Raid 10 - controller card recommendations? and where to buy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian
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Brian

I'm planning on a raid card to my system. I use my computer for work
so I'm looking for fault tolerance and (like most everyone) I'd enjoy
better performance too.

To this end, I've settled on level 10 raid (better fault tolerance
than 0+1 and better performance than raid 5 -- as I understand).

My current motherboard has only pci slots (none of the newer pci-x) so
that may limit me. I don't want the expense of SCSI but am willing to
do 4 ata/sata hard drives.

Ideas for the card to use? I've read old reviews about the 3ware
escalade 7850 being a good one for ata raid (and offering level10) but
where to get it. Are there better ata raid cards without moving into
sata? If I get sata can I/should I do it without the pci-x slot?

I'm lacking any experts in the local computer stores.

Many thanks
-
Brian
 
Brian said:
I'm planning on a raid card to my system. I use my computer for work
so I'm looking for fault tolerance and (like most everyone) I'd enjoy
better performance too.

To this end, I've settled on level 10 raid (better fault tolerance
than 0+1 and better performance than raid 5 -- as I understand).

My current motherboard has only pci slots (none of the newer pci-x) so
that may limit me. I don't want the expense of SCSI but am willing to
do 4 ata/sata hard drives.

Ideas for the card to use? I've read old reviews about the 3ware
escalade 7850 being a good one for ata raid (and offering level10) but
where to get it. Are there better ata raid cards without moving into
sata? If I get sata can I/should I do it without the pci-x slot?

I'm lacking any experts in the local computer stores.
Click to expand...
3Ware have the PATA/SATA RAID5 / 10 market pretty much to themselves.
Correspondingly prices are high. In UK the 4 port card would be around
220UKP, 8 port 350UKP etc. Ideal Hardware is the distributor so most
computer retailers should be able to order from them.
 
3Ware have the PATA/SATA RAID5 / 10 market pretty much to themselves.
Correspondingly prices are high. In UK the 4 port card would be around
220UKP, 8 port 350UKP etc. Ideal Hardware is the distributor so most
computer retailers should be able to order from them.
Click to expand...

When you say '4 port card' I assume you're talking the current
7506-4LP? And does it not have any real competition for RAID 10 then?

I've seen the Promise FastTrak S150 SX4 on the Promise website and
while it advertises level 10 raid there I found this review...

from http://www.ebabble.net/html/s150_sx4.html ...
The manual and all configuration screens I encountered showed the S150
SX4 handling RAID 0+1 and not RAID 10, but the Promise website and
it’s datasheet both list RAID 10.

And also seeming to offer raid 10:
Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 2810SA but with a bus requirement of
"64-bit/66 MHz PCI" (not the old standard pci which I have on my Asus
P4E motherboard I don't believe, though I'm not expert enough to know
for sure - part of the reason I ask here)

So... when you say 3ware has things sewn up, do you mean for
performance?
 
I've seen the Promise FastTrak S150 SX4 on the Promise website and
while it advertises level 10 raid there I found this review...

from http://www.ebabble.net/html/s150_sx4.html ...
The manual and all configuration screens I encountered showed the S150
SX4 handling RAID 0+1 and not RAID 10, but the Promise website and
it’s datasheet both list RAID 10.
Click to expand...

FYI: I sent a query to promise and they said this:

Brian,
Here’s the answer to your question from our Product Marketing.

Yes. We do support RAID 10, data mirrored then striped across four
drives. This will provide increased fault tolerance. It is a mistake
in user manual and GUI. We will fix it in the next service release.
 
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