Which RAID controller do I choose?

Hi forum. I'm waiting for my Asus P9X79-E WS board to arrive this week and I will be using RAID 0 with a separate daily backup drive for it. Before I can afford high end RAID controllers like the Areca etc, I will have to use the onboard controllers. It comes with the options below, which do I choose? I will be raiding two Seagate 3tb 7200rpm drives for editing. I have 3 SSDs for the rest, like os/cache etc...
Intel® X79 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), white
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
Marvell® PCIe 9230 controller :
4 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), white
Support Raid 0, 1, 10
ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller :
2 x eSATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
Support port multiplier support
Product Page:
Motherboards - P9X79-E WS

This is not an answer to your question but I just found a way around the SATA III port limitation with an extremely high speed RAID equivalent that does not require a SATA inteface and is not a RAID configuration. It is a new small PCIe interface card that delivers in any system that has a spare PCIe x4 connector with two available lane to over 700 MB/seconds read operation and over 530 MB/seconds in write operations. All it requires is a PCIe version 2 x4 connector. See below:for tests on my old x58 motherboard.
These are real performance numbers equivalent to a RAID 0 array of 3 to 4 high performance hard disk drives. Of course you do not have the capacity of the hard drive array but by moving past projects to slower drives and reusing the 256 or 512 GB ($300 USD/ $600 USD) SSD drives you maintain the performance. These drives are warranted for 5 years. Actually tested with our PPBM6/7 benchmark with export of our Adobe Premiere Pro Disk I/O timeline I have a measured write rate of 561 MB/second.

Similar Messages

Which RAID Configuration for my WD "My Book Mirror Edition"?

About to reformat my WD "My Book Mirror Edition" to use on my iMac. I hope to also install on my iMac "Virtual Box", "VM Fusion", or "Parallels" and then run a few windows products. Which RAID configuration should I choose in the WD "drive configurations" box?

If I were you I'd run any Virtual Machine directly on your iMac, not on a "WD My Book Mirror Edition", in particular not when connected through USB 2.0.
To store data, the WD is fine.
For the RAID options:
RAID 0 ("striping") : if you want something fast (insofar this is possible with a USB connection). Note that when one of your disks fails you can say goodbye to all your data.
RAID 1 ("mirroring"): more safe. If one disk fails, the data are recoverable as they are on the other disk as well. Disadvantage is you get only half the storage capacity compared to RAID 0.
Oh. my personal recommendation: RAID 1 is not an alternative to making a backup. So whatever option you choose: if you store valuable data on the disk that are nowehere else: back them up!
On formats:
HFS+ : definitely recommended if you only use the RAID array on the Mac.
FAT 32: if you also use it on a Windows machine. Note that files cannot be larger than 4 GB in this case.
Hope this helps.
Eric

C-220M3 RAID controller

Hello,
Cisco people has told me C-220M3 has to mandatory bring a RAID controller in it if you configure one HDD...actually Dynamic Configuration Tool doesn't let me configure a C220M3 server with one HDD if I don't add a RAID controller. I'm trying to find a technical explanation for that...as I recall, the old C-200M2 can be configured with one HDD and without any RAID controller at all, and that doesn't pose any problems.
Any inputs on that?
Thanks,

Hi Dani,
the C200 server has a in-build RAID controller which you could use. However on a C220 there are no similar integrated modules available and you need to choose either a mezz or a PCI (LSI) RAID controller for RAID configuration.
here is the chapter from the configuration guide:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/hw/C220/install/raid.html
Thanks!
./abhinav

G5 Xserve Harware RAID controller - do all drives have to be connected?

Hi,
I am installing a hardware RAID controller into a G5 Xserve. The machine has three drives in it - one 80 GB drive module that has just the operating system installed on it, and two 500 GB drive modules that are currently configured as a RAID 1 array via software. I am aware that I have to reformat the drives after installing the RAID controller, and I have taken appropriate steps for backing the data up. My question, however, is if I will have to attach all three drives to the RAID controller, or whether I can leave the 80 GB module separate (the preferred configuration). Thanks.

Watch out for the firmware bug on the Apple Hardware RAID - doesn't always fully flush write caches on graceful power down (disconnects from the drives before the caches are fully flushed). I turned in a RADAR bug report in November 2005 (RADAR # 4350243), still open. It was a very difficult bug to pin down and create a reproducible test case - causes mystery garbage blocks from space, especially hard to get reproducible results because of the way RAID 5 works on reads. LSI Logic fixed this bug after Apple's code split from the LSI firmware code (the Apple Hardware RAID card is a rebranded LSI Logic megaraid card with Apple firmware), but it seems unlikely that Apple will ever fix this bug because the Xserve G5 and Apple Hardware RAID card are both EOL.
Only known workaround of which I am aware is to disable write cache on all LUNs.
Russ
Xserve G5 2.0 GHz 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8) Apple Hardware RAID, ATTO UL4D, Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u

Shopping For A RAID Controller

I have seen the Areca brand name on here many times, so I assume they are the best for what we do. But, there are so many models that I have no idea what to look for. I probably won't ever have more than 4 or 6 storage drives plus an SSD system drive. Maybe a couple of external drives and an NAS.
If I have Windows 7 64-bit
i7-2600k processor
ASUS P8P67 Pro motherboard
32 GB RAM 1600
GeForce GTX 580 Amp! from Zotac
AX850 PSU from Corsair
Every component is reasonably fast, bu I am sick of the senseless limitations of this mootherboard. My drives are aging so they need to be replaced.
Which specs are important for video editing? Which brand and models are most popular and shoould I wait for some new release?
Another thought - If a RAID controller is over $400 US, Is it more cost-effective to upgrade to a more capable motherboard/processor with all the ports I need?

What to look for
Brand
Areca or LSI
Ports
8 or more
Card
PCIe-3.0 8x
Cache
512 MB or more
Multi-lane
SFF-8087/8088
Examples
Areca ARC-1882 series or LSI MegaRAID 9285
Warning: You have to realize that on your motherboard adding a dedicated raid controller will entail that your video card will throttle down from PCIe-16x to PCIe-8x mode, resulting in a 10 - 15% performance penalty, due to limitations of the chipset. A dedicated raid controller, especially with around 6 disks always outperforms an on-board raid by a wide margin. To see some benchmark results, look here: Reflections
To see what meets your requirements, also consider the raid level you want to use. If raid3 or raid30, then LSI is out. You can check out what controllers are popular here: Detailed Results but you have to be registered and logged in to access the page.

Solaris 10 on an HP DL180 G6 server with P410 Raid Controller.

This is an informational post to try and save people some of the pain that my colleague Joe and I have just gone through to get Solaris 10 installed!
The DL180 G6 is an interesting box. It uses the latest Nehalem processors, and can support up to 12 x 3.5" old school high density 15k RPM drives. This is pretty unique in the industry. However, here is what you need to know -
- The P410 raid controller must have memory if you want to present all 12 drives down as JBOD to solaris to be managed via ZFS. i.e. order the P410/256. If you order the P410/ZM you will only be able to create a maximum of 2 arrays which will be seen as disks by Solaris.
- The P410 requires a driver that doesn't exist on the DL180 G6 driver page at HP. If you look under the DL585 G6 page you will find the solaris driver you need. [HP DL585 G6 storage driver page|http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3949980&prodNameId=3949981&swEnvOID=2023&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-f490e7c0f736457c92229f7e8c]
- The network card is a NC362i. This is intel based and referenced by this Solaris patch - [patch ID = 138175-02|http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-138175-02-1]. The latest solaris 10 release (u7) doesnt contain the drivers for this card. You will have to add this patch separately. When added and recofigure rebooted etc etc, the device can be plumbed as igb0.
Hopefully this helps someone out!
Edited by: foobar50 on Jul 31, 2009 8:27 AM

Hi, try this out - it helped me some time ago:
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5081926
HTH,

Hi, we have a G5 Blade server running OS X 10.5.8 with a dual Fibre Channel card. The OS does not read the card and cannot establish connection to the RAID controller. I have tried to move the card to another port with no luck. Ran all the updated softwar

Hi, we have a G5 Blade server running OS X 10.5.8 with adual Fibre Channel card. The OS does not read the card and cannot establishconnection to the RAID controller.
I have tried to move the card to another port with no luck.Ran all the updated software possible. Please can someone advice

Hi,
Was the card previously working in that machine? If it was and you have a G5 tower you could try the card in there. Here is a list of Apple fibre cards and cables which show what's compatible with what. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1769
The card should appear in the System Profiler under Fibre Channel and PCI Cards.
All the best
Beatle

PPC G5 compatibility of Areca PCIE RAID controller arc-1280?

Subject: Mac compatibility of Areca ARC-1280 24 ports PCI Express to SATA II RAID adapter.
At Areca's Internet site ( www.areca.com.tw) consumers can read at pages concerning arc-1280 card that: « The SATA RAID controllers support broad operating systems including ... MAC ... ».
At Specifications page, under: Operating system, it is written: « Mac OS X (no_bootable) ».
Absolutely no other warning appear about MAC owners.
So, if you are just a basic computer consumer, you are now strongly tempted to believe that if you got a MAC with PCIExpress technology & OS X, you can safely buy arc 1280 PCIE.
This is because (nearly) everyone knows that in real pragmatic actual life OS X exclusively runs on Apple Mac machines. In the case of arc-1280, as it is a PCIExpress adapter, only two Apple Mac models are possible: the very recent MACPro (Intel cpu based) & late 2005 PPC G5 dualcore (IBM cpu based). As Areca mentions nowhere any warning between MACPro & G5 dualcore, only owners of either of those PCIE machines may logically have the opportunity to run OS X with an arc-1280 connected!
If you are a little bit more paranoïd, before to buy such an expensive adapter, you will check if there are other stuffs to confirm your deductions. You then will find Areca's online user's manual 3.2, where it is stated that a bios configuration utility, contained into card's firmware, is « OS independant » & can be accessed at startup by pressing TAB or F6. About « MAC X » driver installation, user is invited to follow a readme.txt (that in fact does not exist nowhere). It is the same for archttp proxy server installation, which is also asserted to support Mac OS.
Moreover, a Mac driver is freely downloadable online, called arcmsr-1.3.1.pkg. Now you are ready to trust!
Having arc-1280 plugged, you start your Mac (happy to hear that card beep after startup) then install driver (the same is present online & on Areca's companion CD). A text appear:
« This driver supports...arc 1280...PCIE... Please note that this is a pre-release version of the driver for testing purpose, and is *NOT * for general distribution. ». But installation completes succesfully and you pay no attention to this frightening sentence hidden into Areca's driver package.
What then arise when you have your computer restarted? Nothing: except the beep at startup, Areca's high end Raid controller simply do not appear anywhere into Mac OS X!
As I cannot afford paying more than 1200 euro for just a startup beep, I decided to require help from distributor & Areca's very enigmatic support. Lastly distributor decided to try with another arc-1280 which was as useless on my Mac than the first one. I again protested, Areca's support seeming to have totally resign for quite a lot of time now, distributor blaming me not to have been carefull enough ?!
Distributor ask me now to re-send back the card. They will try to get their money back from Areca, then maybe will I have my money back ? They asked me to write a letter with a description of the problem & why I want a full refund.
This is now done, hoping this will help to avoid further misinformation.

MacGurus PCIE which are supported.
I saw the Areca reviewed xbitlabs
AMUG http://www.amug.com does great reviews of Mac compatible drives, enclosures, and controllers.

Is there a raid controller build in

I'm running a powermac g4 Mdd and i wanted to know if there is a raid controller build into it. I've never done a raid but i'm told it could make my system run faster. I plan to do a raid 10 because i have 4 drives.

Disk Utility provides the means for configuring a software RAID only.
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server:
Hardware and Service Comparison.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?
Do You Really Need a RAID?
There is only one thing a RAID provides - more space. Beyond that a RAID can’t help you with:
Accidental deletion or user error
Viruses or malware
Theft or catastrophic damage
Data corruption due to other failed hardware or power loss
Striped RAIDs have a higher failure risk than a single drive
The purpose of a RAID is to provide high speed mass storage for specialized needs like video editing, working with extremely large files, and storing huge amounts of data.
If your array fails it means complete loss of data and hours of time to rebuild. RAIDs degrade over time necessitating many hours of restoration. And, if you don't know much about RAIDs then you really don't need one.
You can use a RAID for backup. But unless your backup needs involve TBs of data requiring rapid and frequent access, why bother? TM works in the background. It's not like you have to sit there waiting for your backup to be completed. Furthermore, you're buying two drives possibly to solve a problem where a single drive will do. And, one drive is less expensive than two.
Ignoring overhead, two drives in a RAID 0 (striped) array should perform about twice as fast. However, as the array fills up with files that performance will degrade.
RAID was a technology that in it's time was meant to solve a problem. Large capacity, fast drives were extremely expensive. Small drives were cheaper but slower. However, combining these cheaper drives into arrays gave faster performance and the larger capacity needed for data storage needs. Thus, the reason why it's called Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives. But today you can buy a 3 TB drive with performance that's better than the 1 TB drives of two or three years ago.
But why trust your boot drive to a RAID? I certainly wouldn't.

Q45MDO does not initialise Promise RAID controller boot ROM

Hi all,
I have an MSI Q45MDO with a Promise EX8350 SATA RAID controller plugged into the PCI-E x16 slot, as I am using the board's onboard graphics for display purposes. However, when the system is booted, the Promise BIOS (which would allow me to configure the attached hard drives) is not displayed.
Does anyone know why this is and how I can get the Promise BIOS to be shown on bootup again?

Your Promise Card is explicitly listed in the Support list for your mainboard:
http://eu.msi.com/uploads/test_report/TR2_1750.pdf
You might wanna contact MSI Technical Support about this. Maybe they can point you into the right direction:
http://support.msi.com/
Also, get in touch with promise to find out if there is a new BIOS available for your Controller Card.

Oracle Ent. Linux drivers for HP Smart Array B110i Sata Raid Controller

Trying to install Oracle Ent. Linux (OEL) release 4 update 8 on HP DL 180 G6 server. Where we can find OEL drivers for the sata raid controller ?
(HP Smart Array B110i Sata Raid Controller)
Thanks in advance.

The HP support side shows a Linux certification matrix at: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/hplinuxcert.html
From there you can also download the necessary drivers and instructions or use HP smartstart CD which prepares the system for the OS you need to install. Oracle Enterprise Linux is binary compatible with RHEL. You will need to click on "Archive" to see support for Enterprise Linux version 4 and older.
Also interesting should be Red Hat Enterprise Linux Technical Exceptions at
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/supportmatrix/rhel/exceptions/rhel-exceptions.html

Promise RAID controller & WinXP - 845 ultra

I finally got around to connected a couple of drives to the Promise Fasttrack 133 RAID controller.
When I go into windows.. It finds the controller..
So if I look in Device Manager, I do see the Promise MBFasttrak 133 Lite..
But under DISK DRIVES, the Promise 2+0 stripe /raid0 scsi device shows up as an unknown, and if I try to update the drivers.. nothing ever changes..
The drive(s) does work, more of a comsmetic issue?
Thank you,
Fred R

Some of the suggestions I don't understand quite well. Please could you explain further:
> remove the other two drives leaving the raid pair
> and cd only
>
> put raid 2nd in boot order
What do you mean with that?
> reboot press the key you need to get in to raid bios
> create the array and make it bootable
array is already created (Note: there is important data on it, can't recreate it! Only Segate 80GB is free and empty)
I don't want to boot from raid.
>
> now boot to cd to install,right at beginning it will say
> press f6 to install mass storage drive you need the
> driver on floppy to install it
I already tried the XP-Install routine to specify additional mass storage drivers. (Note: 1 single 80GB Drive was attached) Which are the suitable ones? As mentioned I tried the following:
1. Attached floppy 'Fasttrack family drivers'
Result: Message: Driver is for Win2k only. Not a single Harddrive shows for installing XP.
2. Attached Floppy (Promise Ultra 100 lite, 256 only)
Result: Driver is for Win2k only. Installation procedure hangs.
3. Driver from MSI-Site for pdc20265. Same as 2.
4. Extracting via4in1 drivers and putting WinXPIDE drivers on floppy:
Result: Installation routine doesn't recoginze drivers on floppy.
> rest should be the same as normal
>
> this should be similar as well
>
> http://www.amdforums.com/showindex.php?s=&threadid=146384
Which is the right driver for WinXP to specify for mass storage device at WinXP installation?

Disk on MSI mobo RAID controller to another MSI mobo

Hello,
I'm running two drives in a non-raid setup but they are connected to the RAID controller on the K7N-Delta ILSR motherboard. What I was wondering is wheter I can reconnect these drives directly on the regular controllers without hitches. And can I expect these disks to work properly if i buy a new motherboard and connect them to the RAID controller on the new motherboard which has possibly a diffrent raid controller integrated.

Hello! If the RAID controller is different you might have a problem with a new mobo.
Is there anything obstructing you from saving the data somewhere else, when fixing the setup that you want? 'Thinking it could be a work-around to store selfcreated, important data and stuff on a regular cheapo IDE disk for a while. Updates and programs is not too hard to find, so there is no absolute need to copy and store those.

Moving from VIA RAID controller to another RAID controller?!?

Hello
I'm going to install a RAID-1 with 2 SATA harddisks from seagate using the onboard VT8237 RAID controller of my KT6 Delta.
I guess there should be no problems and that the temperature on the motherboard will be fine.
However, what will happen if I want to move later on to a new motherboard with another raid controller or install a dedicated RAID controller?!?
Will I loose all my data? Or will the new raid controller duplicate the data based on the source drive?
Thanks
JohnQM

I have read somewhere that the following migration paths apply for raid:
1. raid-1 can always be migrated to a new RAID controller, no matter which brand, because raid-1 is just a mirror and no important information is written in the partition table
2. raid-0 or other raid-levels
2.0 from one brand of RAID controller to the same version of the RAID controller of the same brand: no problem
2.1 from one brand of RAID controller to a new version of the RAID controller of the same brand: usually no problem (upwards compatible)
2.1 from one brand of RAID controller to a RAID controller of another brand: no go
Can someone confirm this please?
Thanks
JohnQM

HP MSA2312sa G2 RAID Controller Replacement

I have recently noticed that 1 of 2 RAID controllers on a HP MSA2312sa G2 Modular Smart Array has failed. Everything failed over to Controller A which is still healthy so all is still up and running.
However my question is whether I can hot swap the failed RAID controller with a new one or if I have to shut the unit and all attached hosts down to do the hardware replacement.
Any help is appreciated as this is a one off device that I don't have much experience with.
Thanks
Justin
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi, Justin:
You may also want to post your question on the HP Business Support Forum -- SAN section.
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Storage-Area-Networks-SAN-Small/bd-p/bsc-257#.VAoGFHl0y9I

Which RAID controller do I choose?

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