To RAID or not to RAID?

[ConnyG]

That is the question...

The motherboard I bought has the ICH9R which supports Intel Matrix Storage (RAID 0/1/5/10). I currently have 2 x 250 GB SATA drives. I could run them in RAID1, or chose not to. (RAID0 is not an option for me)

Pros:
* increased security
* somewhat better read performance (if the chip is smart enough to read from both drives)

Cons
* Unable to run configuration tools (such as Hitachi Feature Tool) on drives to set for example acoustics mode
* Unable to run diagnotics tools (such as Hitachi Fitness Test) on drives to determine health
* (Loses 50% capacity due to RAID1)

Question I do not know the answer to:
* how good is the storage manager at detecting drive errors
* what if the mobo fails, might not be for sale anymore at that time, is is possible to add the drives to another mobo and get the data back?

Another option is of course to backup the relevant data to some other drive. I know of a Windows utility called "SyncTool" which is used to synchronize a folder with another folder (which for security could be stored on a different drive). I could use it to synchronize important folders (document, etc) to another drive.

Anyone have any experiences with chipset RAID or any thoughts on the above subject/text?

 

[imported_wired247]

for my tastes, RAID1 is getting outdated. Sure, it can still be done, but there are usually better options.

If you just need simple data security you can always back up important files onto an external hard drive for example.

I have done raid 0 / raid 1 in the past, using onboard raid (silicon image southbridge on Abit IC7-G mobo) and was not impressed. Switched back to JBOD.


Now I have the areaca arc-1210 raid controller... very happy and very impressed. RAID-5 gives you a nice speed boost over raid-1 and still gives you redundancy.

since your mobo supports raid-5 you might try this, if backing up onto external does not ring your bell.

you can try raid-1 if you really want, but I'd prefer to lose only 25% capacity rather than 50% capacity

also, i'm uncertain as to how well raid-5 will work with most onboard setups, it may use a lot of CPU for the xor calculations, i'm not sure either way. maybe it will work great for you. I'm not experienced enough with onboard mobo raid to really comment

 

[starchbrother1]

just mirror them after buying a raid card their like 30 bucks. and with mirrioring theres no data loss if one goes bad .