HOT! ATA/133 PCI RAID Controller Card ~ $39.00 ~ ComputerGeeks

[StormRider]

<< Has anyone used this? Is that a good, reliable chip-set?
>>



Silicone Image used to be CMD. I don't know how good their new chipset is but I was really impressed with their older CMD 648/649 UltraATA66/100 chipsets. I found them much better than the crappy Highpoint controllers. One nice thing those chipsets was that the controller appeared as an IDE controller as opposed to appearing as a SCSI controller like the Highpoint.

I used the CMD chipsets with harddrives, CDR, CDRW and DVD-RAM drives without any problems (i.e. I found it to be a very nice compatible chipset with most of my devices).

 

[GooberedUp]

<< If you care a single bit about your data, buy a reputable IDE RAID controller.

If you decide to create a stripe array with this card, put some data on it and then the array information disappears, your data is irrecoverable. >>



Very good advice.

For about a year, I've been using a Maxtor IDE 100 (Promise) card that I cut some chips legs off of, soldered, wired and firmware upgraded to run two 40Gb in stripe mode. Knock on wood, but my setup works great. But, if you have anything of importance on your drives, back up often if you're going to ride bareback.

 

[eplebnista]

<< Has anyone used this? Is that a good, reliable chip-set? >>



I am curious also. Has anyone had any problems with this card?

tia,
eplebnista

 

[tw1164]

eplebnista
I've been using it for about 2wks now without a problem. I have it setup with 2 maxtor 40gb/133 I haven't noticed that big of an increase in speed. I got about 3-4 fps more encoding divx files. I don't know if that's the best benchmark to use. Sandra's benchmarks say that I'm on par with IDE RAID 0 ATA-100 sets. I only got the card, 2 cables, and a driver disc. The CMD website mentions something about software(melody) that can be used in windows, but I haven't been able to find where to download it from. The only concerns that I have is customer support, and driver updates...I'm thinking about moving to a promise card for those reasons.

 

[SLAYu]

than-x mate !! but this thing it outta stock right now

 

[eplebnista]

Thanks for the feedback and according to this link(mentioned above). The card is in stock and ready to ship.

Thanks again,
eplebnista

 

[DerProfi]

StormRider, I noticed that the HighPoint controller outperformed most competitors on the AT IDE RAID review last year, and that it's also the one used by most manufacturers who integrate IDE RAID onto their motherboards. I'm close to buying one and it seems to be the clear choice. The HighPoint controller even supports Linux, unlike this Silicon Image one. What makes you say the HighPoint is crappy?

 

[swNYC]

I'm using a Highpoint HPT-370A based ATA-100 RAID 0 setup and the performance is excellent. Used a CMD (Silicon Image predecessor) chipset card before and its not as fast.

 

[Rainguy]

<< One nice thing those chipsets was that the controller appeared as an IDE controller as opposed to appearing as a SCSI controller like the Highpoint. >>



So what does this have to do with the price of rice in China??

It all works the same no matter where it shows up in device manager...who cares??? And there is nothing wrong with the Highpoint RAID controllers, it's probably just operator error :Q