DELL IDE RAID VS SCSI RAID

I use both IDE (PE1400SC) and SCSI RAID (2 x PE1600SC).  I like the cost benefits of IDE RAID, but the performance is a bit lacking in the previous generation cards.  Seems to work well enough for small workgroups though (i.e. IDE RAID 5).  I have not played with Serial ATA RAID, but that looks really good.  I have both U160 and U320 SCSI controllers running RAID 5 in my 1600s respectively.  Both are LSI cards and they behave great.

John 

John,

I'm purchasing a new Dimension with the Serial ATA 74Gb drives in RAID 0; I am told by a sales rep that this is done via a hardware device (SATA Raid Controller?), but I'm not convinced this guy was sure of his answer.

Could you help me with a couple questions?

1. How hard is it to shift from a RAID 0 to a RAID 1 implementation with the above hardware? I may need to implement RAID 1 if I cannot get a good answer to #2 below.

2. I have an 80GB spare drive that I was planning to use as a backup volume for the 74GB RAID 0 drives. Do you know the best way to set this up and automate it? The OS shipping with the PC is Windows XP Pro and I also have a copy of W2K Pro.

3. Is there anything unique that I have to think about or manage with a RAID 1 or 0 PC running Windows?

To answer 2000man question the IDE is ok for small networks that do not have heavy usage. There is definitly a speed difference between the two scsi being much faster. There is also a reliability difference scsi being much more reliable

To answer your questions NavyPAD.

1. It is totally dependent upon the controller you are using on how difficult , if possible, it is to switch from raid 0 to raid 1. Most of the dell scsi controllers make it very easy to switch using the array manager software (Dell OpenManage Array Manager).

2. If you have 2  74GB drives in a raid 0 your capacity is going to be 148GB and the 80GB drive may not hold everything you want. With WinXP you can use the built in backup software to do a backup to the 80GB drive in a .bkf file. If you are worried about reliability of the system you will be much better off going with a Raid 1 and not 0.

3. There shouldn't be anything special to the array setup in windows. Just have to have the driver loaded and windows will see the raid set as 1 drive for each logical drive you setup. The only thing that you might want is some type of array management software but it is not needed unless you plan on changing the configuration.

If you can tell me what Dimension you are looking at getting I can look at the SATA controller and see what its capabilites are and give you  a more definite answer on switching between array types.

Message Edited by zbones on 12-29-2003 03:35 PM

Thanks, I had configured a Dimension XPS Second Generation (3.0Ghz, 800Mhz FSB, 1Gb SDRAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon AGP, etc.) I'm looking for a high performance machine to do Photoshop, video editing, burn DVDs, run DB2, as well as the typical list of office productivity applications.

I don't think I'll need to back up more than 40Gb right away, so I am hoping to stay with a single 80 Gb IDE backup drive to give me a little crash protection while letting me leverage the performace of Raid 0 vs. going straight to Raid 1.

Currently I don't need non-stop computing with automatic failover, but that would be nice at some point. The sales rep didn't know how bad the write penalty is for these Dell PCs, so I chickened out and opted for Raid 0 in my configuration. If I can switch over to Raid 1 easily (throw a few DIP switches, format, reinstall, etc.) I may do some testing in both configurations. Does anyone have any data or anectdotal experience with the performance differential?

Do you know if these PCs can do more than RAID 0 or 1 without some additional software or hardware controllers? Dell doesn't seem to offer it as a normal configuration option for a Dimension XPS.