Help picking out a SATA RAID controler

[G3rain1]

I'm cant seem to find a card that meats my requirements.

I'm building a NAS box out of spare parts. I have everything,Ordered 2 500GB Segates. But the thing the MB's on board SATA controller only SATA1 and the drives are SATA2. The MB is a Asus A7N8X-D. Is the RAID on its controller software or hardware?

What card should I get, there's a lot of confusing info out there. I would be looking for something that is full hardware RAID 1 support, regular PCI interface, SATA II with a minimum of 2 internal ports. And can configure the array from the cards BIOS.

Would it even be beneficial to buy an add in controller, or go with the on board controler?

 

[mike99]

If your network runs at 100Mb/s that is less than 10MB/s(MBytes/s), so SATAI SATAII doesn't matter. In fact, RAID0 will be a waste of time, and just make loss of data more likely. Just build it as is and see how fast you can transfer data.

Mike.

 

[G3rain1]

I want RAID1 not RAID0.

If I build it with the on-board controller and then decide its insufficient would it be possible to migrate the array to a new controller and preserve the data?

 

[G3rain1]

> I would be looking for something that is full hardware RAID 1 support, regular PCI interface, SATA II with a minimum of 2 internal ports. And can configure the array from the cards BIOS.


We had good luck installing a Promise TX4310
on a PGA-478 machine we built as a birthday gift
for a friend. That RAID controller appears
to satisfy your needs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102080

Some of the reviewers report that this is not true hardware RAID. Is there any hard and fast way to tell if a card is hardware RAID or not. The manufactures never seem too forthcoming with that information.