- Dec 11, 2000
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I am looking for a cheap PCI sata Raid5 card for two of these (250 gig hdd). Hardware raid is important and I just wanted to get thoughts from those of you in the know. Thanks in advance.
Looking for a cheap PCI sata raid5 card.
- Thread starter buck
- Start date
'Cheap' and 'hardware RAID' do not belong in the same sentence. As nothinman points out, any inexpensive RAID card will actually be software RAID -- even if the marketing and documentation suggests otherwise. You don't need to install a driver in most cases, but the card's firmware will still be loaded into your system during boot and will use the system CPU for all RAID calculations - just like any other software-based RAID solution. A pure software RAID solution -- such as those offered by Linux or Windows 2003 -- is superior in that you'll actually be able to move the drives between systems and/or controllers without reformatting.
the card in my signature was one of the cheapest card I could find that is hardware and runs fast. it runs about $300. cheaper than that and as nothinman said you'll get fakeraid with no IOP
and you cannot have raid-5 with 2 HD's only. You need 3 minimum, but it will be fairly slow. Best would be to get 4-5 drives minimum.
Or just say forget about it and use your mobo raid and do raid-1
and you cannot have raid-5 with 2 HD's only. You need 3 minimum, but it will be fairly slow. Best would be to get 4-5 drives minimum.
Or just say forget about it and use your mobo raid and do raid-1
lopri
Elite Member
- Jul 27, 2002
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Well maybe the OP's mobo doesn't support RAID natively. If that's the case, a cheap PCI/PCIe RAID card isn't totally out of the question. SiI3132 based ones can be found for ~$25 and they are 'almost' as good as Intel ICHR or NV's MCP. If it's for RAID1 especially, it's definitely superior to a pure software (OS-based) RAID.
Wait wait wait... You have TWO drives, and want *RAID 5*? RAID 5 works with 3 or more drives, and like everyone else said there is no such thing as a cheap hardware RAID controller. Although IIRC you can get a Perc 5i controller ripped from a Dell off eBay cheap, and it's real hardware SAS RAID. SAS and SATA are compatible too, so that's probably your best option.
- Dec 11, 2000
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Looks like I was misinformed or I misunderstood the person I was talking to. I have never used raid5 so I am starting to learn. Basically, I have an older workstation that I would like to make into a server to learn (no onboard raid). I was told by someone that I should get some drives and set it up on a hardware raid5 card. I now see that the 2 drive part was my ignorance, he most likely told me more than just two.
For learning/testing purposes, would the software raid be just as good? I do plan on having some function for this machine, a central place to store files (it will be backed up on a external hdd in case I do something stupid). Any suggestions are very much appreciated, and thanks for all the thoughts thus far, I learned some new stuff today.
For learning/testing purposes, would the software raid be just as good? I do plan on having some function for this machine, a central place to store files (it will be backed up on a external hdd in case I do something stupid). Any suggestions are very much appreciated, and thanks for all the thoughts thus far, I learned some new stuff today.
Yes, my statement about no driver being required was incorrect (not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that). But my primary point was that the host CPU will be responsible for all of the RAID calculations with any of these cheap RAID controllers -- just like with pure software RAID.
Software RAID is fine and is just as good as the cheap 'firmware' RAID cards. And some of the software RAID implementations (e.g. Linux md) are in wide use and are well tested, so reliability may even be superior to the cheap 'firmware' cards.
A good starting point would be three drives for your array plus a fourth drive for the operating system.
In what way is Silicon Image's software RAID support superior to the operating system's software RAID support? Your statement might make sense if the card had a dedicated processor to offload some of the work -- but it doesn't.
- Dec 11, 2000
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Correct me if I misunderstood, but a good start would be the OS on a seperate drive and three drives in raid5 for the storage? Right now in the computer I have a scsi drive running 2k3 and if that is fine and just adding the storage drives would work than I am golden.
lopri
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Hmm.. I was actually thinking the opposite since those semi-hardware controllers will be transparent to OS, thus giving the freedom and more compatibility when something happens. Different OS will support different level of RAID. I also thought there would be inevitable overhead on the OS and CPU using software RAID. (The recent fiasco of WHS coming to mind)
Said that, I can't speak much for OS RAID because I haven't really used it much to be frank. (I've used it only once -JBOD- in XP) What I said above is kinda theoretical so I could be wrong.
Nothinman
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Generally the OS goes on a RAID1 mirror and data goes on something else, so yea that'll be fine.
But if that controller dies then what? You have no choice but to buy a replacement of the exact same version and hope that the firmware on the controller can detect and reuse the existing array. With software RAID you just plug the drives into whatever you have available and let the OS bring it up. And the overhead is minimal, CPUs today can do XOR operations thousands of times faster than the data can be written to a drive.
The only thing "hardware" about the cheap controllers is... well... that they're an SATA controller. The RAID aspect is software-driven and is not transparent to the OS.
Highpoint RocketRAID cards are a pretty good middle ground, I think... someone told me that when I was doing my own RAID research.
pugh
Senior member
- Sep 8, 2000
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What are the thoughts on this card here? Was thinking about getting it for RAID 5
http://accessories.us.dell.com...=en&cs=19&sku=A1220994
http://accessories.us.dell.com...=en&cs=19&sku=A1220994
pugh
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Rubycon
Madame President
- Aug 10, 2005
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You know what the problem is with these cards? Regardless of price if you value the data and availability of it you must familiarize yourself with the procedure to do a rebuild when a drive fails.
There is nothing worse than thinking you're OK - got the drive all filled up and coming into a server beeping and not knowing EXACTLY what to do! Then start unplugging and plugging drives only to have another one go offline and POOF! Your data is gone or at least hard to get back. It's best to play (yeah that's what a geek does!) with the thing if time permits. Get it set up then take a drive out (if you have a backplane) or boot up with a power connector unplugged. Make it FAIL and LEARN how to get it back up. At least testing it when you screw up (and you will hehe) nothing of value is lost. At least that way you will know what to expect - AND do when the brownies get thrown at the fan. And it will happen - it's only a matter of time.
There is nothing worse than thinking you're OK - got the drive all filled up and coming into a server beeping and not knowing EXACTLY what to do! Then start unplugging and plugging drives only to have another one go offline and POOF! Your data is gone or at least hard to get back. It's best to play (yeah that's what a geek does!
) with the thing if time permits. Get it set up then take a drive out (if you have a backplane) or boot up with a power connector unplugged. Make it FAIL and LEARN how to get it back up. At least testing it when you screw up (and you will hehe) nothing of value is lost. At least that way you will know what to expect - AND do when the brownies get thrown at the fan. And it will happen - it's only a matter of time.TRENDING THREADS
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