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Thread: What is the use of Sata/raid card in Alienware Aurora

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    80

    What is the use of Sata/raid card in Alienware Aurora

    I have recently purchased an Alienware Aurora system and using the same with great effects. Till now it hasn’t gave me any sorts of problem. But the only thing that is causing me troubles here is nothing but the sata/raid I don’t know for what purpose the slot is been provided here I mean it is named as sata/raid. So please let me know what it the use of this one and how to use the same. Any help regarding the same will be appreciated.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    372

    Re: What is the use of Sata/raid card in Alienware Aurora

    Generally id only uses a sata card if you are already using all the sata ports on the motherboard. no it doesn’t really matter if you use one. but there isn’t a lot of excuse for it as most motherboard come with like 4+ now a days. Some dedicated cards offer a large variety of raid types, many motherboards only support stripe. Before SATA was intro. on all motherboards we had IDE sata, that was a whole lot slower and a dedicated SATA card would let you get the new SATA drives. The SATA controller on the motherboard should in many cases be equal to a dedicated card, if you don't need the extra ports or additional raid conf. use the MB instead.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    383

    Re: What is the use of Sata/raid card in Alienware Aurora

    Depends what features you want. For RAID0 and 1 it makes no difference but if you want more obscure/enterprise RAID levels like 5e, 50, 60 ect or hot drives you'll need advanced software RAID or a proper RAID card also you need a proper RAID card if you want to offload parity calculations from the CPU or have a battery backed write back cache. Just look at Marvell SATA 6Gb/s controllers versus Intel and tell me it makes no difference. Just look at Marvell SATA 6Gb/s controllers versus Intel and tell me it makes no difference.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    360

    Re: What is the use of Sata/raid card in Alienware Aurora

    I have heard there is also a certain security in using raid cards over direct motherboard use. The main point being, if the motherboards dies the array is shot, but with a raid card, you simply need to purchase the same identical card and most of the time it'll work without issue. Motherboards are not created for years afterwards, while decent raid cards are made for a long time. Motherboards last for years and years, a good bit longer than regular HDD's do, the raid array you put up with a motherboard will most likely outlive the HDD's lifetime.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    330

    Re: What is the use of Sata/raid card in Alienware Aurora

    They both work exactly the same way. They both rely on a RAID controller chip on the motherboard. Also it dosn't have to be the exact same motherboard, as long as the controller is the same it dosn't matter. If you want real end-of-line protection then use software RAID which is entirely hardware independent. So? It would be pretty pointless using RAID if the controller was going to die before the drive. Every RAID version apart from 0 and 2 and JBOD/BIG if you count those enables some level of drive failure protection, if controllers died more regularly than HDDs it would completely negate the data protection provided by this. TLDR; RAID would be useless if HDDs outlasted controllers.

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