Recommend low-to-mid range RAID cards???

Looking for a RAID card that is below $100 (either 2 port OR a 4 port) and I pretty much know squat about who's good and who's generic crap.

I have 4 HDs (all SATA 3Gbps) and I want to either do:

A) RAID 0 with 2 on the RAID card Only
RAID 1 with 2 on the ICH9R chipset OR on the RAID card
(RAID 0 set for installed Apps, Games, OS)
(RAID 1 set for Storage and place for automated backups of RAID 0 set)
OR

B) RAID 10 with all 4 on the RAID card
(Backup, Storage, Apps, everything!)

My motherboard has ICH9R chipset, so the performance has to be better that the chipset.

So I have 4 questions:
1) Any Suggestions for cards below $100?
2) Any Suggestions for cards in $50 area OR below?

3) Is RAID setup A a better choice than B?
4) If the controller for a RAID 1 setup fails, can I simply take the HD and plug it in a normal SATA controller to retrieve the data?

Any help or resources on this would be good! Thanks!

Originally Posted by Majoram

Looking for a RAID card that is below $100 (either 2 port OR a 4 port) and I pretty much know squat about who's good and who's generic crap.

I have 4 HDs (all SATA 3Gbps) and I want to either do:

A) RAID 0 with 2 on the RAID card Only
RAID 1 with 2 on the ICH9R chipset OR on the RAID card
(RAID 0 set for installed Apps, Games, OS)
(RAID 1 set for Storage and place for automated backups of RAID 0 set)
OR

B) RAID 10 with all 4 on the RAID card
(Backup, Storage, Apps, everything!)

My motherboard has ICH9R chipset, so the performance has to be better that the chipset.

So I have 4 questions:
1) Any Suggestions for cards below $100?
2) Any Suggestions for cards in $50 area OR below?

3) Is RAID setup A a better choice than B?
4) If the controller for a RAID 1 setup fails, can I simply take the HD and plug it in a normal SATA controller to retrieve the data?

Any help or resources on this would be good! Thanks!

Personaly I'd take option B using your integrated ICH9r as it will work perfectly fine! while raid 0 does offer some speed up, it totally neglects any redundantcy and actually increases your rate of failure X2 ... plus it always sucks having to reload your stuff if your os crashes ....

Plus with your card selections of $50 or below $100 ain't going to get you anything decent or anything that will really beat the ICH9R so my suggestion is raid 10 with the ICH9R ...

your Answer to 4 is NO usually, if the controller fails you must get the same model/brand or at least the same brand usually to get your data off it ... but if you use the onboard ICH9R they are compatable between chipsets ...

Mobos use what's usually called software raid. They require drivers to do quite a bit of the work. There's no memory buffer so if you crash in the middle of a write, you lose that data. Plus, the software will have to scan the array for errors when you boot up again. It's usually fine but your drives will be used for 20 minutes or whatever while it's being checked.

Cool thanks for the info!

Price restrictions aside, any suggestions on a good RAID card?

Nothing in the super-duper high end but something reasonable that would be used in a high end home system.

Originally Posted by Sarc

Mobos use what's usually called software raid. They require drivers to do quite a bit of the work. There's no memory buffer so if you crash in the middle of a write, you lose that data. Plus, the software will have to scan the array for errors when you boot up again. It's usually fine but your drives will be used for 20 minutes or whatever while it's being checked.

My understanding is that most cheaper cards are software raid as well. You have to pay a pretty high pricetag for full hardware RAID. When I was searching for a RAID cards for my home server, there was nothing with full hardware RAID that was anywhere near affordable. That was a while ago, though.

Originally Posted by DirtyLude

My understanding is that most cheaper cards are software raid as well. You have to pay a pretty high pricetag for full hardware RAID. When I was searching for a RAID cards for my home server, there was nothing with full hardware RAID that was anywhere near affordable. That was a while ago, though.

Yeah it's still freaking expensive!

I guess I'll wait and save a bit before using a card over my chipset.

I assume software raid on a card is about the same as my chipset??

Originally Posted by Majoram

Yeah it's still freaking expensive!

I guess I'll wait and save a bit before using a card over my chipset.

I assume software raid on a card is about the same as my chipset??

No I'm telling you software Raid-10 is da bomb, very fast, and very good!

IMO software raid is a waste of time and hardware raid is too expensive, it may have changed since but I don't trust software raid.