RAID Controller/Card

[Philip Jennings]

Hi

First of all, what is the difference between a RAID controller and a RAID
card. Promise (www.promise.com) seem to have two product ranges of the above
products.

And also, what is the best RAID controller/card (not just promise) to go
for, that won't slow the performace of my PC in any way, when 4 drives are
connected to the controller?

Thanks

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Hi

First of all, what is the difference between a RAID controller and a RAID
card.

A card is a card and usually PCI. A controller is this case means a chip
with RAID functionality. In this case it's ATA RAID. A card of this
type has one of those chips on it. Sometimes those chips are on the
motherboard.

Promise (www.promise.com) seem to have two product ranges of the above
products.

And also, what is the best RAID controller/card (not just promise) to go
for, that won't slow the performace of my PC in any way, when 4 drives are
connected to the controller?

Promise ais OK and so is SIIG and both are software/firmware RAID. The best
one is expensive and is hardware RAID from www.3ware.com . Generally
expensive hardware doesn't contribute much for RAID 0 nor RAID 1. RAID 5 or
RAID 10 is where hardware RAID shines.