RAID Card - Yes, No, Maybe?

[AmuseMe]

I am wondering about these [PCI] RAID cards/ controllers and I found myself asking "What do they do? Do I want one?" So now I an here asking what the bennifits are of these RAID controllers? Would picking one up bennifit over my motherboards SATA?

Oh yea - it would be for two SSDs' possibly three or four in the future.

[MarkOne]

if you by a good one like Adapted or Highpoint it make all the difference, those card are $ 400- 500 and up ( and It's for a 3Gg, i don't check the price of the 6G ) ...... they have a build in CPU and memory, so they remove the load on the CPU, raid 5 especially put a lot of load on the cpu.. now I see no use to put 4 SSD in raid 0 , if it's why you think about, 2 will be more than enough, and your motherboard will handle it . but with 4 ssd , you better to get a 6g controller,

[Squeetard]

What are your mobo specs?

The ich10r chipset is good to 650mbs, others less. I have 3 vertex 60gb's in raid0 and they hit 600. If you go 4 you'll need one or if you have a crappy onboard raid.

[gingerbee]

+1 to what squeetard is on about. don't buy a software one if you do buy one. I happy with my ichr10 speed so far

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by MarkOne

if you by a good one like Adapted or Highpoint it make all the difference, those card are $ 400- 500 and up ( and It's for a 3Gg, i don't check the price of the 6G ) ...... they have a build in CPU and memory, so they remove the load on the CPU, raid 5 especially put a lot of load on the cpu.. now I see no use to put 4 SSD in raid 0 , if it's why you think about, 2 will be more than enough, and your motherboard will handle it . but with 4 ssd , you better to get a 6g controller,

Adaptec is ok.. Highpoint is garbage.

Areca is good.

There is a lot more to a raid card than cpu load being taken off.

RAID cards provide TRUE hardware RAID unlike your motherboard which is only software.

I really won't go into all the differences as a simple google search will yield a lot of results of software vs hardware RAID

[AmuseMe]

Maybe I'll only ever stick with two SSDs' in RAID 0. I can see that three plus is a little much for me personally. So if I stick with just two, I an sure that my mobo's controller is enough? (Rampage Extreme x48)

[ayah]

You're going to also need to give the controller an x4 or x8 PCI-E slot for bandwidth. (For decent controllers)
I really don't think you're going to get anything special in comparison to your mobo's setup right now. (2 drives)

If you go with 3-4 drive raid 5, 6, 0+1, 10, etc. etc. You're going to want a hardware controller. I <3 Areca controllers (Unless you're cheap, then you can get an OEM controller, but with that many SSDs, I sense you're not)

[lcdguy]

if your only doing either raid 1 or 0 then don't bother. If you want some more like raid modes 5, 6, 10, 50, etc. Then in vest in a raid card. Also if you want to use a SAS expander you will definitely need a SAS enabled raid card. Cards from Adaptec, 3ware, Areca or LSI are all good cards. Don't waste your money on highpoint.

[AmuseMe]

Okay, well it looks like I wont be grabbing one then. Thanks HWC

[lcdguy]

how ever if you don't mind a bit of modding and ever decide you need more space i recommend a second hand dell perc 5/i or 6/i excellent cards and usually fairly cheap (i got mine for $125USD incl battery backup)