Doesn't that just get you the benefits of raid 1 but with less than a 50% 'loss' of potential capacity? For the OP, I'd imagine the requirement for a larger number of drives might be off putting
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I'm trying to learn about the practical benefits & problems of raid, so hope you don't mind a few questions...
Are you saying the lack of security is down to the 'crappy' raid implementation of most/all mobo onboard solutions?
What is it that isn't liked? Are all of these (of interest to me are ICH8R & ICH9R) hardware/software hybrids? I'm guessing yes & that's the reason for your earlier chicken & egg comments.
What are your concerns? Inadequate benefits through inefficient implementation or high failures rates & recovery problems?
Recommend any hardware options?
Depends on how many drives you use. I use 6 and there is still the drive space of 5 of them.
As you say though, RAID 5 is no good for the OP, I read the post as he had 4 drives and not 2 :)
On mine, the read speeds arent far off what they are on RAID 0, but the write speeds are a fair bit less.
Theres a HDTach/HDtune thread with plenty of info about RAID kicking about somewhere.
Indeed, as only one stores the parity data.
Less than write speeds of raid 0 or a non-raid setup?Quote:
On mine, the read speeds arent far off what they are on RAID 0, but the write speeds are a fair bit less.
I'll have another look. I have already read some threads but probably didn't bookmark them.Quote:
Theres a HDTach/HDtune thread with plenty of info about RAID kicking about somewhere.
to respond to your questions.
1.) the solutions on your motherboards aren't real raid solutions. In that they require an OS driver to manage the disks You comment about the chicken and the egg situation is spot on.
2.) look at the price of it a 4 port genuine raid card costs what, £150-ish your getting a board with 6 SATA ports on it for £130 something has to give and its quality. So all the talk about performance can be potentially negated by perhaps not the best pysical implimentation.
The failure rates are down to the actual drives really, but again home implimentations won't use the same quality drives as a general rule of thumb as say business systems that would more likley benifit from raid.
Its like buying a a Porche Boxter, its a great value item (your board) and will perfom well for you, but its not a 911. Trying to make it perform like a 911 just won't happen, or trying to impliment some of the specifications of a 911 onto you boxter....sure you CAN, but it will never quite be as professional or solid as buying one straight from the factory. I'm just using that as an easy example of great value against true meant for purpose kit. Great value doesn't mean cheap - it just means not quite as high end fit for purpose.
So relying on onboard raid for redundancy might not be a great idea, but when it comes to performance, onboard raid 0 might still be worthwhile, if not as good as with an higher quality solution? That's making the assumption performance is on more of a continuum & some benefit might be worthwhile at low cost, whereas with data integrity there's a cut off point below which it's not worth bothering.
Not at all.
Just because they are not 'real' RAID solutions, doesn't mean they are not worthwhile.
The RAID on the Intel chipsets is actually very good for a home system, certainly one of the best out there. High-point are also another good company for home RAID solutions. Stay away from anything based on a silicon image chip, though.
'Real' RAID cards cost £££, and are not aimed towards the home user. As much as Ikonia is right, buying such a card for a home system is an overkill.
If you have important data that you can not afford to loose, then RAID 1 with either an Intel based chipset that supports RAID, or a High-point card would be a good choice. Always remember though that they will only ever protect you from a drive failing - Thats it, nothing more.
Accidental deletion, Fire, Floods, or a virus wiping out your data will still land you in a world of hurt. If its that important you need to use it in conjunction with an off-site backup :)
Thanks for the comments. I'll bear them in mind. There seems to be quite a lot of varied but strong opinions about in respect of RAID.
motherboard failing = probably al oss of raid too when you replace it don't forget.
ICH8R and ICH9R are apparently :)