Onboard or Seperate Card Raid

[dooddk]

Thats about it! Recomendations wanted please. Choice is between the Asus P4B266-E with onboard raid, and an asus P4B266 without raid, plus a Promise Fasttrak tx2. Will there be any performance difference between the two? Obvious choice is the onboard raid because of price but i am prepared to pay up if there is a difference in performance.
Your thoughts please gentlemen,
D.
ps I´ll be running 2 Barracuda IV`s on raid 0.

 

[Jeff H]

dooddk, one thing to consider, especially w/ the on-board Promise solution, is that many are crippled, i.e. you cannot use the on-board controller simply as that. You must configure it as a RAID solution. You cannot use it as simply as a connection for additional ATA drives. AFAIK the on-board HiPoint controllers don't have this same limitation. With an add-on card solution you won't face that issue.

If you're only considering this re RAID, it shouldn't be an issue. FWIW I'm considering a new system, and I want the flexibility of putting three drives (ATA-100 HD, IDE DVD and CD-RW) all on separate channels. The Promise card I'm considering will allow me to do that. It's a bit difficult to get good information as to whether the on-board solutions (esp. Promise) will let me do that.

 

[dooddk]

Hi Jeff,
at the moment i have onboard promise on a Supermicro P3TDDE and i`m connected the same way as you suggest ie. ata100, dvd, cdrw. This really isnt a problem for me with regards to the new board, it was strictly a question of performance,
thanks,
D.

 

[Amused]

Why can't we get the P4B266-E in the states?