I'm building a gaming machine, and I intend on overclocking. Everything I have purchased so far has been for that purpose.

I now have two WD Raptors, and I intend on striping them. However, the cards I'm seeing online vary from 30 bucks to 200. I'm confused as to the difference between them.

This was the cheapest one I saw that seemed to serve my purpose:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main...

However, the rest of the cards seem to be around 70 bucks, and have LESS slots (This one has 2x Sata, 1x Pata, and 2x Esata).

How do I pick a Raid card? Is this one sufficient? My biggest concern is that the card won't have enough throughput to handle both Raptors' data. I don't want to bottleneck the hard drives.

>> I now have two WD Raptors, and I intend on striping them. <<

To what purpose? You do realise of course that stripped drives are slower as the data has to be written twice. RAID is designed as a fallback for mission critical applications where no downtime is allowed. Hardly a requirement for a gaming machine where adequate backups would serve the same purpose.

The difference in price between the different RAID card are that there are many different configurations of RAID, some going up to six drives. There are Ten or more different variations of RAID. The more expensive ones are probably designed for use in a commercial environment were RAID is an absolute requirement.

Stuart

StuartS
I think you had one of those lapses we all have from time to time. Striping is RAID0 half the data is written to each drive. Mirroring is RAID1.

rand486

For heaven sake if you are building from scratch why didn't you select a MBoard with hardware RAID on the board? That said, I would recommend you actually find some comparisons for RAID vs non RAID rigs. I have seen mixed reviews on the merits of RAID0.

I would like to hear the reason for using an add in controller card.

OtheHill,

I don't know my right from my left half the time.

There is even less reason to use RAID0. Everything I have seen about it says the it is an unnecessary complication and only improves matters in very limited circumstances. One disk fails and the lot goes with little chance of recovery. Backups are essential. There is no redundancy with RAID0

Stuart

Under some limited circumstances RAID0 can enhance performance. If the OP understands the risk and still wishes to proceed then I would like my question answered. From what I have read games don't access the disks that much but hey. I think the best application may be graphic editing, from what I have read.

Maximum PC magazine ran some tests with raid a while back and found that raid 0 did not help gaming, in fact it hurt in some cases.

http://faqs.ign.com/articles/606/60...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...

The decision to Raid 0 has already been made. I've read countless reviews on the pros and cons. Yes, I know about the higher risks, and I accept that. I have a secondary computer acting as a server (with Mirroring/ Raid 1) with the important data on it. I backup like a fiend.

That's not what I was asking.

As far as why I didn't get it on the mobo, it started as an innocent mistake (I got a mobo with one letter off in the suffix of the model number, and it turned out it was missing Raid), but now I've read that onboard raid can and will tax the processor, similar to software raid.

I'm not asking for a debate on the merits of raid, I'm asking for information on choosing a Raid card. If you really want to deviate from that, then you could discuss the difference between a raid card and the mobo raid.

Exchanging the mobo for the proper one would likely cost me as much in S&H and whatnot as the card itself, so I'm open to whichever is better. I was going for the card because I read it wouldn't tax the other hardware.

True or false? (And I'd still like info on picking a raid card, regardless of the previous answer).

Thanks,
Rand486

To answer your question I believe that a PCI card would also use CPU cycles. There are no free lunches. I would guess the boards with chipset hardware RAID would actually be less CPU intensive.

As far as why the big difference in price between different cards I would guess the difference would be what features are included and what OS support is included. Below is a link to the offerings at Newegg.com for PCIe based controller cards. If you are going to use an add in card I think PCIe would out perform a PCI based card. From the looks of the prices I think you may want to reconsider and exchange the MBoard for one with onboard RAID.

I understand you are set on using RAID 0 so go for it. But remember that the drives are not the bottleneck with games. I recommend you put the cash into better graphics instead of expensive controller cards.

Are the specs above the CPU/RAM for the new box?

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCate...

Yes, those specs were part of the compy. I already have everything ready, just waiting on the case to arrive in the mail.

See, I'm still confused about the prices of the cards, because the card I found was 30 bucks (CAD). Why is there such a drastic variance in price? What benefits do more expensive cards hold?

Post a link to the card you are considering.

There are true raid cards and so called "soft" raid cards. I guess one might argue if the soft cards are true raid cards. I doubt they run as fast as the more expensive cards. I might guess, the cheaper it is the less it performs.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

As Jefro just stated the "soft" RAID cards are no different than on-board RAID - both use the CPU to do the calculations. If you are looking at any add-in RAID card that is less than $200, it is most likely does not have it's own processor. "True" RAID cards have their own processor and memory and cost several hundreds of dollars. If you want a "true" RAID card look for one that has something such as "On-board I/O RISC processor and RAID offload provides true hardware RAID" ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... ).

Michael J