RAID-5: Onboard and Add-In Solutions Compared

Review @ GamePC

Zitat

Out of the four solutions we’ve tested, the one we came away most impressed with was the Intel 955x / ICH7’s SATA-II/300 RAID-5 implementation. Despite being Intel’s first native RAID-5 attempt, they have proved to us that integrated chipset-level RAID-5 connectivity can certainly compete with much more expensive dedicated RAID-5 adapters. Disk read speed was excellent, and while disk write speed was not terrific –the excellent quality level of Intel’s Matrix Control Center really tied the whole platform together and really made us feel like Intel has a stable product on their hands. CPU utilization was a bit higher on the Intel 955x/ICH7 platform (about 7% max), but still, very nice.

The other native solution, nVidia’s nForce4 SLI / MCP-04 RAID-5, was not simply as impressive as Intel’s. We had high-hopes going in, as nVidia’s chipsets typically perform excellent in RAID-0 and RAID-1 modes, but RAID-5 isn’t quite there yet. Disk read performance was merely OK (tolerable, but not great), whereas disk write performance was severely lacking. In addition, nVidia’s MediaShield software didn’t give us the feeling of stability which Intel’s software did. We still would recommend the nForce4 SLI RAID-5 over most other low-cost RAID-5 solutions; however, it’s simply beaten in every aspect by Intel’s 955x / ICH7.

While the native chipset RAID-5 solutions can typically match the read performance of more expensive add-in cards, when it comes to write speeds, we see the dedicated RAID-5 cards truly shine. Broadcom’s RAIDCore cards, in particular, give the best RAID-5 write speeds of any cards we’ve tested, which is a huge selling point for AV / editing folks. In addition, we really like Broadcom’s RAIDConsole software, and their cards have proven to be very stable over time. We just wish they would release a new SATA-II/300 card and get some Windows x64 drivers out there.

intel hat da wirklich einen ned schlechten raid cotroler im i955x eingebaut.

genau das geht mir bei nforce/amd ab. wenn die die selbe qualität bei der softwäre hätten, hätt ich ma chon längst einen raid 5 verband zugelegt