Reliability of Raid0 - controller, not drives?

[Jkun]

Sorry for another semi OT raid question, but it didn't really fit under the first topic.

I've been asking around about adding a single drive to a Promise raid card (other topic), and in quite a few places people keep telling me to make sure I really want to go Raid0 on my setup, asking if I'm aware of the risks etc.

I know about the fact that Raid0 is more prone to failure, and that if you lose one drive you lose all data.

However, I have enough faith in the HDs for the purpose I need the raid for (video capturing and editing, what else ). But all this questioning did make me think about the raid controller itself.

We have this mainboard with onboard Promise (PATA) raid controller, that keeps failing to find the raid0 array. Only thing that helps is setting it up again and losing the data. Other identical mainboards don't have this issue, and using other drives makes no difference, so I suspect a defective controller.

I googled for this but found nothing about this; only about raid0 in general and quality of drives.

So how reliable have your Promise raid controllers worked? Any problems of damaged/lost Raid0 arrays because of the controller rather than the drives?

Neko

[J1NG]

Used promise RAID controllers in RAID0 configs for two or three years now. Both card controller and onboard controller. Never had a wink of a problem with the controller.

J1NG

[nunchalnaomi]

I had problems setting up my hp controller. I had to force the driver. Usually you set it up when installing os. I added mine later and it wouldn't find driver or hardware. I called a tech friend and he had me force the driver and then it worked. I haven't lost any data, but have had some dropped frames. I have 2 120 gb western digitals with 8 mb buffer. Good luck

[Dr Mordrid]

I have several Fasttrak RAID's, some of which go way back to ATA33, and have had no problems with 'em. In point of fact the only data losses I've had in the last few years have been due to crappy drives (IBM "DeathStar" mainly) on "normal" controllers.

IF you're the paranoid type you might want to consider RAID5. With RAID5 parity data is stored on all the drives in the array so if any one dies its contents can be reconstructed on a replacement drive. RAID5 is frequently used in servers where data redundency is essential.

There is a capacity hit with RAID5, of course, amounting to the space equivalent of one drive. This means that if you have 4 drives in the array you have the storage capacity of 3. It also means you need at least 3 drives in the array (with the storage capacity of 2). Call it the cost of data security.

Promise makes several cards capable of RAID5 as listed on this page;

http://www.promise.com/product/product_list_eng.asp?familyId=2

I've been using the PATA SX4000 for some time with quite good results and it tends to be faster on writes than many other PCI/33 RAID5 cards. Yes; there are quite a few PCI/66 cards out there now and they are a bit faster. Another key feature to look for is hardware XOR, which speeds up parity R/W's.

It's a good idea to install as much memory in the cards onboard cache as possible since this buffers the cards I/O massively more than Windows can. My SX4000 has 256 megs of SDRAM installed, which is its max.

In any RAID solution I strongly recommend downloading the latest drivers before installation and foregoing any boxed drivers.

Dr. Mordrid

[Ted222]

I have used Promise Raid controllers for years without problems, although I seem to remember "onboard" raid controller issues reading some of these Forums in the past.

I would opt for another Motherboard and add the PCI promise controller card to it. Especially since you are having problems. I am assuming you have the latest Bios for your MOBO.

good luck,

Ted

[Jkun]

Thanks all for your help. I have a TX2000, which is a PCI card, not onboard.

Upgraded BIOS of mobo (Asus P4P800 non-deluxe; I don't like all those onboard gadgets) and TX2000, and dl'ed latest drivers

Hope it holds until I finished sorting all that data and backed it up

[landrover]

I also have the Promise Fasttrak 2000 PCI controller, and besides a few problems that were eventually traced down to faulty IDE cables, my RAID 0 configuration has been rock solid for over 18 months now.