RAID kit, or onboard RAID

[corvetteguy]

if you just want to use RAID 0, 1, or 0 +!, is it worth it to get a $300 RAID kit that can do those settings plus 5, and others i think. Supposedly seperate RAID pci cards are much better, but i'm not sure if its because of more setting or being faster. It wold make sense that it would be faster like a seperate sound card.

 

[corvetteguy]

barely anyone reads these parts of the forum, but if i put in cpu's where they would read it they would be mad for being in the wrong place.

Read the obscure forums.

 

[MadModMike]

Comparing onboard vs. PCI, onboard is faster, PCI max speed is 133MB/s (33MHz 32-bit, PCI 2.2 is 533MB/s, 66MHz) whereas onboard is, well, yea. PCI-X on the other hand, is 2.1GB/s (266MHz) and each PCI-X card has it's own bus to the SB, IIRC. So unless that RAID PCI card is your only PCI device (PCI shares Bus bandwidth with all slots) go with onboard. And only use up to 2 drives in RAID (0) on that PCI device, or you're wasting drives.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

 

[corvetteguy]

ok it looks like i made a mistake, it was a RAID controler and 2x sata raid hd enclosure, and it surprised me that it was one of the cheapest ones. The pci-x ones you mentioned are up to a 1000 dollars so i guess onboard is the right choice.


btw, does pci-x fit in a pci slot or no, i'm guessing not since you said it was a bandwidth problem with pci and that would mean a different connection, if not, what does it fit in, since i've never seen it on a mobo, not that that means its not there.

 

[mpjesse]

btw, does pci-x fit in a pci slot or no,

No. But a convential PCI card will fit in a PCI-X slot so long as it's not an older 5V card.

PCI-X is very, very common on workstation and server motherboards. PCI-X is pretty much the standard in servers. However PCI-E is quickly catching on.

You will rarely ever see PCI-X slots on a desktop motherboard.

-mpjesse