RAID Card

[munruss]

I've been thinking about installing a RAID card, but I'm not sure what to get. I have 4 hard drives. 2 are SATA and the other 2 are PATA. Any thoughts?

 

[EatSpam]

What kind of slots do you have? PCIe? PCI? What OS are you running?

And if you are going to be running RAID 0, don't bother. Not worth it.

 

[larciel]

if you want to use all 4 drives together, I don't know any extension card that has both interfaces.

NvRaid supports both IDE and SATA together. it's built into nforce tho

 

[munruss]

Originally posted by: EatSpam
What kind of slots do you have? PCIe? PCI? What OS are you running?

And if you are going to be running RAID 0, don't bother. Not worth it.

PCI slots, XP Pro.

Since running both interfaces are a problem, then I'll hold off for now. Thanks.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: munruss

Originally posted by: EatSpam
What kind of slots do you have? PCIe? PCI? What OS are you running?

And if you are going to be running RAID 0, don't bother. Not worth it.

PCI slots, XP Pro.

Since running both interfaces are a problem, then I'll hold off for now. Thanks.

You can use both types of drives at once. No problem. Just get a SATA RAID controller plus some SATA-IDE converters for your IDE drives.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: EatSpam
Just get a SATA RAID controller plus some SATA-IDE converters for your IDE drives.

Some RAID vendors advise against using such convertors for long term, and won't support them.

You have the option for software RAID regardless of interface. Note that most/many affordable RAID cards rely on software to do much of the work. Single IDE boot + 3-drive RAID array shouldn't be a problem.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: EatSpam
Just get a SATA RAID controller plus some SATA-IDE converters for your IDE drives.

Some RAID vendors advise against using such convertors for long term, and won't support them.

I wouldn't use them on a production/work system. They're just sloppy. But for home use, no problem. I ran an 8 drive RAID 5 array for 2 years and it had 8 of those little converters. No problems at all!