4-port sata raid cards

[Paul Gunson]

which of the following 4-port SATA-RAID cards would be the preferred
brand...? i can get the intel card cheapest but would want the most
reliable card for win2K.

Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 2410SA, 64 MB ECC
Intel SRCS14L, SATA-150 Raid Controller, 4 Port, 64MB ECC, PCI
Escalade 8500-4, 4 Port, ATA-133, S-ATA, RAID Controller, PCI

the disks would be Maxtor 250GB, SATA-150.

 

[J.Clarke]

I've just started looking at SATA cards myself and didn't even know
the three companies you mentioned made them. Any reason why you
don't have the Promise FastTrak S150SX4 on your list?

I suspect that he's looking at hardware RAID and not software RAID with
a boot ROM, which is what all the cheap RAID products provide.

FWIW, LSI Logic (formerly known as Mylex and AMI) also has a decent
hardware SATA RAID board out. As to which is "best", Mylex has been
doing RAID a long time at the high end of the market--they know their
stuff in that regard, but they're relatively new to ATA RAID. 3Ware has
been doing hardware-based ATA RAID longer than anybody else (Adaptec had
a "hardware accelerated" product earlier but it didn't have an onboard
processor) but they don't have the high-end corporate experience that
LSI/AMI/Mylex (Mylex was formerly a division of IBM) has. The Adaptec
and Intel products appear to be similar designs--not identical boards,
but the major components seem to be the same, so it's six of one half a
dozen of the other--Intel has historically bought their RAID boards
rather than making them in-house, so I'd call them kind of iffy.

Promise made one hardware RAID board, but the SATA models are all
software or software with hardware XOR engine and thus not in the same
market.

So in answer to the original question, right now if I was buying I'd
probably go with LSI, but with the caveat that none of the SATA RAID
boards have been on the market long enough to have any kind of track
record, so it's kind of a crapshoot.

http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=112&familyId=2

The best price I found for it is just under $100 including shipping.
https://www.buymicro.com/secure/default.cfm?itm_code=859621&src=4
At that price I might be better off buying an Asus P4C800-E MB (~$190)
which already has a Promise SATA controller on it.

Be careful with the onboard RAID--it's usually crippled in some
way--sometimes you can hack the BIOS to enable the full feature set but
that's something you shouldn't count on unless you know for sure that
somebody has done it successfully with the board that you are using.

 

[John H.]

which of the following 4-port SATA-RAID cards would be the preferred
brand...? i can get the intel card cheapest but would want the most
reliable card for win2K.

Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 2410SA, 64 MB ECC
Intel SRCS14L, SATA-150 Raid Controller, 4 Port, 64MB ECC, PCI
Escalade 8500-4, 4 Port, ATA-133, S-ATA, RAID Controller, PCI

the disks would be Maxtor 250GB, SATA-150.

I've just started looking at SATA cards myself and didn't even know
the three companies you mentioned made them. Any reason why you
don't have the Promise FastTrak S150SX4 on your list?
http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=112&familyId=2
The best price I found for it is just under $100 including shipping.
https://www.buymicro.com/secure/default.cfm?itm_code=859621&src=4
At that price I might be better off buying an Asus P4C800-E MB (~$190)
which already has a Promise SATA controller on it. Promise is
offering a $20 rebate but only at a few places that charge at least
that much more. What are the best prices you found for your three?

 

[John H.]

Correction: It was the Promise FastTrak S150TX4 that I was looking at.
The S150SX4 is a more expensive RAID 5 card.

http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=108&familyId=2

 

[J.Clarke]

I wonder if a 4 port sata pci card/board would saturate the pci bus?

Most of them currently on the market support 64 bit or 66 MHz or both
PCI.

But getting to your question more directly, the fastest SATA drive on
the market right now maxes out at 102 MB/sec. Four of those give 408
MB/sec. PCI maxes out at 132 MB/sec, so, yes, in principle a four-drive
SATA RAID can saturate the PCI bus under ideal conditions. Running
random seeks though a drive never comes close to sustaining that kind of
transfer rate.

 

[shockwaveriderz]

I wonder if a 4 port sata pci card/board would saturate the pci bus?

shockie B)

 

[Rita A. Berkowitz]

I wonder if a 4 port sata pci card/board would saturate the pci bus?

You'd be better off just getting a real RAID solution using a U320 SCSI
controller (64-bit). Playing with these SATA controllers is just a stop-gap
sollution.



Rita

 

[Tom]

I wonder if a 4 port sata pci card/board would saturate the pci bus?

You'd be better off just getting a real RAID solution using a U320 SCSI
controller (64-bit). Playing with these SATA controllers is just a stop-gap
sollution.

BS, it is where all manufacturers are going.
In fact, WD 10k SATA drives are the same HW as SCSI, just with SATA
controller chip instead of SCSI.
All drives will be doing this soon.
It's not a "stop-gap" solution, it is 'the' solution.

 

[Paul Gunson]

I suspect that he's looking at hardware RAID and not software RAID with
a boot ROM, which is what all the cheap RAID products provide.

right u are.

So in answer to the original question, right now if I was buying I'd
probably go with LSI, but with the caveat that none of the SATA RAID
boards have been on the market long enough to have any kind of track
record, so it's kind of a crapshoot.

hmm just found the LSI card; MegaRAID SATA 150-4, 64bit, 64MB ram, thanks

 

[Paul Gunson]

Most of them currently on the market support 64 bit or 66 MHz or both
PCI.

But getting to your question more directly, the fastest SATA drive on
the market right now maxes out at 102 MB/sec. Four of those give 408
MB/sec. PCI maxes out at 132 MB/sec, so, yes, in principle a four-drive
SATA RAID can saturate the PCI bus under ideal conditions. Running
random seeks though a drive never comes close to sustaining that kind of
transfer rate.

if the SATA cards were 64bit/66Mhz, would that mean its PCI-X...? if so
doesn't that have a higher max limit...? just a guess i don't really
have a clue.

there would be a lot of sustained transfer, (for animation and editing)
but SATA would get me a hell of a lot more space than U320 for the
price.... it would be really cool to have 4 of those 250GB maxtor
drives, 1TB on raid 10, half TB stripe and half TB mirror

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Most of them currently on the market support 64 bit or 66 MHz or
both PCI.

Which is of no use on a non professional workstation/server (includes
desktop) board.

But getting to your question more directly, the fastest SATA drive on
the market right now maxes out at 102 MB/sec.

Oh? Which one is that?

Four of those give 408 MB/sec.
PCI maxes out at 132 MB/sec, so, yes, in principle a four-drive
SATA RAID can saturate the PCI bus under ideal conditions.

Under most any condition except for a very careful mix of sequen-
tial and nonsequential transfers in a very specific order. So in the
real world, unless this is a very busy server with many users, some
of the time the PCI bus is maxed out and some of the time it isn't.

Running random seeks though a drive never comes close to sustaining
that kind of transfer rate.

No one runs random seeks, obviously. Only a benchmark runs random seeks.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

BS, it is where all manufacturers are going.
Clueless.

In fact, WD 10k SATA drives are the same HW as SCSI,

just with SATA controller chip instead of SCSI.

"In fact", WD don't even make SCSI drives so that one goes out the window too.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Which is of no use on a non professional workstation/server (includes
desktop) board.


Oh? Which one is that?

So, which one is that John?
Or do we have to assume that you made this one up too,
just like all the other times that you refused to come clean?

 

[Rita A. Berkowitz]

So, which one is that John?

Or do we have to assume that you made this one up too,
just like all the other times that you refused to come clean?

What? John make something up? Never! He is just trying to make the
inexperienced feel good with recommending these low-end novelty SATA drives.
Anybody that wants true performance, reliability, and years of true worry
free operation of their drives will only select Seagate SCSI drives.



Rita

 

[David Lesher]

BS, it is where all manufacturers are going.
In fact, WD 10k SATA drives are the same HW as SCSI, just with SATA
controller chip instead of SCSI.
All drives will be doing this soon.
It's not a "stop-gap" solution, it is 'the' solution.

Not sure how soon/if SATA will replace SCSI, but for ATA, the big
push is non-obvious -- the connectors and cable cost far less,
and save PCB & cabinet space.

Custom chip cost slides dramatically with volume -- first one costs
$1E6, first million cost $20, next 10 million cost $2.00 etc. But
connectors and cable don't scale like that at all. So if you can
cut their cost...

 

[Eric Gisin]

|
| >BS, it is where all manufacturers are going.
| >In fact, WD 10k SATA drives are the same HW as SCSI, just with SATA
| >controller chip instead of SCSI.
| >All drives will be doing this soon.
| >It's not a "stop-gap" solution, it is 'the' solution.
|
Tommy Troll Alert!!! Who is switching from SCSI to SATA?

What benchmark show the Raptor faster than SCSI 10K in a server?
|
| Not sure how soon/if SATA will replace SCSI, but for ATA, the big
| push is non-obvious -- the connectors and cable cost far less,
| and save PCB & cabinet space.
|
| Custom chip cost slides dramatically with volume -- first one costs
| $1E6, first million cost $20, next 10 million cost $2.00 etc. But
| connectors and cable don't scale like that at all. So if you can
| cut their cost...

Those Molex and IDC are cheaper than SATA's.

 

[Tom]

|
| >BS, it is where all manufacturers are going.
| >In fact, WD 10k SATA drives are the same HW as SCSI, just with SATA
| >controller chip instead of SCSI.
| >All drives will be doing this soon.
| >It's not a "stop-gap" solution, it is 'the' solution.
|
Tommy Troll Alert!!! Who is switching from SCSI to SATA?

Eric non comprende alert!
Read again.
I did not say anything was replacing anything.
I said the plan is for the mechanincal drive portion is going to be the
exact same for both SATA & SCSI, and it is, according to the manufacturers.
Everything else will still be the same as now.
So, they are going to basically be the same drive, barring interface
controller and firmware and connectors.