Cheap RAID 5 controller recomendations please

[catnhat]

Originally Posted by lowfat

It is an HBA. However it definitely isn't a hardware RAID card. It has no I/O processor. It has no cache. I guess software RAID isn't the right word, 'Fake RAID' may be better.

Based on this logic, does that mean the RAID controllers on mother boards are considered non hardware RAID? for example Intel ICH93R.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by catnhat

Based on this logic, does that mean the RAID controllers on mother boards are considered non hardware RAID? for example Intel ICH93R.

Correct. They are also 'fake' RAID cards.

[catnhat]

Thanks for the info. That would explain why my RAID 0+1 off the ICH93R provided marginal performance improvements.

[lcdguy]

Originally Posted by lowfat

Correct. They are also 'fake' RAID cards.

But they are very good fake raid controllers.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by lcdguy

But they are very good fake raid controllers.

I use a RAID card w/ the same marvell chipset. Can't do much more than 160MB/s off of it. If I knew it was only capable of that I would have bought the PCIe x1 version of the card instead of the x4.

EDIT: We are talking about the ICH10R? Well in that case is is pretty damn swell.

[lcdguy]

Originally Posted by lowfat

Correct. They are also 'fake' RAID cards.

Originally Posted by lowfat

I use a RAID card w/ the same marvell chipset. Can't do much more than 160MB/s off of it. If I knew it was only capable of that I would have bought the PCIe x1 version of the card instead of the x4.

EDIT: We are talking about the ICH10R? Well in that case is is pretty damn swell.

i would say yes since that's what i run my boot array on.

[catnhat]

Since this thread got its first response I have been watching ebay on Perc 5i cards. I am a little confused on part numbers. There seems to be a number of different part numbers that are all Perc 5i. Most of these sellers aren't providing enough detail on the specs for me to make a decision.

Are all perc 5i cards the same? for example there are part numbers GT281, HN359, MY412, YF437, etc.

I have tried to find them on Dell's site, but with no luck.

Thanks in advance.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by catnhat

Since this thread got its first response I have been watching ebay on Perc 5i cards. I am a little confused on part numbers. There seems to be a number of different part numbers that are all Perc 5i. Most of these sellers aren't providing enough detail on the specs for me to make a decision.

Are all perc 5i cards the same? for example there are part numbers GT281, HN359, MY412, YF437, etc.

I have tried to find them on Dell's site, but with no luck.

Thanks in advance.

AFAIK they are all the same. Just make sure the one you buy has a PCI bracket. A lot of them do not.

[ipaine]

Originally Posted by lowfat

You need the same sized drives in RAID5 as well.

This is another piece of mis-information. You can have different sized drives for raid 5, of course it is not really worth it. The thing is all of the drives will only use the same amount of space as the smallest drive. For example I currently have a raid 5 running and it is using 3 200GB drives and 1 250GB drive, but that 250GB drive will only acts as a 200GB drive.

[catnhat]

Thanks for the info. I guess what I was hoping for was an array that behaved like a JBOD but had parity in case one drive would fail. I would also like to just be able to add drives as capacity is needed and always buy the current biggest drive to maximize storage.

Doesn't sound like RAID5 would do that for me.

From what I was able to figure out: what I was originally looking for was developed by Drobo in their "BeyondRAID" format. unfortunately its not widespread and I am not paying that kinda money for a Drobo box.