http://www.maximumpc.com | MAY 08 | MAXIMUMPC 43

I

n the November 2007 issue, we took an in-depth look

at RAID—short for redundant array of inexpensive

disks—and broke down the pros, cons, and most

importantly, speeds of the various RAID permutations

you would fi nd on a typical multidrive setup. Here we’ll

examine the medium itself: the RAID controller, which tells

the drives in a RAID setup how to interact. As you’ll see,

there are RAID controllers of differing types, technologies,

and price points, and we want to learn whether these

variations translate into performance differences. After all,

even the fastest RAID confi guration ultimately depends on

the performance capabilities of its physical host.

A RAID array can be set up in one of two ways: You

can use the controller that’s built into your mother-

board’s chipset (if it includes one), which requires you to

hook up your drives as normal and then edit a few BIOS

settings, or purchase an external controller card, which

boots its confi guration menu before your operating sys-

tem even loads.

Our mission is to test the performance of RAID setups

using both low- and high-end RAID cards from fi ve dif-

ferent manufacturers and compare those results against

the performance of two common motherboard solutions.

Once the dust settles, you’ll know which RAID controller

will give you top performance and exactly what features

you get for your buck!

Motherboard vs. add-in card, host-based vs.

discrete. What role does a RAID controller play

in overall RAID performance?

RAID

CONTROLLERS

COMPARED!

MAXIMUMPC

CHALLENGE

ANOTHER

BY DAVID MURPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY: SAMANTHA BERG
HAND MODEL: ALDO