Motherboard for Core2 Duo that supports 5-6 SATA drives in RAID 5

[reddyd]

I am trying to build a new Core2 Duo Vista PC and want to have around 5-6 SATA 750GB drives hooked up in RAID 5 setup.

I want a reliable, good motherboard with Firewire, USB, sound, Gigabit network connections.

Any motherboard suggestions? RAID 5 Experiences?

 

[Curr]

Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 can do it. I can't speak to actual use of its' RAID functions, but I've been very happy so far with the motherboard so far. It has 10 SATA conections. 6 on the NV SATA RAID controller and 4 on the Gigabyte RAID controller.

 

[gramboh]

Honestly if you are dropping the cash on 5-6 of the 7200.10 750GB (or new Hitatchi 1TB?) you need to buy a separate RAID controller card with onboard CPU/buffer to do the parity calcs required by RAID5/6. The performance with that many big drives and onboard RAID is going to crappy and waste your CPU.

 

[reddyd]

Is there a good RAID controller for SATA drived that is supported in Windows VISTA?

 

[najames]

Why not look at soft-raid abilities built into the OS?

It might suprise you, and the cost is $0.00. What have you got to lose? If you buy a controller and it fails, you might take the RAID out too.

This works very well in Linux, I have two boxes running it, CentOS and Ubuntu. I know you can do it with WinXP too. Vi$ta is unknown, don't care.

Pick any decent board that has 4 (or more) SATA ports and you are set. I use a 80GB IDE for the OS and 4 sataII drives for the RAID5 on an extinct Chaintech board, over a year and no problems. I also have the same setup with bigger drives on a dual opty server.

My only worry was what would happen when I updated kernels and the result was nothing, it doesn't matter. The little RAID5s that could.

 

[reddyd]

Anyone has good luck with 3Ware SATA RAID cards on Vista?

http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata2-9650.asp

 

[krotchy]

Areca SATA cards are going to be the fastest for a RAID 5/6 configuration typically. The pci-express 8x ones are awesome, and can go into almost any Intel 975 chipset.

They make 4/8/12/16 and 24 port SATA raid controllers.

I would look into the ARC-1221 as it is an 8 port.

 

[TheBeagle]

You should be aware that WinXP (32 bit) has a limit on the size of an individual volume. So if your RAID 5 is going to exceed approximately 2.1 TB, then you won't be able to access rest, unless you change to a 64 Bit OS. Just thought you'd like to know that little tidbit. I also agree with Mr. Curr Man when he recommended the Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 board. If you want all the bells and whistles, then that's the board to buy. Enjoy! TheBeagle

 

[reddyd]

So, is there any work around for this 2TB limit per system in 32bit OS?

How about the RAID5 volume limits in Vista 32bit?

I heard that I will potentially run into driver issues with Vista64 bit.
Any ideas?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

What is your budget, and what is this machine going to be used for?

I have an Areca ARC-1220 8-port PCIe 8x RAID controllers. Great card. And the Vista drivers just came out for it, so I'll be picking up Vista here in the next week, so we'll see how that goes.

 

[reddyd]

I want to use this computer for development, home office use, video editing, store all home videos, media center, gaming, run linux in VM etc.

Here is what I want:
Core 2Duo
4GB RAM
FireWire
USB 2.0
Gigabit Ethernet
Decent graphics card (nVidia 7900 xx)
5 or 6 - 750GB disks in RAID 5 configuration
Dedicated Raid controller
Vista 32 bit Ultimate (64 bit if everything works)

I want this PC to be reliable. I don't want to mess around with it after it is setup for another 3-5 years.

Budget around 3K-3.5K

 

[reddyd]

BTW nice machine you got there. Please post an update on how your Vista experience goes.
Are you trying 32 bit or 64 bit?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: reddyd
BTW nice machine you got there. Please post an update on how your Vista experience goes.
Are you trying 32 bit or 64 bit?

Thanks... I'm going to be doing 32-bit. I'd like to put another 2gb of RAM and go 64-bit, I just don't think it is necessary at this point as this is a gaming machine primarily.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: reddyd
So, is there any work around for this 2TB limit per system in 32bit OS?

There is no issue with Vista 32 per se -- you can use GPT for data drives. So all you have to do is to have separate boot and data volumes, and check that your target storage controller supports > 2 GiB volumes (Areca has a paper on that).

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_FAQ.mspx

Windows XP Disk Support

13. Can Windows XP x64 read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
Windows XP x64 edition can use GPT disks for data only. Only Windows for Itanium-based systems can boot from GPT partitions.

14. Can the 32-bit version of Windows XP read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
No. The 32-bit version will see only the Protective MBR. The EE partition will not be mounted or otherwise exposed to application software.

15. Can the 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
All versions of Windows 2003 since Server Pack 1 can use GPT partitioned disks for data. Booting is only supported for Itanium-based systems.

16. Can Windows Vista and Windows Server codename Longhorn read, write, and boot from GPT disks?
Yes, all versions can use GPT partitioned disks for data. Booting is only supported for EFI-based systems.

Originally posted by: reddyd
I heard that I will potentially run into driver issues with Vista64 bit.
Any ideas?

Since you're starting out with 4 GiB RAM, you should target a 64-bit OS starting out. Check for Vista-64 drivers for all your devices, and if they're available, you'll be fine.

From the web sites for Areca and 3ware/AMCC, official Vista driver support (even 32 bit) is not quite there yet. This could be a short-term issue. It'll certainly go away over time.

http://faq.areca.com.tw/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=277
ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/AP_Drivers/Windows/Driver/Vista

But if Fullmetal Chocobo or others have a working solution, you could go with that.

Scary stuff using unfinalized drivers on this amount of storage though.

"RAID alone is not a backup". Spend some of that cash on an external backup system, and don't rely on any single system, regardless of how good and expensive (or in this case, fresh out to market) to protect your data.