Onboard RAID vs PCIe Expansion cards? Performance difference?

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TheBluePill

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Onboard RAID vs PCIe Expansion cards?

Is there a Performance difference between the two for simple 4 Drive or less configurations?

What specs should someone look out for?
 
What are you looking for?

A $400 Areca card will give you lots of things that you can't get with onboard RAID, like Hardware XOR and Raid 6 and other wild things like nesting.

Are you comparing simple onboard RAID with simple stuff on an expansion card? If so, not much difference.
 
Pocatello said:
What are you looking for?

A $400 Areca card will give you lots of things that you can't get with onboard RAID, like Hardware XOR and Raid 6 and other wild things like nesting.

Are you comparing simple onboard RAID with simple stuff on an expansion card? If so, not much difference.
Click to expand...

Lets say the Sub $150 market.. Even the $50 Cards?
 
What is the performance difference with onboard Intel RAID 5 with the Areca 1220 RAID 5? I'm considering the 1220 over onboard also.
 
TheBluePill said:
Lets say the Sub $150 market.. Even the $50 Cards?
Click to expand...

From my understanding of things... it is not worth your money to buy those cards to get the same thing that comes standard on so many boards these days.


Zefram0911 said:
What is the performance difference with onboard Intel RAID 5 with the Areca 1220 RAID 5? I'm considering the 1220 over onboard also.
Click to expand...

I have been lusting after the Areca 1220 as well. I have decided to buy it, but I am busy building a server room in my home. Here is the link:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1293703&highlight=Pocatello's+folding+room

folding room link

Once my folding room is completed, I want to build a RAID 6 storage server for my collection of movies anime and digital pictures.

The Areca gives some huge improvements in many ways... speed being one. Plus, I really like RAID 6. The 8 port controller looks right to me.



 
I guess I should have mentioned.. I dont have raid on-board.. :) Sorry..

So im wondering if I should buy a new Motherboard, or just get a controller.
 
TheBluePill said:
I guess I should have mentioned.. I dont have raid on-board.. :) Sorry..

So im wondering if I should buy a new Motherboard, or just get a controller.
Click to expand...

Time for another MB and why not get a quad as well? ;)

You could still use your old setup as a redundant backup for your old files. (and fold for Team 33 --- HardOCP!)
 
Pocatello said:
Time for another MB and why not get a quad as well? ;)

You could still use your old setup as a redundant backup for your old files. (and fold for Team 33 --- HardOCP!)
Click to expand...

Actually, I have a Q9300 Quad with 4gigs.. My MB is a new P35 Chipset too.. Bah! :)
 
So your new MSI P35 (from your sig) does not have any onboard RAID? Wow. I'm surprised... seems like it is on all of my boards from the past year or so... whether I want it or not.
 
Pocatello said:
So your new MSI P35 (from your sig) does not have any onboard RAID? Wow. I'm surprised... seems like it is on all of my boards from the past year or so... whether I want it or not.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was a surprise for me too.. I seem to have the only P35 Board on the market without RAID.. I didnt even think that it was Optional when I bought it.. Looking back, Im kicking myself over it..
 
Pocatello said:
What are you looking for?

A $400 Areca card will give you lots of things that you can't get with onboard RAID, like Hardware XOR and Raid 6 and other wild things like nesting.

Are you comparing simple onboard RAID with simple stuff on an expansion card? If so, not much difference.
Click to expand...


Can you recommend a n Areca card with e-sata?

Thanks!
 
MaximumPC just did a roundup of 2 onboard RAID chipsets and 6 or 8 RAID cards. I don't have a link as I don't think it is on their site yet. With 4 drives there is a pretty substantial jump in speed with PCIe over onboard RAID, even with RAID 0. This includes sustained read/write and application performance.

I was a little surprised by the results of that review. Previously I was not impressed with my build using onboard RAID 0 with 2 Raptors. Now I just use a single drive for games. After that review I reconsidered and just bought 3 more Raptors and the Adaptec 5805 for a new RAID 0 setup with 4 drives. The Adaptec 5805/5405 cards look very nice as do the Areca cards. If that is too pricy, there are some less expensive options in the review. IIRC, the Highpoint RocketRaid cards were decent.

Edit: If you need eSATA, you need the 5085 card or similar, but they are pretty expensive.

http://www.provantage.com/adaptec-2244300-r~4ADSS00N.htm

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adaptec-serial-controllers,1806.html
 
For a 4 drive array, onboard RAID with the ICH8R and ICH9R SB work very well.. Unfortunately, adding more than 4 drives seems to really task the onboard controller... I'm finding that out the hard way.

4 drive RAID array (onboard)
RRA3.jpg

RRA2.jpg


6 drive RAID array (onboard)
hdtune_32kstripe.jpg

95GB_32kstripe.jpg
 
338MB/s sustained read with RAID 0 x4? Interesting. The MaximumPC test only got 132 MB/s on their P35 board (ICH9R).
 
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