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Thread: Real Raid vs Fake Raid

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    Default Real Raid vs Fake Raid

    So along time ago I did a thread about raid and how to and what not... back then I elaborated on the various levels and which is better or safer or faster. Today I will be looking at raid cards and on board raid.

    First off all on board raid is fake raid. What is fake raid? Fake raid is basically a host card/chipset with a small bios which offloads processing to OS and CPU. The information about the array is offloaded to the master drive in the array. Sounds cheap well that's the general idea and that's why it works so nice in windows and only windows.

    Linux does not recognise and never will recognise fake raid. Whatever array you create linux will see only single disk plain and simple. You could always use the DMRaid topology but that is just not right.

    Below is a comprehensive list of some fake raid and real raid cards.

    http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

    If you running windows alone you are more or less fine... but ponder this. If you change your motherboard and happen to move from say an AMD (SB700/SB750) and migrate to an Intel (ICHr 7/8/9/10) then your beautiful raid 10 data array just got busted. If you had a raid card on the other hand, slot it back in and go.

    Other major benefits include dedicated on board cpu such as the infamous XOR from intel (when you think about it guys intel is the best)... they created ethernet as we know today, they created the PCI bus, and many more things. Coming back on track the XOR cpu was immediately adopted by raid card makers world wide. It took care of mathematical stuff in raid levels such as Raid 3/5/6/50 which is to say raid with parity.

    Cache memory is also an accompaniment with raid cards and will be with his side man the Battery Backup Unit (BBU) which makes raid even faster for the option write back. The bigger the cache the better the performance it is that simple. Most cards now come with 512MB DDR2 which is more than what some folks have as their main memory.

    Real raid cards will do rebuilds online or offline and will not affect data access that much depending on the raid level being reconstructed. Real raid cards will use pci-e x4 and upwards and pci-x 133MHz for true bandwidth. Lastly real raid cards are not cheap.

    all content from maxfactors head... feel free to quote
    Last edited by MaxFactor1; Sep 10, 2011 at 08:49 PM.
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    good read....touched some good points...will take them into consideration when sorting out my RAID setup

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    This was the card I purchased... crazy speeds... cache write back enabled... sick i tell ya sick... makes me start thinking about getting some raptors...



    3ware 9550SXU-12 - does 0, 1, 10, 5, 50...
    Last edited by MaxFactor1; Sep 22, 2011 at 09:07 AM.
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    Raptors went obsolete shortly before SATA II SSDs.
    I use a i3 laptop that runs World Community Grid all day.
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    very accurate crow... i meant to say velociraptors...
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    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816322006

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816132034

    If I were to buy one of these which one would be best or if you have another suggestion
    Lg Nexus 4|Motorola Xoom 4.0.3 Official Ice Cream Sandwich
    Rosewill CHALLENGER|ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX|XFX Radeon 6870|Thermaltake BlackWidow 850W|12GB G-Skill Ripjaw|AMD Phenom X6 1090T Black Edition|32" Sony NSX-32GT1|Razor BlackWidow Ultimate Keyboard|Cyborg R.A.T 7 Mouse|Astro A40 Headphones|Logitech X-530 5.1

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    Ok this is even better

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133187 (the Case) $99

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131698 (the mobo+cpu) $174

    Combo Discount $30

    Your Combo Price: $264.98

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148681 (2TB HDD x4) $320

    Total = $584
    Lg Nexus 4|Motorola Xoom 4.0.3 Official Ice Cream Sandwich
    Rosewill CHALLENGER|ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX|XFX Radeon 6870|Thermaltake BlackWidow 850W|12GB G-Skill Ripjaw|AMD Phenom X6 1090T Black Edition|32" Sony NSX-32GT1|Razor BlackWidow Ultimate Keyboard|Cyborg R.A.T 7 Mouse|Astro A40 Headphones|Logitech X-530 5.1

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    the first one from Media Sonic is not bad... is just has no network port... but that can be a good thing... as it has an esata port which can then tie back to an external sata controller and be a part of a bigger raid array.... it looks to be more geared for mac users as they provide both A and B firewire...
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    Quote Originally Posted by zerodeth View Post
    Ok this is even better

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133187 (the Case) $99

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131698 (the mobo+cpu) $174

    Combo Discount $30

    Your Combo Price: $264.98

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148681 (2TB HDD x4) $320

    Total = $584
    Yo Zero the question to ask yourself is this, "do i trust Seagate drives with capacity above 500GB"? Secondly those disks rotate @ 5900 rpm & not 7200 rpm so they are slower. If storage capacity is what you really need above speed then 5900 rpm is fine. My ultimate concern tho is the seagate choice, i'd personally go with Western Digital they do fail like any other hard drive but their fail rate is lower.
    I just bought two of these drives slapped them in RAID 1 for my data & dem a shot. I had the 1TB versions previously but i was running out of storage. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136792
    MATADOR: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R, C2Q Q9400 @ 3.4GHz, ZALMAN CNPS9500, 6GB GSkill, Crucial C300 SSD 128GB, 2x 2TB WD Caviar Black, Diamond HD5850, 2x Plextor DVD+RW, RAIDMAX Scoprio 668WBP Case, Rosewill Xtreme Series RX850-D-B 850W, Dell E228FP WideScreen 22", Logitech Z-2300, Windows 7 Pro x64

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    richi rich... and him wd black dem... mi awright wid my seagate green dem....
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