Buying new motherboard - Should I buy with onboard RAID or not??

[Cybordolphin]

Looking at picking up a new motherboard.

It comes in two flavors.. with or without RAID.

 

[jaybert]

if you plan on using raid, yes, if not, no

 

[bastula]

he's got point there. I have a cusl2 and bought a separate raid controller since it didn't come with one. If i had one onboard i'd probably use it. But if you plan on changing motherboards and you have a raid that uses the onboard, make sure they are either the same controller or compatible.

 

[Cybordolphin]

Never had a RAID setup...
Is there a worthwhile performance gain?

 

[tyski]

are you going to use it, and if you are, are you willing to spend the extra money, although i believe in most cases its not that more expensive

 

[Vegito]

RAID is really for redundancy thats what the word RAID stands for... stripping is for speed but it's being drop as the term "RAID 0" since it offers no redundancy. If you want real speed u'll need scsi raid 5 which is stripping & redundancy. & real hardware raid not hard/soft combination... those ami ide raid card, real hardware are like 300 bucks... if you're looking to protect data, get raid, if you're looking for speed, get raid 5 but if you use "raid 0" which is not raid, just stripping, 1 drive dies, you lose data on BOTH drive..

 

[rmblam]

If you use RAID 0 (striping) then you will usually see a big improvement in file transfers and processing. It is most useful for stuff like manipulating movies and music files. It won't boot your system up any faster or load programs any faster. That aspect is negligible. Then there is the whoile cpu utilization issue. Personally I have not noticed any hindrance on my system using RAID 0 as far as CPU use goes. Maybe if you are using a sub 500mhz processor you might. I enabled RAID on my system just so I could experience it. I could live with out it, but I don't want to now. Eventually I may gravitate to a hardware RAID card like the Adaptec which is $$$, but I will likely go with the 3ware Escalade 6200 which is about $130.

I just set up a friend with one of the IWILL kk266-R boards with RAID 1 (mirrored). You WILL notice a delay in installations, updating system settings, formatting, and installing drivers etc. because it has to process to both drives. With normal activity the second drive is transparent. I noticed no delay.

RAID 10 is the ideal. 4 drives. Two striped and two mirrored for the best performance and data security.

I'd go with the RAID board because you can use the extra ports regardless of whether you use RAID or not.

 

[Urinal Mint]

Whoa, let me get this straight about those IDE RAID ports. I just ordered an Asus A7V133 (which has RAID ports on it), and you're saying I can just hook any extra drives I have up and basically run 8 IDE devices on the motherboard? (i.e. hook devices up to those IDE RAID ports, yet run those devices in regular IDE mode, non-RAIDed)

 

[MichaelD]

I second RMBLAM's last sentence. Whether or not you decide to use RAID you have two extra IDE channels, and ATA 100 speed at that!

When I first decided to get a RAID board (KT7RAID), I honestly didn't know whether or not I was going to use it, I just figured "well, if I decide not to, right now, it'll be there later if I want it". I decided not to, but now I have each of my CDRW's on their own IDE channel. I can burn disc-to-disc fairly quickly with no coasters! But I usually just copy to HD first, it's almost 100% foolproof that way.

If spending an extra $30 or $40 isn't an issue, I'd say get the RAID board. You lose no performance with your other drives if you decide not use RAID, and you get two extra IDE channels. 'Nuff said.

 

[MichaelD]

Mint,

Yes. You can run 8 IDE devices. Four Master, four Slave. Don't know how system performance would be affected by having both a master and a slave on each channel, but it would work. I have one HD and two CDR's. Each is a master on it's own channel. The HD is hooked up to one of the RAID channels (even though I'm not using raid, I am using the ATA-100 controller) My two CDR's each are hooked to its own regular IDE channel. I haven't had a single crash (that wasn't directly my own stooopid fault ) in the three months I've been up and running.

 

[afropick]

Cybordolphin,

Get a RAID motherboard like others have suggested. The extra IDE controller is nice to have RAID or no RAID.

Just make sure you get a big enough tower if you plan on using all 8 of those IDE channels.

 

[Cybordolphin]

Thanks a lot guys.

That helps. I need to read up on RAID. I have decided to get the new MSI PRO266 motherboard with RAID. It also takes either SDRAM or DDR ram.

Unless someone can sell me on a different board....?

Thanks.