HW and SW SCSI RAID solutions. The 2100S and derivatives are all HW RAID. The &quot;AAA&quot; and &quot;RAIDPORT&quot; solutions are SW solutions. The HW controllers came about when Adaptec acquired DPT. Perhaps the article was written before the acquisition. The 4 channel high end card sold by Dell is made by Adaptec also but is only sold OEM. Adaptec recently announced their intentions to provide a product called iROC to provide SW RAID functionality with their SCSI Host Bus Adapters.