Should I get a RAID PCI Card or not?

[MMMT]

Ok I have searched all around and have not been able to find an answer to this question. I purchased my first motherboard about a month ago. I got a MSI Kt3 Ultra, problem is it does not have RAID built in. Therefore, I was wanting to know should I pick up a RAID PCI Card for my new system or not. I found one and it is a basic RAID card that sounds like it is identical to what is onboard most motherboards. Now my big question is do I really need it?

I got a MAXTOR Quiet Drive 40GB 7200RPM Model # 6L040L2 -D740X , DRIVE ONLY
Specifications:
Size: 40 Gigabytes
Interface: IDE ULTRA ATA133/100
Seek time: 8ms
RPM:7200
Cache 2MB
(Drive alone) 3 Year Manufacturer Warranty QUIET DRIVE - "L" denotes Fluid Dynamic Bearing Motors

My motherboard says this for onboard IDE:


An IDE controller on the VIA® VT8233A chipset provides IDE
HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA 66 / 100/
133 operation modes
- Can connect up to 4 IDE devices

Now I am looking at the fact I will be using this computer for mostly gaming. Now the particular game I play the most, only uses the CD Rom for installation, otherwise it runs off the hard drive. Therefore, what is the difference in performance between running the hard drive as Ultra DMA 133 or putting in a RAID PCI card into it so it can run at ATA 133? Will there be a major difference or is it marginal? Is running your hard drive though a PCI card very hard to set up when building a computer? I know I will think of other questions later but thanks, for any relies to the many questions I have listed.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by MMMT on 08/16/02 10:31 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[MMMT]

Well I guess I will keep bumping this every day until someone can give me an answer to my questions. I guess some people don’t go to much farther then the first page to answer questions. Anyways, once again thanks for any responses to my questions.

 

[slickstaa]

no need at all to buy a raid card for just one hard drive.

<font color=blue> If it ain't broke, don't fix it...tweak it.</font color=blue>

 

[ejsmith2]

"Well I guess I will keep bumping this every day until someone can give me an answer to my questions"

Sorry about that, mate.

Udma, ATA. It's the same difference. I forget which the hell came first, but it's the same thing. Udma mode 5 is called ATA5 sometimes. I think Bell labs started calling their Technology ATA, and Northrop (like the bastard children they are) started calling it DMA to denote their new controller was *somehow* better than BL's.

It's like a newton of force and 1kg*meter/(second^2). Same thing; just one geek callz it different so he's special. Or he makes more money than the other geek. Which is actually a function of the marketing division geeks, who are all just alcoholics that discuss business only above .08 BAC. Anything lower is unacceptable.

Anyways, if you hook up a stripe with another WD drive, *THEN* go out and get a IDE PCI card. You'll get a little boost, and smoother access, with everything on seperate channelz. Having 4 channelz is nice, but not necessary in your case.


C@lling it like I c it...

 

[MMMT]

Thank you for your responces, yes for now I only plan to have one hard drive so I now know there is no need for a RAID PCI card. I will keep it in mind for later if I add another hard drive though. Thanks again

 

[lhgpoobaa]

from reading your post you only have 2 drives, the HDD and the cd-rom. in that case, you really dont need the PCI card.
make the HDD your primary master, and put the cd on the other channel as the secondary master.

P.S. ata133 has virtually no performance benefits over ata100 in single drive environments.

<b>MegaHertz Matters! ... But not without Cache our a decent chipset!!! </b>