Question

Motherboards onboard raid

Asked by: FTGE

When a mother board has onboard raid is this considered hardware raid or software raid? my mother board has onboard sata raid but i also have a sata raid pci express controller card by adaptec. i want the fastest I/O performance. Any feedback to watch out for or pluses and minus would be great?

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Asked On
2009-11-03 at 22:28:39ID24869919
Topics

SQL Server 2005

,

Computer Servers

,

Computer Hard Drives

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
3

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Answers

 

by: ISoulPosted on 2009-11-03 at 22:35:10ID: 25736934

Onboard RAID is still hardware RAID, but a dedicated RAID card is still a better choice.

 

by: cuziyqPosted on 2009-11-04 at 00:34:42ID: 25737398

Before I delve into this, I think an explanation of the difference between software RAID and hardware RAID is warranted, because there is a lot of misconception between them and the answer is not as obvious as it seems.

Software RAID relies on your system CPU and memory to perform logical block translations.

Hardware RAID uses a dedicated processor and RAM to perform logical block translations.

The onboard RAID found on motherboards is software RAID.  The RAID driver is simply doing the same thing as Windows' dynamic disk driver would -- processing the block translation on your system's CPU and RAM.  The only advantage over an array created in the Windows Disk Manager is the ability to boot from it.  Nothing more.

The trick is to look at the specs for the card.  If you do not see anything about onboard RAM, or if you see the term "HostRAID" (dead giveaway there), then it won't be any faster than your mobo's RAID.  A true hardware RAID card will always cite the amount of RAM it's got in the specs, since the amount of RAM is vitally important to a hardware RAID controller's performance.

So the bottom line is that if this Adaptec RAID card is a softRAID solution (likely it is), then the answer is that it doesn't really matter performance-wise which you use.  The only reason to prefer the Adaptec card over the mobo is that it probably has some features your mobo's RAID doesn't, such as online RAID level migration, hot spare support, etc.  But if you don't need those features, and you've got enough SATA ports, then why waste the slot?

On the other hand, if it's a true hardware RAID controller, then the performance difference over your mobo would be HUGE.

I hope that wasn't too long of an answer for such a short question :-)

 

by: ISoulPosted on 2009-11-04 at 00:59:55ID: 25737514

Sorry for my misinformation. Everyone still has things to learn! :)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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