Stick With Onboard RAID from A7N8XD or Buy Card?

[magomago]

Hey guys- I just got my hands on that nice Seagate Deal they had going on at Frys- I was able to get two drives (not for scamming purposes but I'm actually using them) to use and I want to RAID 1 my system. Reason being? As of late I've gotten very paranoid about my system because in the past 6 months I've lost about 70 gigs of data (inlcuidng 10 gigs of really important files of pictures and stuff)

So I have heard RAID1 provides a slightl increase in reads but decreaed write preformance, but that really isn't of my concern anymore.

So what I'm wondering is anyone knows of the quality of the onboard SATA raid of the A7n8xD~ Should I buy PATA to SATA cables and use the onbaord Raid that comes with my motherboard?

Or should I go and buy a controller card and use that instead? Mind you, if I did that I would just be looking for a card that is solid at RAID1 (I would never even consider RAID 0 )


Also, in creating the RAID Array, I'm wondering exactly how this would go about. I'm going to probably use the Seagate Tools Disc and create a copy of the WD Drive, so now I have an exact copy, and then from there can I have it choose to automatically start mirroring the drive with the other 80 gig Seagate I got?

I would prefer using both seagates as itss fro tehe same manufactorer and drive just to avoid any potential problems (I'll probably toss the WD as a scratch drive for VM and photoshop strach disc and whatever else I can think of)

But am I going about this the right way? Is there any advice that you guys may have for or against what I'm going to do (especially on whether I should purchase ATA2SATA cables or a PCI card)

Thanks!

 

[gotsmack]

onboard is good enough for what you want.

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: gotsmack
onboard is good enough for what you want.

Haha I guess what i'm looking for is more of a "hsould i buy ATA2SATA cables" or "PCI Card" type of response

 

[unlockthesource]

Onboard RAID vs PCI Raid

Onboard Pro's:
[*]Fastest possible bus speed == highest data throughput.
[*]Cheaper. Its already there.

Onboard Con's:
[*]Questionable portability. If you change mobo's, will you be able to take the raid with you? I posted a thread on this a weeks ago.

PCI Pro's:
[*]Ability to purchase very high quality RAID chip
[*]If the board dies, you can replace it with the same card

PCI Con's:
[*]Data throughput dependant on overall PCI activity. (Max 133MB/s @ 33Mhz x 4 byte words)
[*]More expensive

Hope this helps you decide.


On another note... RAID-1??? Thats the most inefficiant use of a drive possible. Complete HD failures are very rare. Your space usage is 1:2 (1 byte stores as 2 bytes). If you picked up one more drive and used RAID-3 or 5 (i think), your usage would be 2:3 which is much better. Also, using striping and parity would almost double your performance, and provide very good data security.

 

[magomago]

well I am picking up two more drives, so I COULD do a RAID3 or 5 but then I would have to pony up major cash in order to get a controller card that isn't crap

Also, onboard wouldn't be cheaper for me because in I would need to purchase SATA 2 ATA cables since I have onboard SATA raid and not PATA raid.

So I'm really not looking to expand my space at all- right now i'm looking for saftey, and while RAID 3 does it...i can't pull out that drive if i ever need too and leoad it up elsewhere (so if i need too I can disconnect a drive and not have to worry about reconstructing parity at all)

That and i got a 200 gig external

the only issue is if i am bettering off buy a card, or stat2ata cables because last i heard sata2ata cables are around 30ish dollars, and I figure that a controller card that does raid1 will start around there anyways

 

[Arcanedeath]

For PATA raid 1 buy a cheap controler card, it's more portable and less expensive, I've used this Koutech PCI Raid Card from Newegg w/ sucess for a Raid 1 Array on a K7S5A (although that took alot of work to make it compatible w/ the K7S5A). This card works fine as long as you have a current motherboard not based on a via chipset

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
For PATA raid 1 buy a cheap controler card, it's more portable and less expensive, I've used this Koutech PCI Raid Card from Newegg w/ sucess for a Raid 1 Array on a K7S5A (although that took alot of work to make it compatible w/ the K7S5A). This card works fine as long as you have a current motherboard not based on a via chipset

that is software raid i might as well use windows if i wanna eat my cpu cycles...was thinking more of dedicate raid card that was cheap and wouldn't support much

 

[unlockthesource]

Originally posted by: magomago
well I am picking up two more drives, so I COULD do a RAID3 or 5 but then I would have to pony up major cash in order to get a controller card that isn't crap

Also, onboard wouldn't be cheaper for me because in I would need to purchase SATA 2 ATA cables since I have onboard SATA raid and not PATA raid.

So I'm really not looking to expand my space at all- right now i'm looking for saftey, and while RAID 3 does it...i can't pull out that drive if i ever need too and leoad it up elsewhere (so if i need too I can disconnect a drive and not have to worry about reconstructing parity at all)

That and i got a 200 gig external

the only issue is if i am bettering off buy a card, or stat2ata cables because last i heard sata2ata cables are around 30ish dollars, and I figure that a controller card that does raid1 will start around there anyways

a. I thought you already had SATA drives and were considering an SATA PCI RAID controller.
b. True, 3/5 card cost a fortune (but the data security and CPU usage reduction are huge)
c. If you ARE planning on frequently swapping drives out - raid-1 is perfect for you. Although with RAID -5 you could pull two drives out, but that would require lengthy data reconstruction.

There were some miscommunications - or rather misinterpretations. In your case, RAID-1 PCI is the obvious best choice.

 

[unlockthesource]

Originally posted by: magomago

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
For PATA raid 1 buy a cheap controler card, it's more portable and less expensive, I've used this Koutech PCI Raid Card from Newegg w/ sucess for a Raid 1 Array on a K7S5A (although that took alot of work to make it compatible w/ the K7S5A). This card works fine as long as you have a current motherboard not based on a via chipset

that is software raid i might as well use windows if i wanna eat my cpu cycles...was thinking more of dedicate raid card that was cheap and wouldn't support much

Right on. Skimping on your RAID card is a bad idea.