Which Hardware RAID 0 Card?

[anths]

Before you read this and think "RAID 0 is stupid" or "Just use the onboard RAID functions" let me explain. I am getting 2 Gigabyte I-RAMs and filling them with 4GB each. I want to stripe these together so I can have a single 8GB harddrive working. This will back up to a storage server on the LAN every shutdown so I am not so concerned with loosing data. It will be the only "harddrive" in the system. It is my main system - day to day stuff but nothing big, occassional gaming (and yes I understand the size constraints).

I need a RAID card to work in the PCI-X 64/66 slot in my DFI 855GME board. I want an hardware raid card because I don't want the cpu cycles eaten up by the RAID functions. Which card would you recommend for a harddrive system such as this? I am not certain if a HDD with this many IOs per second (Yea I can get a few things going at once, I am as much a power user as anyone and I am sure eventually there will be server applications on this thing just for fun) needs a higher end RAID card or not.

 

[drizzt81]

From what I understand about software R0 solutions, the CPU overhead is pretty much zero. There are not parity calculations that need to be done, just a "send block X to drive A and block Y to drive B". With a hardware RAID card it'd be "send block X to drive C and bock Y to drive C".

If you really want the 'best of the best' get and Areca card, which would be total overkill, but certainly hardware R0. Otherwise, the Highpoint 2xxx series could be hardware R0 as well.

 

[unhappy_mage]

The Areca card has problems with the I-ram, IIRC. Well-implemented software raid like the Highpoint shouldn't be a limiting factor.

 

[AreEss]

This is a very odd one. And then some.
Software RAID0 will severely limit the IRAM's performance. It really will. (Sorry folks, I know my solid state disks. And miss having Nitro!XE's to play with.) The catch is that you're going to have to spend big bucks for a real RAID card.
The board you have doesn't have a PCI-X/66 slot. It's a PCI-X 33/66/100/133 2.2 slot. What that means is that you want a RAID card that does PCI-X 133 if at all possible. I haven't tested the Arecas or LSIs with the IRAMs, so I can't say whether or not either would have any compatibility issues. It's hard for me to believe that they would at first thought, but by the second thought I can definitely see it being entirely possible.

I'd recommend either Areca or LSI from somewhere that'll let you return it with no restock if it's incompatible.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Areca says the i-rams aren't compatible. LSI doesn't say anything about it at all, but then, they appear to have a total of three articles in their KB Perhaps if UICompE02 stops by he can answer the compatibility question.

 

[UICompE02]

Areca says the i-rams aren't compatible. LSI doesn't say anything about it at all, but then, they appear to have a total of three articles in their KB Perhaps if UICompE02 stops by he can answer the compatibility question.

Wish I could help out, but I don't know too much about our SATA-only controllers. I can't think of a reason they wouldn't if they follow the SATA spec correctly. However, that has to make me wonder why they don't work with certain other controllers.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Wish I could help out, but I don't know too much about our SATA-only controllers. I can't think of a reason they wouldn't if they follow the SATA spec correctly. However, that has to make me wonder why they don't work with certain other controllers.

The I-ram doesn't have SMART capability, so the Areca drops it because it fails the SMART test. I would guess that since this is a fairly good behavior to have (drive fails, drop it!) the LSI cards do it as well. But I'm not sure.

 

[anths]

Thanks for the feedback thus far guys. And yea, I kind of messed up my PCI-X specs for the board. It was almost midnight and had been going since the previous morning almost consecutively! I figured Software RAID, in any form, would affect performance just due to the high rate of information flowing through the system. I don't care so much about paying for an expensive card... I mean really - how expensive can a 2 port raid 0 card be!

 

[unhappy_mage]

I mean really - how expensive can a 2 port raid 0 card be!

The problem is most people don't need hardware raid for two-disk arrays, so you may end up having to buy a 4 or 8 port card just to get real hardware raid.

And as for 66 versus 133 mHz - 64/66 is 64*66/8=528 MB/s. Since the iRam is an sata-150 device, the maximum speed you could get out of it would be 300 MB/s, theoretically. Thus it doesn't matter if you pick a pci-x 66 or 133 card; the limiting factor (such as it is ) is the iRam.

UICompE02, would the iRams work with an SAS controller like the SAS3442X-R? That's only around $350, but it does raid 0 in hardware (as far as I can tell) and it may not require SMART on the disks.

 

[UICompE02]

UICompE02, would the iRams work with an SAS controller like the SAS3442X-R? That's only around $350, but it does raid 0 in hardware (as far as I can tell) and it may not require SMART on the disks.

I'll have to check on the SMART reporting requirements, but I don't believe it's required for using the IR (integrated RAID) features of that controller. Which, you are correct, is a hardware RAID 0 implementation. I'm not familiar with the implementation details of the iRam drives, so as long as it doesn't present itself as an ATAPI device (shows up as a standard hard disk), it would work without a problem on that controller (ATAPI devices do work, but not in a RAID volume)

 

[AreEss]

Uhm, except that SAS is not SATA, and would not work with the IRAM period.
*sigh* SAS == Serial Attach SCSI. Different protocol entirely.
Best bet would be the LSI 150-4, which is a PCI-X and IIRC around $250ish. I haven't priced the 150-4's lately. But as stated previously, order from somewhere that will let you return without restock. There's no garauntee the LSI's will work either. And do NOT get a SilIm-based controller, that's a one-way ticket to hell.

 

[Dew]

Uhm, except that SAS is not SATA, and would not work with the IRAM period.
*sigh* SAS == Serial Attach SCSI.

Isn't the whole point of SAS that the controllers and the physical connectors work with SATA drives? (Just not SATA controllers with SAS drives)

 

[unhappy_mage]

Uhm, except that SAS is not SATA, and would not work with the IRAM period.

Connects to both SAS and SATA HDDs and tape drives

SAS controllers *all* work with sata drives, as far as I know. In fact, if you read even a *marketing* release from the scsita you'll see that this is in the specification.

 

[UICompE02]

I just checked and the SAS3442X-R will work with SATA drives that do not report SMART status in a RAID 0 or 1 volume, so that is definitely a high-bandwidth option for using the iRam devices. Plus you'd get the flexibility of connecting any other SAS or SATA devices to the controller (and further expanding the capacity with expanders, etc.)

 

[unhappy_mage]

Plus you'd get the flexibility of connecting any other SAS or SATA devices to the controller (and further expanding the capacity with expanders, etc.)

Since you mentioned it... would a sata port multiplier work with it (with only sata disks on the far end, no sas), or do you need an SAS device? Just curious...

 

[UICompE02]

Since you mentioned it... would a sata port multiplier work with it (with only sata disks on the far end, no sas), or do you need an SAS device? Just curious...

LSI SAS controllers do not support SATA port multipliers (I'm not sure what the situation is with other vendor's SAS controllers). The best you can do is get a SAS expander (which really are not that much more expensive than SATA port multipliers, but MUCH higher performance and more features -- however, they are near impossible to find as a standalone product as the one you have linked above. I'm not sure where you'd get them for that kind of application.)

 

[anths]

So what I've got from this is that I should be kissing another $400 goodbye very soon...

 

[unhappy_mage]

$307 shipped, but yeah. You're already putting what, $800 into this? And it'll leave you with 6 ports of SAS goodness if you want to have a fast secondary drive too.