What is a good mobo for a raid1 setup.

[philipma1957]

I have a buddy that a build pc's for he wants a simple raid1 build. I would use 2 1tb samsung ssd's an i5 cpu like the i5 8500 and 2x 16gb sticks of ram. I don't know which is a reliable mobo to run a raid1 using Samsung ssd's.

NOTE I have not posted here in a while but any suggestions for a board to use with the i5 8500 and in a raid would help.

 

[VirtualLarry]

First of all, unless he's running a LAN with 10GbE, or has multiple SSD RAID pools/volumes, there's really no point. RAID'ing SSDs doesn't help with Random I/O, so it doesn't make them feel faster (get an Optane drive if he wants that, don't RAID SSDs), and the benefit of much higher sequential speeds (unless he's a "benchmark junkie") don't do much, unless you have something ELSE to transfer them to, sequentially. Like another RAID array, OR, a fast 10GbE LAN, to a NAS or SAN.

You said "simple RAID", then you said "SSD RAID". Which is it?

If he just wants a place to store files, protected by RAID-1 (mirroring), or RAID-5 (striping with parity), just buy a standalone NAS unit. (I am familiar with QNAP and Asustor, and Lenovo/EMC.) (And buy some of those 10TB EasyStore Desktop External HDDs from BestBuy.com or BestBuy on ebay, and "shuck" the drives, and install them into the NAS, and save some pretty substantial $$$.)

Edit: IOW, is this for S&Gs, or is there an actual NEED somewhere in all of this? If it's just for S&G, and learning about RAID, then ignore everything I said above, and just go for it. Intel H-series and Z-series chipsets support RAID. Lower chipsets, IIRC, do not.

 

[grimham]

Is TRIM supported on RAID 1? I heard it was on "0", but not "1". I could be behind the times though.

 

[mv2devnull]

Intel H-series and Z-series chipsets support RAID. Lower chipsets, IIRC, do not.

fakeRAID, where firmware utility does at most initializes an array and runs simple consistency checks, while regognition and access depends on the OS drivers.

Pure software RAID requires nothing from the hardware; the OS does everything. Should we assume that this is not an option?

Chipsets/motherboards do list their (fake)RAID support. "Reliable motherboard" is an opinion built on personal experiences. Take any brand and model and there are probably both happy users and disasters.


Real hardware RAID controller has its own dedicated processor, and usually cache RAM and battery too. The OS needs drivers for the controller, but won't see "array of disks" -- just "a disk". That is overkill for RAID1.

 

[philipma1957]

Lets try a different way to ask this. I have not built a windows raid1 in many years. A lot of windows 7 builds 10 years ago.

My friend wants me to build him a raid1 build with 2 1tb ssds. These will be the boot drives and the pc will basically be accessed from other pc's in a network to run a specific program for his business. I can source an HP Elitedesk 800 G4 Tower with 1x 16gb stick of ram and setup with windows 10 as a raid 1 using 2 1tb hdds. i5 8500 3 year warranty Direct from hp. Just add in a stick of 16gb ram and he will have a 32gb ram setup with redundancy of raid 1 . I get several discounts and can get it for about 1000 bucks with the stick of ram included. To me he should do this.

But he wants a diy build from ground up. I was interested in a good board that would do this for me. I could show him the price for a diy build compared to the hp.com order. It is for his business.

To me this is a case of do the hp.com purchase add the ram and run it with the hdds for a month if it is fast enough you are done...

A build is
250 for cpu
250 for 32gb ram
250 for 2 ssds
150 for a legit win 10 pro
100 for a case
125 for a psu
25 for a card reader
25 for a dvd solt
25 for mouse + keyboard.
1200 sub total
100 mobo

1300 and labor costs

specs on the hp Elite 800 g4

1) Windows 10 Pro 64 - HP recommends Windows 10 Pro
2) Intel® Core™ i5-8500 Processor (3.0 GHz, up to 4.1 GHz w/Turbo, 9 MB Cache, 2666 MHz, 6 core, 65W) Intel® UHD Graphics 630
3) 250 W Platinum Tower Chassis
4) 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 DIMM Memory I will add 1 stick
5) RAID 1 Configuration
6) 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.5" HDD
7) 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.5" 2nd HDD
8} Intel® Ethernet I210-T1 PCIe x1 Gb Network Interface Card
9) SD 4 Card Reader (Optional)
10) Ultraslim DVD-Writer
11) HP DisplayPort Cable
12) HP USB Wired Keyboard
13) HP Optical USB Mouse
14) Three-year (3-3-3) limited warranty

to me I was hoping he would want the hp.com deal and not the diy build.

V Larry is telling me the speed of the ssd's won't be needed.
I also think the hdds are easy to recover if 1 dies. this is a business item.
plus the chassis looks good. I asked what board to use for a diy build to see if I need one that is 150 or more. I also know some of the newer boards do not work well doing raid 1 I thought one was better then the other.


As for trim won't need it in a mirror raid 1 this is more often going to be read then written as other pc's will access it.

I think I will tell him to buy the hp.com item

 

[VirtualLarry]

I was mostly, I guess, commenting on client-side SSD RAID. (And I was assuming RAID-0.)

If this is a business server, and they need redundancy and uptime, then RAID-1 is appropriate, and if they need high IOPS, more than a pair of 2TB or whatever HDDs can give, then yes, SSD RAID is appropriate for that too.

I'll bow out here, as I don't know much about implementing SSD RAID for business purposes, although I know it's useful for VM and DB servers, maybe some web servers too.

You can consider my previous comments irrelevant, as I thought that this was a gaming / general user PC build.