Highpoint vs. LSI Logic _SATAII RAID controler... Which one?

fishquail

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Which SATA-II RAID card should i get? I assume the more expensive one is better but why exactly?

HighPoint ROCKETRAID2220 PCI-X SATA II Controller Card = $249
vs.
LSI LOGIC LSI00005-F 64-bit, 133MHz PCI-X SATA II MegaRAID 300-8X Kit 8 Port SATA/300 128MB = $424

I want to create a 5 disk RAID 0 array for uncompressed video editing and large Photoshop documents. I also need to change one SATA port into an eSATA port for transferring large documents to other computer.

Thanks
 

croc

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I've no personal experience at all with Highpoint, so cannot really comment. LSI's controller should be quite good if they made it to the same standards as their SCSI controllers. Their user interface always seems (to me) flexible and intuitive to use.

As to the eSATA port, my MB came with an adapter that would accept an internal SATA cable on the one side and then had another slot on the other side for a cable, and could be mounted as a card slot cover... Sort of like a female / female adapter. So something like that does exist, just start checking around. Or you could always just get an extended length sata cable, route it outside of the case somehow...
 

fishquail

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Yes, you can turn any SATA port into an eSATA however, with the motherboard i have (Tyan K8WE) The sata ports are currently set to RAID array and this causes problems with hot swapping drives.
Thus, 80 percent of the time it dosnt work. - so i have to get a Raid card.
 

fishquail

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Thanks, great reply.
With 8 disks, how many mb/s read and write are you getting?
I am hoping 5 disks will get me up to over 200mb/s.
 

SomeJoe7777

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The LSI RAID controller has a few advantages over the Highpoint:

1. The processor is much beefier, and will do RAID 5 much faster than the Highpoint.
2. The LSI card has 128MB of on board cache, which always helps.

May I also suggest the following card: 3Ware 9550SX-8LP. The 3Ware cards are well-known for fast transfer rates. 3Ware's site claims that this card can do 800MB/sec reads in RAID 5, to say nothing of RAID 0.

Also, what motherboard are you putting this card on? All three of these cards will only reach their maximum potential when used in a true PCI-X slot, which most motherboards do not have. The HighPoint and the LSI are backward compatible to PCI, but will run at a maximum of 100-120 MB/sec or so. The 3Ware will not run on a standard PCI slot, a PCI-X slot is required.

3Ware also makes a PCIe card if you have a PCIe slot available.
 

fishquail

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I have read that the 3Ware card is great for RAID 5 ect, but would be a waste of money if you are only doing RAID 0 - which is what i am doing -
So that is the point of this thread - am I wasting money to buy a more expensive card when i am only doing RAID 0 and not RAID 5.