RAID 1.5 With IDE: Added Value Or Eyewash?

HighPoint HPT372N

We found this controller on two motherboards made by DFI. The LANParty 875 Pro and LANParty KT400A models both have the following chip:

DFI has adorned the IDE RAID controller with an image-laden sticker...

... that conceals familiar technology: a HighPoint HPT372.

Now that we've seen what's underneath, we can put the sticker back in place.

The HPT372 is HighPoint's standard model, as it were. While its big brother, the HPT374, can now handle RAID 5 (without XOR engine) under the current firmware release, HighPoint has all of a sudden decided to transfer its amassed experience in storing parity data to this simpler controller chip. The result is called RAID 1.5. This is the first time that we have ever seen this kind of configuration deployed with only two drives.

  • lifeisstudy
    So RAID 1.5 won't work because the heads of the disk still need to move to the next data block to read... If you skip blocks, you still have to move past them.

    What about RAID 1.5 with Solid State disks. You have nothing to move, yet you can double your read speed with mirroring. Sounds perfect for server caches.
    Reply