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Over the past few years, one of
the most prolific integrated accessories found on high-end
consumer class motherboards has got to be an IDE RAID
controller. Virtually every OEM from
Abit
to Soyo
now ship motherboards that are outfitted with a RAID
controller. These integrated solutions give users the
ability to inexpensively boost drive throughput, or ensure
data security by "striping" or "mirroring" their data across
multiple drives. They also give users the ability to
simply plug more IDE devices into their motherboards.
If you look a little deeper, you'll see that the IDE RAID
controllers found on the vast majority of these boards are
produced by one of two companies, either
Promise
Technologies Inc. or
HighPoint Technologies Inc. Buying a motherboard
with integrated IDE RAID is not the only way to reap the
benefits of an inexpensive array of IDE drives though.
The product we'll be looking at today, the HighPoint
RocketRAID 404 PCI controller, is an add in card that can
accommodate up to eight IDE devices, in a multitude of
different configurations. Where applicable, we
compared its performance to a similar product from
Promise, and even and integrated Intel IDE controller.
Read on, you may be surprised by what you see...
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| Specifications of the
RocketRAID 404 |
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Something New... |
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SPECIFICATIONS TAKEN FROM HIGHPOINT-TECH.COM
RocketRAID 404 4-Channel
ATA133 RAID Host Controller:
- As a 4 channel
ATA133 RAID adapter, the RocketRAID 404 supports
up to 8 IDE hard disk drives, and provides multi
level RAID support including RAID 0, 1, 0/1, and
JBOD. The RocketRAID 404 is a high quality,
cost-effective solution for your mass storage
needs.
4 ATA channels
deliver high-performance data storage and retrieval:
- The RocketRAID 404
can support multiple RAID arrays, and the 4
independent ATA133 channels provide parallel
disk/array access.
Due to the RocketRAID 404's RAID 0 and 0/1
capabilities, data storage and retrieval is
dramatically faster than single drive systems.
Data security
features based on RAID 1 mirroring, hot-spare, and
hot swap capabilities:
- For RAID 1 and
0/1, the RocketRAID 404 provides disk mirroring,
hot-spare options for automatic array-rebuilds,
hot-swap support for swapping failed disks on the
fly (works with Hot-Swap capable mobile racks such
as Rocket Mate), and disk failure notification
(audible alarms, visual warning messages).
These features provide a high level of security
and data protection against hard disk failure.
Expand your
computer's data storage/drive capacity with
RocketRAID 404's mass storage capabilities:
- The RocketRAID 404
has 4 independent ATA channels, and supports up to
8 IDE hard disk drives. The RocketRAID 404 imposes
no restrictions on hard disk capacity, and will
meet the requirements of most all business and
personal applications.
Windows-based
utility for easy RAID configuration/management:
- In addition to the
BIOS configuration utility, the RocketRAID 404
includes Windows-based RAID configuration
software. The software provides and intuitive
interface, which is designed to make RAID
management easy, even for the inexperienced user.
Where would you
need the RocketRAID 404?
- As a
high-performance, affordable RAID solution,
RocketRAID 404 makes sense for nearly any
corporate, retail, industrial, home, and small
office environment. The RocketRAID 404 is ideal
for LAN servers, critical business data storage,
high-end PC workstations, video stream/video
editing systems, etc.
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Rocket RAID 404
Specifications:
Host side interface
Device side
interface
RAID controller IC
- HighPoint HPT374
UDMA ATA133 RAID Controller
Number of IDE
channels
- 4 Channels
- Up to 8 hard disk
drives
- Up to ATA133
Supported RAID
Levels
- RAID 0 (2-8 disks)
- RAID 1 (2 disks)
- 0/1 (4 disks)
- JBOD (2-8 disks)
Supported OSs
- Windows 98/ME
- Windows NT4.0
- Windows 2000
- Windows XP
- Linux (SuSE, Red
Hat, Caldera, Turbo)
RAID Management
Tool
- RAID Configuration
and Management
- GUI Function
- RAID Configuration
and Management (compatible with BIOS)
Additional
Features
- Bootable disk or
disk array support
- Disk hot spare for
automatic mirror rebuilding
- Hot-swapping
failed hard drives for RAID 1 or 0/1
- Error alarm with
on-card beeper
- Automatic e-mail
notification when error occurs
- Large LBA support
capacity exceeding 137GB
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Please take a
minute to peruse the specs posted above, as they may answer
some questions and present a few scenarios where a
controller like the RocketRAID 404 is appropriate.
Then again, they may raise a few questions and introduce you
to some unfamiliar acronyms like JBOD! Which, by the
way, stands
for "Just a Bunch Of Disks". If the whole concept of RAID is new to
you,
you may find this link interesting. There are
quite a few different ways to configure a RAID array, and
that link explains all of them. By far the most common
configurations for enthusiasts like you and I, are either a
dual drive RAID 0 array for performance, or a RAID 1 array
for security. We'll be looking at both of these
configurations a bit later....
The HighPoint RocketRAID 404 is
a rather ominous looking beast, with it's 4 ATA/133 capable
IDE connectors along the top edge of the card, and large
HPT374 controller perched right in the middle. Off to
the right of the HPT374 chip, you can see a small buzzer,
that will emit warning messages should a problem arise with
one or more of the drives connected to the controller.
Also included with the card, are drivers for all of the
major operating systems (Linux included), four 80-Wire/40-Pin IDE
cables and a simple user's manual. Configuring the
controller is a relatively painless process. In the
middle picture above is a shot of the RocketRAID 404's BIOS
setup utility. Creating an array is as simple as
selecting the "Create Array" option and highlighting the
drives you want to use...
GET THESE DRIVES AND MORE AT ARENA COMPUTERS!
We used a pair of 80GB Western
Digital WD800JB "Special Edition" drives, with 8MB caches, to
test the performance of the RocketRAID 404. These are
some of the fastest IDE drives available today. Before
we get down to benchmarking, let's take a look at the GUI
utility and mention some of the features of this product.
Setup
& Performance...
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