Which RAID controller to use on Asus A8N?

[hd1840]

Having never had a board with two onboard RAID controllers, is there any merit to use one over the other? That is the Nvida controller in the southbridge, or the stand alone Silcon Image? Always run a Raid Mirror, and if there is a good reason to use one controller over the other, would like to know before I set up the array.

My inclination is to use the silicon image since it wouldn't be in the mix of the southbridge, but then I really don't have any fact to base that on.

Thanks in advance.

Pete

 

[CheesePoofs]

The Nforce4 is only one chip - there is no northbridge and southbridge, its all one.

I don't really know about the raid thing tough, i though it just had one which was the nforce4 one, and from that raid controller you could use drives attached to the silicone image chip.

 

[MDE]

I'd use the Nvidia RAID because it isn't on the PCI bus.

 

[ohnnyj]

Use the nVidia controller.

 

[hd1840]

Thanks MDE...that's the kind of input that I was looking for. As it turns out, the Silicon Image controller wouldn't see my drives anyway...so this is a great turn of events. I did notice something weird though. Once I added to two drives to the array, the initial post check no longer recongnizes them, in addition, the number of SATA drives in the list is descreased by two. Doesn't really matter, just so it works. This is a great forum...thanks!

Pete

 

[kextyn]

The nvidia controller is SATA II whereas the Sillicon is SATA I. SATA II adds features such as 300MB/sec, NCQ/TCQ, etc.

You say the Silicon wouldn't detect your drives? Were you looking in the BIOS or the Silicon RAID utility (the one you get to by pressing F4 or whatever jsut before it enters the BIOS setup)?. You have to set up the RAID array in the Silicon utility, I don't even think the BIOS will show the drives at all even after you do that but I'm not positive.

 

[hd1840]

No, it wouldn't see them at all. Not in the bios, not in the utility. This is largely why I chose to use the NVIDIA RAID controller. The fact that it doesn't burden the pci bus clinched the deal and I didn't dig any further. I am using 2 MAXTOR 200 GB drives. This board is replete with problems with Maxtors. I'm about to try to install the 64 bit version of XP. Will report back with any hassles I might experience. I've turned of the SI controller in the bios since I don't need it anymore.