Opinions of this HardDrive?

[ShaidarHaran]

suryad:
are you using the software RAID provided by your motherboard or do you have a dedicated PCI-e card?
What sort of average and maximum throughput numbers do you see?

 

[suryad]

suryad:
are you using the software RAID provided by your motherboard or do you have a dedicated PCI-e card?
What sort of average and maximum throughput numbers do you see?

I am using raid built in on my motherboard so it is hardware raid and not some separate raid card (which would be awesome if I did not have an xfi sound card). I ran HDTune or whatever that software is called and I got the following:
Min: 140.2 MB/s
Max:214.4 MB/s
Avg: 170.1 MB/s
Acc time: 7.1 ms
Burst rate: 174 MB/s

 

[thehulk]

I am using raid built in on my motherboard so it is hardware raid and not some separate raid card (which would be awesome if I did not have an xfi sound card). I ran HDTune or whatever that software is called and I got the following:
Min: 140.2 MB/s
Max:214.4 MB/s
Avg: 170.1 MB/s
Acc time: 7.1 ms
Burst rate: 174 MB/s

Built in RAID on your mobo is software RAID.

 

[suryad]

Built in RAID on your mobo is software RAID.

Wha? I find that hard to believe because I have a separate BIOS and all that for my raid chip. So threws a builtin raid controller on my pc. Well either way its FAST! Heres my mobo: http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/132-CK-NF78.pdf

 

[BRiT]

No. He is correct. That is Software Raid. It'll be painfully obvious if you try using Raid-5. Raid-0 and Raid-1 don't need as much hardware support as Raid-5 does.

Nice specs on your raid-0 array, though your access times look obscenely high. Then again I'm running a SSD.

 

[suryad]

No. He is correct. That is Software Raid. It'll be painfully obvious if you try using Raid-5. Raid-0 and Raid-1 don't need as much hardware support as Raid-5 does.

Nice specs on your raid-0 array, though your access times look obscenely high. Then again I'm running a SSD.

Oh interesting! I learn something new everyday.

Yeah I thought about getting an Intel xtreme 64 gb but then I figured its just ridiculous to pay that much for it so I settled with the next best thing.

 

[Davros]

Built in RAID on your mobo is software RAID.

Are you sure about that (or are you referring specifically to his mobo)

My mobo has Intel ICH7R southbridge raid and I can understand that being software raid
but it also has a JMicron JMB363 controller and a Silicon Image Raid controller surely they must be hardware ?

 

[nutball]

but it also has a JMicron JMB363 controller and a Silicon Image Raid controller surely they must be hardware ?

Not really. Even a lot of cheap PCI/PCIE add-in RAID cards aren't truly hardware RAID.

Google for fakeraid, see what you make of the results.

 

[Davros]

if they are all software why go with controllers from 3 different companies

 

[nutball]

What's software, what's firmware, what's hardware?

 

[Davros]

it appears the silicon image controller is hardware

 

[nutball]

Hardware in what sense?

It can't do parity RAID, it can't do double-digit RAID.

As was stated above, RAID0 and RAID1 are trivial, they have a trivial impact on the host controller, be that the CPU or the silly little ASIC "hardware RAID controller".

Can it do RAID5/6, and moreover can it boot the operating system from a RAID5/6 volume?

 

[Davros]

Hardware in the sense that it doesnt use the cpu
"Silicon Image’s SiI 4723 SteelVine Storage Processor no drivers, host software or BIOS extensions are required"

 

[nutball]

"Silicon Image’s SiI 4723 SteelVine Storage Processor no drivers, host software or BIOS extensions are required"

And it does RAID0 and RAID1, but not parity RAID?

Why bother?

 

[ShaidarHaran]

And it does RAID0 and RAID1, but not parity RAID?

Why bother?

Because its target market is clearly consumer PCs and consumer PCs don't need RAID capability beyond basic stripe and mirror.

 

[nutball]

Because its target market is clearly consumer PCs and consumer PCs don't need RAID capability beyond basic stripe and mirror.

*shrugs* OK. Do they need RAID capability at all then?

 

[MfA]

It has 2 ports ... stripe and mirror are the only relevant options. It's in there because the manufacturing cost to implement it is effectively nil.

I wouldn't always assume chipset RAID-5 is software RAID either ... the primary difference with good RAID cards is that those do more write caching so they get better performance. Although without the battery backup installed (usually optional) they are actually cheating a bit by doing this (reduces reliability on crashes).

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

*shrugs* OK. Do they need RAID capability at all then?

It increases performance over a single drive. Power users with a couple of drives to link together can find it gives a useful boost on what is by far the slowest bottleneck for the average PC.

I doubt most home users would go for five drives for a full RAID-5 setup, so it's probably not economic to supply that capability built onto the motherboard.

 

[Davros]

plus its very noob friendly plug in 2 hdd's and thats it. no bios settings and no software to install
or change the jumper to fast as asus label it for raid 1

 

[MfA]

I doubt most home users would go for five drives for a full RAID-5 setup

Works from 3 drives up.