Am I an idiot? $$$ RAID controller purchased

[imported_wired247]

I finally have completed my recent build.... which was completed in part due to the excellent info on AT regarding where to purchase the e8400.

Now... let me preface this by saying, I have always had a giddy fantasy about using scsi for home brew computers ever since the dawn of the PC.

However, the one time I attempted it (back in the 80386 days IIRC) I was clueless about computer builds and my SCSI setup failed miserably.

In any case I started my recent computer build with another fantasy about stocking it with a few 15krpm SAS drives in RAID5.

I ultimately settled on getting this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16816131003


and 4x of these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16822148262


and I plan to do some RAID5 action with these pups.


Now.... I selected the areca raid card for multiple reasons... for the obvious reason, it's a kick ass card with 256mb 333mhz DDR dedicated memory, the very respectable intel iop332 processor... so on and so forth

next... the obvious question from the usual suspects "Damn... what could you possibly need that for?"

with no good answer. In the car world we call cars who have insane levels of power, yet no viable way to put that power down in a practical application, "Dyno queens" named after the dynamometer tool for measuring horsepower.

Yes, I admit it... I want an insanely fast RAID array for selfish reasons.... not even for bragging rights. I do move large files around quite a bit, and enhanced read speed is a huge plus. It shouldn't hurt for games either, with respect to level loading times. I like flexibility with my rigs, and this RAID card should last years and years owing to the PCIe 8x / SATA 3.0Gbps interface... which will take quite some time to be saturated by current levels of HD technology.

Am I an idiot? You decide. It was only $100 more than my mobo.... and as far as I'm concerned, I've spent way more money on way more useless stuff.

My opinion.... you get what you pay for, and if I've done my homework properly for this card, I'm going to be a very satisfied customer.


link to raid processor
http://www.intel.com/design/iio/iop332.htm

link to raid card
http://www.areca.us/products/pcie.htm

 

[Blain]

If you could just swing RAID 6...

 

[imported_wired247]

actually this card should support RAID6, although I fail to see why I'd want double parity ... there won't be any "mission critical" docs on this computer.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Not an idiot at all. I have an Areca ARC-1220 right now (with 5 400gb RE2 in RAID 5 and two Raptor 150s in RAID 0) in my machine (wow they've gone down in price), and I'll be getting an Areca ARC-1230 for my upcoming machine. I haven't had any problems with the Areca controllers at all, as long as I configure and make changes to the RAID arrays in the firmware (use the windows based stuff for checking the status, etc--not making changes).

 

[imported_wired247]

I almost went for an LSI MegaRAID card... but realized it probably wouldn't be too much better than onboard RAID.


Fullmetal... would you say it makes a dramatic difference in overall response for everyday computing?

Appreciate your comments.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: wired247
Fullmetal... would you say it makes a dramatic difference in overall response for everyday computing?

Appreciate your comments.

No it Does Not.

In general.

Enthusiast do a lot of thing that do not mean too much in the real world. :thumbsup:

It is really fun, and I do it at times too.

That does Not make Enthusiast Idiots. (idiot is usually a term reserved to a person with reduced IQ).

However Enthusiast do turn some time into Borderline Personality Disorder conduct when they think that what they do for Fun has to be the rule of live, and they are trying to convince innocent bystanders that there would an advantage to waste money on similar concoctions.:thumbsdown:

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: JackMDS

Originally posted by: wired247
Fullmetal... would you say it makes a dramatic difference in overall response for everyday computing?

Appreciate your comments.

No it Does Not.

In general.

Enthusiast do a lot of thing that do not mean too much in the real world. :thumbsup:

It is really fun, and I do it at times too.

That does Not make Enthusiast Idiots. (idiot is usually a term reserved to a person with reduced IQ).

However Enthusiast do turn some time into Borderline Personality Disorder conduct when they think that what they do for Fun has to be the rule of live, and they are trying to convince innocent bystanders that there would an advantage to waste money on similar concoctions.:thumbsdown:

True...
Like it's hard to convince regular folks that a "window" in the side of a case is a desirable feature.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: wired247
I almost went for an LSI MegaRAID card... but realized it probably wouldn't be too much better than onboard RAID.


Fullmetal... would you say it makes a dramatic difference in overall response for everyday computing?

Appreciate your comments.

No, but I am not doing it for performance. I have this storage configuration because I store a lot of data. The Raptors in RAID 0 are there because I have them, and I keep data there that I don't worry about losing (plus it's backed up anyway). For the biggest difference in overall response for everyday computing, I'd say keep an image of a near-fresh install, and routinely restore it and keep docs & data on another drive. Nothing like a reformat to clean things up.

 

[imported_wired247]

In that case.... enthusiasm FTW!

In the scheme of things, a few bucks here or there is nothing, when people in my 350z crowd are spending upwards of $25000 to do a twin turbo buildup on a car that is already quite fast, and much faster than you need on regular city streets (read: not autobahn)