In firmware raid is the cpu usage noticable?

[no0b]

I am thinking about get a new system I have decieded to go with 4 80gb WD 8mb cache hdd's. I was wondering if I were to put the 4 drives in raid 0 on a firmware raid controller will I notice it using a part of the cpu (which will be a 2200+ athlon).

How much % will it use, during large file transfers and during gaming?

 

[Hender]

Well first of all, RAID 0 only works with two drives, unless you're setting up *two* RAID 0 arrays, four drives would be at a minimum, RAID 0+1, but I don't think you can do two RAID 0 arrays on an IDE RAID card, can you?

As far as CPU utilization goes for RAID, here's a nice link to AnandTech article on IDE RAID from last year which talks about CPU utilization, and you can draw your own conclusions.

AnandTech IDE Raid CPU Utilization.

 

[no0b]

well according to this data sheet hardware raid can use 4 disks in raid 0.


I'm sure for the firmware its the same.

 

[Hender]

OK, yeah, it looks like it's possible, and RAID 0 just requires a minimum of 2 drives to function. I'd say that's a waste of money to get four drives, however, unless you're doing something like hardcore video editing, and even then, I'd say spring for SCSI over IDE if you're that serious. Save your money and just get two if you really are desperate for striping, three is you want striping plus some security with parity (RAID 5).

I don't know about onboard RAID solutions, though. They're usually crippled compared to add-on RAID cards, with no cache, fewer features, high CPU utilixation with no onboard processor, etc, so I would be surprised to learn that they allowed four drive RAID 0, despite supporting a total of four drives to be RAIDed.