Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?

I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Doug White:

I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

For a desktop/home machine you could also consider using the built in
software RAID capabilities of XP. You can definitely build a RAID
starting from an existing disk with data on it and there won't be any
noticable difference in performance.

--

Joerg Lenneis

email:

Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection
against failures of any other piece of hardware, or glitches due to
software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since the HD is one
of the most reliable pieces of a PC, RAID-1 has very little value
for a home.
--
Cheers, Bob

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection
against failures of any other piece of hardware, or glitches due to
software or environment or fumble-fingers.

For me, most of the on-mobo RAIDs are notorious for such glitches, which
sometimes kill all disks.

So, probably they actually decrease reliability and not increase it.

Backups are the way to go.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com

Bob Willard wrote:


With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection
against failures of any other piece of hardware, or glitches due to
software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since the HD is one
of the most reliable pieces of a PC, RAID-1 has very little value
for a home.

Hmm, if I look at all the hardware failures I've in the last 15 or so
years, hard disks are probably the least reliable part of my desktops. I
can't recall a CPU, memory, graphics card or motherboard failure in that
time, maybe I'm just lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it.)
--
Nik Simpson

nik Simpson wrote
Bob Willard wrote

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection against failures of any other piece of hardware, or
glitches due to software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since the HD is one of the most reliable pieces of
a PC, RAID-1 has very little value for a home.

Hmm, if I look at all the hardware failures I've in the last 15 or so years, hard disks are probably the least
reliable part of my desktops. I can't recall a CPU, memory, graphics card or motherboard failure in that time, maybe
I'm just lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it.)

Sure, but plenty get that with hard drives too.

Rod Speed wrote:
nik Simpson wrote
Bob Willard wrote

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection against failures of any other piece of hardware, or
glitches due to software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since the HD is one of the most reliable pieces of
a PC, RAID-1 has very little value for a home.

Hmm, if I look at all the hardware failures I've in the last 15 or so years, hard disks are probably the least
reliable part of my desktops. I can't recall a CPU, memory, graphics card or motherboard failure in that time, maybe
I'm just lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it.)

Sure, but plenty get that with hard drives too.


With an oddball hiccup in the measured reliability of all components in
systems, working for multiple vendors, I gotta go with hard drives.
This is SMD, IDE, EIDE, SCSI, FC, SATA.

Generally anything with moving parts will be less reliable.

Other highlights are parts where the user can get at them, plug them
into something stupid, plug something stupid into them, or pour various
liquids on them.

Even way back when memory errors occurred, measured over an entire
install base, the memory was not that much different in reliability than
the chips. A few issues with UV EPROMS, but those are in the antique
shop anyway.

Lon wrote
Rod Speed wrote
nik Simpson wrote
Bob Willard wrote

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1 only protects against failure of a HD, and
supplies no protection
against failures of any other piece of hardware, or glitches due
to software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since the HD
is one of the most reliable pieces of a PC, RAID-1 has very
little value for a home.

Hmm, if I look at all the hardware failures I've in the last 15 or
so years, hard disks are probably the least reliable part of my
desktops. I can't recall a CPU, memory, graphics card or
motherboard failure in that time, maybe I'm just lucky (or unlucky
depending on how you look at it.)

Sure, but plenty get that with hard drives too.

With an oddball hiccup in the measured reliability of all components
in systems, working for multiple vendors, I gotta go with hard drives.
This is SMD, IDE, EIDE, SCSI, FC, SATA.

I include MFM, RLL, EDSI etc etc etc too.

Generally anything with moving parts will be less reliable.

Its much more complicated than that.

Other highlights are parts where the user can get at them, plug them into something stupid, plug something stupid into
them, or pour various liquids on them.

And stuff that has a rather hard life like mouse cords etc.

Even way back when memory errors occurred, measured over an entire
install base, the memory was not that much different in reliability than the chips.

Yes, but it aint just chips that matter, most obviously with the problem with electros.

A few issues with UV EPROMS, but those are in the antique shop anyway.

Doesnt alter that fact that plenty havent had a hard drive failure and have had other stuff fail.

software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since
the HD is one
of the most reliable pieces of a PC, RAID-1 has very
little value
for a home.

I disagree. I've had home PCs since 1987, and in that
time the disks have consistently been the least reliable
components, and i've that experience with a bunch of
brands -- Seagate, WD, Maxtor, Fujitsu, even now-dead
brands like Conner and Micropolis (I used SCSI during much
of 90s). I've used RAID1 in my home PC for about 4 yrs.
now. I agree wholeheartedly with your advice that it's no
replacement for backups, which I know people (myself
included) can get lazy about when they know they have that
mirror.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Stay away from Adaptec. 3ware has a good reputation, but
the cards are not cheap. Also Linux software RAID is very
reliable, but not applicable in your case.

Arno