Raid storage solution?

Tomas Riuka

Tomas Riuka

Well-known member
Hello,

time has come to buy an external raid storage solution.

Can anyone tell me the different if i just buy raid enclosure, like this http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid/tr4mb.html and put inside my own drives and buying specialized solution like g-tech ES.

G tech is very expensive, what is the difference between two? is there any
reason to pay extra for g-tech ?

Thanks,
Tomas
 
You need some sort of RAID controller. This is usually the card that connects to the host computer. That is why the g-speed es is more expensive.
 
I am not very familiar with either of those systems but I do know a bit about RAID, so I checked out their specs.

The thing that would worry me about the Sansdigital one is this: " It also supports RAID 0, 1 0+1, 5, 5+spare via included software utility"
From what I can tell reading that site, this box does it's RAID via software. This works but is never as good as a dedicated controller card. I could have read it wrong but that is what it looked like to me.

The G-Speed however has an actual RAID Controller card. Hardware controllers always work better than software ones and always cost a lot more. That is one of the reasons this one costs more as bigbossbmb pointed out.

Also do you know what RAID level you plan to use? Are you looking for raw speed or just redundancy, or a bit both?
 
I'm looking for speed and reliability. Thinking of raid 5, out of 3 drives, so it's safe and fast,
just don't know what is the real difference between any of those systems.

is there a different in speed if i use G-speed solution or you my sata ports on motherboards
and configure raid in the computer itself?
 
In my opinion the G-speed would be better than using the RAID from the motherboard (or any software implemented RAID for that matter). Especially with RAID 5. Hardware based controllers are always better at RAID 5 due to the parity calculations that take place.

Now that does not mean the G-Speed is the best period. Not sure what your system is but you can get a SATA RAID Controller for your machine and then get 3 hard drives and set your own up. Not too complicated if you have the extra drive bays and a free slot on your motherboard for the controller.
 
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