The Bottom Line: Secure And Sufficiently Fast
We compared the ARAID 2000 with a Serial ATA RAID controller made by Silicon Image (model Sil3152). We found that in most I/O categories, the Accordance system logs better results than its competition. However, when it comes to application benchmarks and transfer rates, the Silicon Image controller holds a slight edge. The main reason for this is that the Serial ATA interface of the ARAID 2000 is a bottleneck, and we did not manage more than 50 MB/s during our test. That is probably also the reason why the manufacturer does not include RAID 0 support. With the hardware used, additional performance would not be obtainable.
Be that as it may, the performance measured certainly reaches the level that an individual hard drive achieves. The ARAID 2000 is supposed to enable a simple and easy entry into a secure RAID 1 environment, and the manufacturer, no doubt, achieved this goal.
Installation is no problem, even for users with limited hardware skills. You just install the ARAID 2000 into the PC, connect the power and SATA data cables, slide one or two identical drives into the drive bays, and you're ready to go - special drivers are not required. Users who frequently need to create system images of a reference computer (for example, for hard drive duplication in a corporate environment) will find the ARAID 2000 handy, as the backup drive can be changed during operation.
