RAID card in PCI-e x 16 slot

Associate
Joined
15 Sep 2003
Posts
223
Location
Surrey
I have an ASRock 939NF6G-VSTA which I use as a server running Server 2008 R2 which is 64 bit and is based on the Windows 7 NT kernel.

I recent bought two 2TB Green WD Advanced Format drives and I have had all sorts of problems setting up a RAID array using the Nvidia SATA ports.

The motherboard has a free PCI-e X16 slot, intended for graphics, but I could quite easily add a RAID card.

Would a PCI-e Raid card operate in this slot and would I get the full bandwidth?

I ask this because I wonder if it is worth the investment in a Hardware Raid solution over the typical software cards or motherboard RAID.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Sep 2005
Posts
6,803
Location
UK
Would a PCI-e Raid card operate in this slot

Yes...

would I get the full bandwidth?

Yes...

I ask this because I wonder if it is worth the investment in a Hardware Raid solution over the typical software cards or motherboard RAID.

I would only go the (true) hardware RAID option if you are going to use RAID5/6 and need high write transfers (onboard processor/ram doing the parity calculations) because of high price (or maybe get a Perc 5i)...otherwise I would just buy a software RAID implementation which will give you lower write speeds using RAID5/6 but still quite usable...
 
Associate
OP
Joined
15 Sep 2003
Posts
223
Location
Surrey
Yes...



Yes...



I would only go the (true) hardware RAID option if you are going to use RAID5/6 and need high write transfers (onboard processor/ram doing the parity calculations) because of high price (or maybe get a Perc 5i)...otherwise I would just buy a software RAID implementation which will give you lower write speeds using RAID5/6 but still quite usable...

Actually, I only need RAID 1 so I suspect a hardware RAID option would be complete overkill.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
15 Sep 2003
Posts
223
Location
Surrey
I was thinking about one of these perhaps?

Two reviewers commented on the performance being worse than on board Intel RAID but I suspect they didn't have the PCI-e bandwidth available!
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Sep 2005
Posts
6,803
Location
UK
You would probably find something on the bay...

EDIT: I see that motherboard has 1 x PCI-E x1 slot, is this occupied, if not you could install a 2 port SATA RAID card in that which will give more than enough bandwidth (250 MB/s) for RAID1...
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom