Recommended RAID controller for mirroring

[Antra]

I plan on getting a pair of ST3300622AS/Seagate 300gb 16mb 7200rpm drives and mirroring them. They will first be in my desktop as my primary, then I'll delete all the Windows stuff and move them to a server as data-only volumes for my home domain. The RAID card will of course migrate with them.

So, what do you recommend? It's been years since I had to shop for a RAID card that wasn't going in an enterprise server.

 

[Antra]

Sounds good. Thanks!

 

[Codesmith]

Is reliablity a common problem with RAID 1 controllers?

In particular are motherboard RAID 1 controllers such as that provided by NF4 chipset unreliable?

 

[Antra]

The point was mainstream ones such as Highpoint and Silicon Image are not to be trusted. Rebuilding an array takes time.

That's precisely the sort of information I needed. Thanks!

 

[nukemaster]

sorry I had to post this

LINK

Looks like LSI running SI.....do i trust it?

for the record Promise Tech is cheap and works great

 

[Codesmith]

Thanks, I haven't been running RAID 1 for very long and only with NVidia controller so I don't have much first hand knowledge.

I do know that my first array using an NF4 RAID controller and two PATA WD 120 GB drives would spontaneously crash every couple months. I could simply recreate the array without initializing and reassue myself by scanning the files system for errors (there never was any), or I could play it save and rebuild the array the slow way.

However in the months since I updgraded to WD 400 GB Raid Edition SATA drives I have zero problems and the only rebuilding I did was for test purposes.

I am guessing that its the TLER feature that makes the difference, but it could just as well be SATA vs PATA on that particular controller.

Maybe a better controller would have kept the 2x 120 GB array running smoothly?

 

[nukemaster]

u want to see bugs.... think via raid

 

[chunkymonster]

Anything 3Ware or Promise will work well and are reliable. I've used two 3ware cards (8506 & 9500S) without any issues or worries. I've used onboard Silicon Image chips for RAID0 of the OS drive. Never had a drive die on me to need to rebuild the array so can't offer any insight there...good luck!

 

[clue69less]

As for reliability, it's not so much about the controller failing but rather keeping the array intacted for an extreme period of time. That from experince usually comes from LSI or Adaptec.

Yes indeed. I have a first gen Adaptec that still lives. Amazing.