Poll: KT7A RAID or KT7A & Promise fasttrack?

[jjlsevil]

I'm going to buy this today. Which one should I get? Should I just get the KT7A and Promise controller? or Should I just get the KT7A RAID. Which one is a better performance?

JJ

Money should not be an issue.

 

[Jiggz]

If money is not a concern, I'll recommend buying the KT7A and a Promise Fast Trak. Promise is reliable while the Highpoint controller on the KT7A-R is not. I'm not saying it's bad but there are a lot of KT7A-R users who ended up disabling their RAID because of stability problem.

 

[LeeBear]

I also suggest getting the Promise RAID Controller seperate. Not only because Promise is a bit more reliable in my books then Highpoint but with a seperate controller you can use it on the next motherboard you upgrade to. Plus the cost of the Promise controller is minimal if you are not afraid of a little soldering. You can buy a normal Promise Ultra controller and with a simple modification turn it into a Promise FastTrak RAID controller. I purchased a Promise Ultra 66 controller recently and did just that. You should be able to pick one of those up for around $20 US. You're probably wondering why get the 66 instead of the 100 controller? Well, it's cheaper and easier to modify. Plus if you think about it there's virtually no point in getting Ultra 100 RAID controller. 2 channels at 100 MB/s = 200 MB/s, which last time I checked exceed the 133 MB/s bandwidth of your normal PCI bus.

-LeeBear

 

[jjlsevil]

Where can i find some information on how to modify a promise ultra100 to a fasttrak100?

JJ

 

[ku]

i don't think you need raid.. unless you have a good reason ... i know i can't think of any right now...

 

[tracerbullet]

I like the 66/soldering idea. I had the KT7A RAID for about two weeks, it has ISSUES. Using RAID by putting a drive on each of the extra IDE's (as recommended) causes you to: 1) Not have more than 3 PCI devices or it won't boot, and 2) no USB. That, and on mine the floppy controller was DOA too. Lotsa people have them, they're good for OC, but I'll never buy another thing from Abit myself.

Without the RAID (and assuming the floppy works) it's probably a great board. The Promise add on idea is a solid one. Myself, I went to the MSI with it built in. 6 PCI slots, plus Promise RAID built in. Also, it was about $125 vs $160, but you might find a better price. I wanted all the PCI slots. Asus has a good option too, a MB with Promise built in.