ST-Lab's RAID cards any good?

[a ronin]

Well I just don't know

I can either choose to pay $113CND for a Promise or $35CND for an ST-Lab card.

Promise FastTrack TX2000 ATA-133 w/ RAID OEM $113
ST-Lab ATA-133 RAID w/ cables $35

Problem is I don't know how temperamental RAID is so the question of investing in a quality versus so-so card is up in the air. This will be my first time setting up RAID. As to which configuration, I still need to read up on it

Any suggestions?

[Ara-Loki]

I'm not sure if I've ever heard of ST-Labs. The closest match to "ST" I found was StarTech.com, which I've also never heard of. Promise, however, is a well-known, well-respected brand, though I don't really think RAID0/1 is worth $86USD, regardless of brand name. Other brands you might consider are HighPoint and Adaptec, both of which offer low-cost RAID solutions.

You don't have your specs in your sig... are you sure your motherboard doesn't have RAID0/1 onboard?

[a ronin]

Thanks for responding.

I don't see RAID support on the manufacturer's website. It's an Asus A7N8X ( http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...x/overview.htm )

Currently I'm running an Ultra100 TX2 card from Promise which is feeding 2 extra hdds I have in the system.

What's a good price for a RAID card then? $35CND for the ST-Lab may be a gamble so I'm staying away from that.

//edit

haha reading some feedback on Newegg and this guy's comments made me laugh.

Guess what, the cheapest option is always at NEWEGG.COM this guys rock. Thank you NewEgg

[Ara-Loki]

I'd look to spend somewhat more than $35CDN. I would expect you could find HighPoint's RocketRAID100 for around $60CDN ($44USD at Newegg). That's a pretty standard offering - two channels, four drives max, RAID0/1/0+1. There's also Adaptec's 1200A for probably around $80CDN with the same configuration. Why the TX2000 is so much more is beyond me. Granted, there are many other cards available. These are just examples.

In your first post you mentioned you still need to read up on RAID before choosing a setup. Since I've got nothing better to do at the moment, I'll save you the trouble.

RAID0 (striping, two or more drives) spans data across two or more drives, increasing read and write speed, but offers no redundancy. If any of the drives in the array fail you lose the entire array, since no drive contains a complete copy of anything.

RAID1 (mirroring, two drives) creates an exact duplicate of all your data. Anything written to the array is written to both drives, so if one ever fails you still have a complete copy of your data.

RAID0+1 combines both of the above types of RAID. First, your data is striped across two drives, then those drives are mirrored onto another two. This gives you some of the speed benefit of a striped array, and the security of a mirrored array. The drawback: it requires four drives.

RAID5 requires more expensive hardware. I figured I'd mention it because it's what I've chosen for my own storage needs, forgoing the more traditional RAID0/1/0+1, though it's not nearly as popular a solution in the enthusiast market. In RAID5, data is spanned across three or more drives, along with parity data. This parity data is calculated based on the data being written, and, should a drive ever fail, can be used to rebuild the data on the lost drive. You get some speed benefits, but the real appeal is in the redundancy without having to sacrifice 50% of your storage space (ala RAID1). (FYI, RAID3 is the same thing, except the parity data is only stored on a single drive.)

[a ronin]

Excellent write-up. I didn't realize RAID0 did not have complete copies of data on the drives. I guess RAID0/1 sounds good. I have enough storage to go around