# Looking for a sata raid controller



## Lillebror (Dec 25, 2008)

Hey all!

Im looking after a sata raid controller - its gonna be used to build a storage server for all my pictures. Im not looking after something really expensive, just something thats simple and does a good job. Im thinking about installing freenas (http://www.freenas.org/) or Winxp pro on it, so it should work in either of those.


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## BrooksyX (Dec 25, 2008)

Whats wrong with an onboard raid controller?


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## Lillebror (Dec 25, 2008)

Cause they are never as good as a dedicated card


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 25, 2008)

BrooksyX said:


> Whats wrong with an onboard raid controller?



They tend to lack all the functionality you'd want for your RAID array. For your cheap RAID 0 setup they're fine, making an actual array is a different story. This week I tried making a RAID 5 array on one, been regretting it since. Now looking for an actual controller again. My previous doesn't work with the disks, so f you want a 6 port SATA150 133MHz PCI-X controller I have one spare


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## BrooksyX (Dec 25, 2008)

Not always true for cheaper raid cards. 

A cheap card is not going give you any advantage and if its a pci card it will greatly cripple the read/write speeds of the drives.


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## Lillebror (Dec 25, 2008)

I didnt say i wanted a cheap one, just one that is not really expensive. After some reading, im looking for something that does raid 5. And its gonna be used in a desktop motherboard, so either pci-e or pci


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 25, 2008)

BrooksyX said:


> Not always true for cheaper raid cards.
> 
> A cheap card is not going give you any advantage and if its a pci card it will greatly cripple the read/write speeds of the drives.



That's why there is PCI-X/PCIe. 

Your logic applies to basically all hardware, why not use your on board videocard? $30 PCI cards aren't any faster.


Look at Perc 5 cards on ebay.


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## BrooksyX (Dec 26, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> That's why there is PCI-X/PCIe.
> 
> Your logic applies to basically all hardware, why not use your on board videocard? $30 PCI cards aren't any faster.



I see what you are saying, but that is not what i meant at all. A pci raid card is going to be much cheaper than a pci-e version. However the pci but is limited to 133 mps. Greatly hurting the read and write speed.


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## Lillebror (Dec 26, 2008)

Its gonna be used as a file server, not a render\i-need-a-million-byts-a-second machine


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## BrooksyX (Dec 26, 2008)

Lillebror said:


> Its gonna be used as a file server, not a render\i-need-a-million-byts-a-second machine



True but you don't want to create a future bottleneck just in case you decide to do more with it. Plus SSD drives are starting to come down in price and in crease in speed. Just might want to take this into consideration.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 26, 2008)

BrooksyX said:


> I see what you are saying, but that is not what i meant at all. A pci raid card is going to be much cheaper than a pci-e version. However the pci but is limited to 133 mps. Greatly hurting the read and write speed.



For network usage it's not even that bad (unless the NIC is on the PCI bus as well). Though nobody who does their homework and is serious about making a nice array will use PCI. Same as a serious gamer who does his homework won't buy some low end videocard. 

Considering it will be used to store pictures over network the 133MB/s limit won't be _that_ bad. If budget would be an issue an older PCI card or PCI-X card in a PCI slot would do the job. All depends on budget and usage.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 26, 2008)

BrooksyX said:


> True but you don't want to create a future bottleneck just in case you decide to do more with it. Plus SSD drives are starting to come down in price and in crease in speed. Just might want to take this into consideration.



How is an SSD related to a RAID array?


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## Lillebror (Dec 26, 2008)

Ssd's are way to expensive in denmark! I just need a sata raid controller so i can run raid 5, with some small disk, until i get money to get some larger disks


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## BrooksyX (Dec 26, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> How is an SSD related to a RAID array?



Nothing, other than the fact that they can be put into raid just like traditional HDDs. I am just saying that they are always an option if you do need speed and extra reliability. But considering he doesn't need speed traditional HDDs are fine.


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## Woody112 (Dec 26, 2008)

Lillebror said:


> Hey all!
> 
> Im looking after a sata raid controller - its gonna be used to build a storage server for all my pictures. Im not looking after something really expensive, just something thats simple and does a good job. Im thinking about installing freenas (http://www.freenas.org/) or Winxp pro on it, so it should work in either of those.



Give us a budget and well see what we can dig up for ya.


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## Lillebror (Dec 26, 2008)

Something around 100-200$


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 26, 2008)

Since you use small disks, why not buy two 750/1000GB disks and put them in RAID 1 using the onboard controller instead? You can do that for under $200, 1TB disks are under $100.


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## Lillebror (Dec 26, 2008)

Sadly, 1 tb disks are not under 100 in denmark.. and i got 3x 400 gig sata disks laying around, so i was thinking about ordering 2 more, and a sata raid controller to add em up in a raid 5


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 26, 2008)

Lillebror said:


> Sadly, 1 tb disks are not under 100 in denmark.. and i got 3x 400 gig sata disks laying around, so i was thinking about ordering 2 more, and a sata raid controller to add em up in a raid 5



I'm sticking with my PERC5 suggestion then. Just make sure you get the right cabling with it.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 26, 2008)

First, the topic at hand: 

I use a HighPoint RocketRAID 2300.  It is a great little card, and seems to have drivers for most everything.  Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX, and Windows(x86 and x64) are all supported.

I went with it for several reasons.  It is PCI-e x1, but if you want there is a PCI-e x4 version(2310) that is identical and uses the same drivers even, but I wanted the compatibility of PCI-e x1.  I have it plugged into one of my PCI-e x16 slots right now though.

Also, it is rather inexpensive, about $115 USD, but not bottom of the line either.  It does have a minor issue.  There is no option to adjust the time out for detecting driver when booting.  So it adds about 30 seconds to the boot-up of the machine if you don't have all 4 ports filled with drives.  Other than that, I haven't had a problem with it.



BrooksyX said:


> Whats wrong with an onboard raid controller?



Several things really.  The biggest one is that you are screwed if you upgrade your motherboard, unless you are upgrading to a board that has the same RAID controller on it(which is unlikely with an upgrade).  RAID 1 usually doesn't have a problem with this, but RAID 0 and 5 both do.  When you switch out the motherboard, you lose your data.  Dedicated cards don't have this problem, you just plug the dedicated card into the new motherboard and all your data is there.



BrooksyX said:


> Not always true for cheaper raid cards.
> 
> A cheap card is not going give you any advantage and if its a pci card it will greatly cripple the read/write speeds of the drives.



It depends on the onboard card and the dedicated card used.  Some onboard cards perform like utter crap, and cheaper dedicated cards suffer the same problem.



BrooksyX said:


> I see what you are saying, but that is not what i meant at all. A pci raid card is going to be much cheaper than a pci-e version. However the pci but is limited to 133 mps. Greatly hurting the read and write speed.



Not true, there are a lot of PCI RAID cards that are more expensive than PCI-e RAID cards.



BrooksyX said:


> True but you don't want to create a future bottleneck just in case you decide to do more with it. Plus SSD drives are starting to come down in price and in crease in speed. Just might want to take this into consideration.



Yes, but SSDs still have a limitted life cycle, RAID in this situation is for data longevity the exact opposite of what SSDs provide.  Your logic is sound, it just doesn't apply to this situation.


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## Woody112 (Dec 26, 2008)

Here's a high point for ya from the egg..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115027


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## Lillebror (Dec 26, 2008)

Woody112 said:


> Here's a high point for ya from the egg..
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115027



That looks like a great card! and its in my price range here in denmark too!  yay for that!


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 26, 2008)

http://www.webconnexxion.com/raid/p...d=716&osCsid=2f4827c7ee525d7fa80eb6b278bb7984

Was looking at the highpoint, eventually came here. Seems to be a nice inexpensive card with good reviews.
Apart from that, that store lists RAID controllers quite nicely, ie you can select interface and sort by price. Many stores are less friendly when looking for a nice controller. I might buy something there.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 26, 2008)

Woody112 said:


> Here's a high point for ya from the egg..
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115027



Yep, thats the PCI-e x4 version of my card.


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## Lillebror (Dec 26, 2008)

Asus P5QPL-VM, G41, Socket-775, DDR2, m-ATX, GbLAN, PCI-Ex(2.0)x16
Cooler Master Elite 333, Sort, Midi tower
Corsair Powersupply 400W, 120mm Fans 6xSATA, ATX/EPS, 1xPCI-E, 20/24pin
Corsair TWIN2X 6400C4 DDR2, 2048MB CL4, Kit w/two 1024MB XMS, 800MHz Dimm`s
HighPoint RocketRAID 2310 4P SATA II/300 RAID5, NCQ, PCI Express x4
Intel Pentium® Dual-Core E2200 2.2GHz, Socket LGA775, 1MB, 800MHz

Ive ended up with this stuff for the file server - does it sounds okay..?


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## nia (Dec 26, 2008)

Hi.

I'm also from Denmark, and bought the RaidCore BC4852 (rerefenced in the test sheet in the link above) for more or less the same reasons as you a year or more ago.

It runs brilliantly with 6*400GB disks, and recently survived simply being moved from an older P4 Nvidia-chipset MSI board based machine (that died), to a P45 ASRock board with a Core2-8400. 

Plug and play. RAID 5 array fully funtional and intact available in the new machine. Held my breath - but it was all worth not going with the MoBo based solutions to thee the whole 2 TB in the new machine 

I might part from it if you'r interested... PM me if you are.


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## Woody112 (Dec 26, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Yep, thats the PCI-e x4 version of my card.



Think I might have to get me one of those now. This ICH9R controller on my x48 board sucks. After doing some research that PCI-e x4 looks like a good candidate for a controller.
Just curious how much of an improvement I'll see from it.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 26, 2008)

nia said:


> Hi.
> 
> I'm also from Denmark, and bought the RaidCore BC4852 (rerefenced in the test sheet in the link above) for more or less the same reasons as you a year or more ago.
> 
> ...




Good to know, I ordered it  Seems to offer the best value for the price (all cheaper controllers having only 4 ports or being software based). It also has no problems with 2TB+ arrays.
I hope they ship it monday and I received it Tuesday/Wednesday.


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