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A good sata/ide raid card?

Discussion in 'Other Hardware' started by diz_guy, Sep 10, 2007.

  1. diz_guy Newcomer, in training

    Hi, I bought a VIA 6421 chipset raid card, apparently it has been sucking for me. I tried booting up my computer today and yesterday, it doesn't detect the card.
    Would it be my motherboard or the card? I'm planning on getting a new motherboard anyways WITH sata/ide and raid included.

    Also, if I get the new motherboard and put the hard drives in, would I have to format because it doesn't detect the raid? For ex, if I got a new raid card would I have to format the drives because I'd have to make a new array?

    Thanks. :D

    (PS im looking for a dfi lanparty nf2 board if anyone has one for sale)
    diz_guy, Sep 10, 2007
    #1

  2. Nodsu Newcomer, in training Posts: 9,431

    Pretty much all integrated SATA controllers suck unless you buy a high end workstation motherboard :) In my experience, Silicon Image is the worst SATA "RAID" chip maker.

    Yes, as a rule, fakeraid controllers have model-specific configuration information and they don't work with arrays created by some other controller.
    Nodsu, Sep 11, 2007
    #2

  3. jobeard TS Ambassador Posts: 12,218   +120

    IF you really need a raid solution AND you're looking to purchase a new card to
    support it, then go for the best solution -- SCSI raid cards.

    If you think the controller and a pair of scsi HDs are too expensive, then
    (imo) you really do not need a raid solution.

    ALL webservers (ok, I haven't surveyed every one of them :) ) that use raid
    will opt for hot-swappable scsi implementations.
    jobeard, Sep 11, 2007
    #3

  4. diz_guy Newcomer, in training

    okay, so let me sum this up.. you guys are saying raid integregated into mobos are not as good as those pci/scsi raid cards right?
    diz_guy, Sep 11, 2007
    #4

  5. jobeard TS Ambassador Posts: 12,218   +120

    BINGO! absolutely correct.
    jobeard, Sep 11, 2007
    #5

  6. Nodsu Newcomer, in training Posts: 9,431

    Mind you, SCSI hard drives are for server use and are very, very, very noisy (but fast and reliable).

    This is a really good page: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

    The controllers labelled "real hardware RAID" are good. The ones named "fakeraid" are bad.
    Nodsu, Sep 12, 2007
    #6
     

  7. jobeard TS Ambassador Posts: 12,218   +120

    Today this may be true, but until just a few years ago, all Macintoshs came
    only with scsi drives.
    says who? I've had several and not had any such 'noise'. The cooling fan from
    the system was all that was ever heard
    jobeard, Sep 12, 2007
    #7

  8. Nodsu Newcomer, in training Posts: 9,431

    And whan was that? 10 years ago?
    Today, there are no SCSI drives below 10000RPM and those things sound like jet engines :)
    Nodsu, Sep 12, 2007
    #8

  9. jobeard TS Ambassador Posts: 12,218   +120

    Today Macs are shipping only with IDEs, but that doesn't mean scsi is dead.
    You can still get scsi cards/drives for all PowerPC Macs -- it's only the Intel systems
    that dropped the support.
    jobeard, Sep 12, 2007
    #9
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