Intel X79 Rapid Storage Raid 5 performance

[Johnmcl7]

I have a new system with an X79 motherboard which supports Intel's Rapid Storage Enterprise software and wondering if it's any use these days for RAID 5. I've been trying to decide how to set up storage on the new machine, the previous one had a 60GB boot SSD and a 2TB secondary which was fiddly due to the small boot drive but handy in a way as it makes OS reinstalls largely painless as it forced me to keep data on the big drive. So I'm thinking of keeping the 60GB boot SSD and instead adding a couple of 2TB drives to make a three disk RAID 5 array to give me some fault tolerance and possibly better performance.

However from what I remember a few years back, software RAID 5 was frowned upon because performance was poor and a dedicated card was recommended. I'm wondering if that's still the case as reading around I can't find much on it. There's no room for a dedicated card in this system as all the PCI-E slots are in use, I don't mind if performance isn't much better as long as it's slower and it isn't too much of a pain to get data off if the motherboard dies and gets replaced.

Thanks,
John

[vertices]

I doubt it makes RAID5 any faster to matter. Personally, I still wouldn't use RAID5 without a $500+ controller. Stick with 1 or 10 IMO.

[James]

I doubt it makes RAID5 any faster to matter. Personally, I still wouldn't use RAID5 without a $500+ controller. Stick with 1 or 10 IMO.

I would, but only in RAIDZ.

I agree with vertices though. Hardware RAID or ZFS for software RAID. Otherwise stick to 1/10.

[Johnmcl7]

There isn't really the space for RAID 10 and RAID 1 is too wasteful so guess will have to stick with external drives.

John

[vertices]

RAID 1 is no more wasteful than RAID 10. I use RAID 1 all the time, as well as 10.

[Johnmcl7]

Well yes, I should have clarified I wouldn't run RAID 10 either if I had the capacity as it also wastes half the space.

John