Whats the Best SATA RAID controler ?
 

I need to achieve around 200mb/s transfer rate to do uncompressed editing. For this to work I understand I need to get the best PCI-X SATA controler to RAID-0 a stripe of 4 Western digital 500gb drives. I just need to know which controller card is the best and will do what i want. What are you useing?

Areca, 3ware, LSI Logic.

The most important factor is ensuring that the drivers of whatever solution you get do not utilize much CPU. Software RAID would normally be a great option except that many SATA controller chipset drivers utilize a lot of CPU (compared to SCSI controllers).

I have tried many controllers in the search of using cheap SATA storage rather then the only logical choice of SCSI. After a couple of thousand of dollars in SATA cards I was able to get the 3ware 9650SE-8 with 8 Seagate 400Gb SATAII Drives to run 400+ MB/sec sustained for at least 1 hour and write at a rate of 280MB/sec sustained of at least 30 minutes on a RAID 5.

I use it with the AXIO and was able to run 2 streams of uncompressed HD video with 1 layer of 3DDVE in realtime. The 3ware card is expensive, but considering using SCSI with 72GB Drives, SATA beats it by far in price and volume. I am not sure if you will be able to get the performance with only 4 drives unless you run RAID0 which is very risky.

But be aware that Windows XP has a 2TB boundary, where the RAID card will split your drives into 2 or more 2TB volumes, but this does not deteriorate your performance.

There is only one option if you want a GOOD controller, ARECA. The rest, 3Ware, Highpoint, LSI and Promise are just promises but no delivery.

But why a 4 disk (R)aid0 array when you quadruple the risk of disk failure and a complete loss of your data? I have recently posted about this with the links to an extensive comparison. Do a search and will easily find it.

Daniel, this is the first I have heard about the 2 TB boundary under WinXP. Would that not be solved by using the right drivers on your hardware? For a software Raid configuration I can imagine that limit applies, but not for a hardware configuration. Can you explain this a bit further.

Very Big Bad Boy
 

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/103...ion/index.html

VERY BIG BAD BOY - 12 TB storage and speed....

or even better....these guys... http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata2-9650.asp

then you can have up to 24 multilane ports, delivering over 800MB/s RAID 6 reads and 600MB/s RAID 6 writes!!

This suggestion has two flaws, one is Highpoint and the other is 3Ware. Both achieve transfer rates about 50% LOWER than Areca, as shown in various tests. Areca also has several 24 port models, but they use a far more advanced IOP.

In all tests I have seen Highpoint, 3Ware and Promise always occupy the worst places and Areca consistently is at the top, sometimes even 100% faster than the others.

Not disputing your comeback, but could you post a few links to those tests you mentioned here, plus maybe the particular models you're refering to?

That would be helpful to those of us with less expertise in this area. Then we might not suggest something less than the best...thanks.

Only is Dutch, but the results speak for themselves:

http://tweakers.net/benchdb/test/191

Only is Dutch, but the results speak for themselves:

http://tweakers.net/benchdb/test/191

and this thread may help also:

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.ph...456#post657456