Which IDE RAID card?

[rbV5]

Thanks to Outpost I have a new pair of Maxtor D740X 40GB UltraATA/133 drives to use for my new RAID 0 video capture array. I don't want to limit my new MB purchase, so I'm thinking PCI RAID card for now and just plopping it into the new board when I decide which way to go. Any recommendations for a good expansion card?

 

[Thor86]

Any of the new Promise or Highpoint controllers work great.

 

[mooseAndSquirrel]

iWill SIDE100

 

[rbV5]

Hey thanks for the responses! Price is always a factor for me, but not at the cost of performance, especially in this case. I've read positive reviews and seems to be fine, any reason not to get the less expensive iWill? Also, am right in assuming there is no advantage to getting an ATA133 card over an ATA100 card, correct? Remember, this is strickly a video capture RAID0 array, so performance and the hardware reliability/compatability are my main concerns. Thanks🙂

 

[ddiccico]

<< Also, am right in assuming there is no advantage to getting an ATA133 card over an ATA100 card, correct? >>

Correct. Neither one has an advantage over a ATA/66 RAID card either. Since the PCI bus is limited to 133 MB/sec (32 bit x 33 MHz), the highest transfer rate you will ever get is 66 MB/channel if both channels have a drive on them. I would go with an iWill sideRAID 66 or promise FastTrak 66 - I've used both and they work well.

 

[neuralfx]

uh take a look over at storagereview for some good reviews, and forum .. those iwill/highpoint/promise cards are software raid controllers, i believe the king of ide is still 3ware, for just 2 drives in 0, look at the 3ware 6200 (i960rs risc cpu).. good luck ..
-neural

 

[rbV5]

Right on gentlemen. Thanks for the input and the storagereview link. I was under the impression that software raid was superior to hardware raid with 700mhz+ cpu for speed and only a slight increase in cpu load, any thoughts?

 

[RichardInLA]

I installed an ACard 6880 with two Maxtor 40GB ATA133 drives and it works fine. I chose the ACard mainly because it support 133, and was less expensive. Anyone have suggestion for good, free, disk benchmark pgm?