I am wondering if i would benefit from getting a raid controller with my current set up. I know that RAID10 run through my MOBO will use a lot of processing power, but this is my current setup...
MOBO- ASUS Maximus VI Formula
CPU- Intel Core i7-4790K Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz)
I am using this for gaming, music and video storage, and personal use...not enterprise or server or anything like that.
Again, will getting a dedicated controller give me that much more of a performance boost? If yes, are there any recommendations for a controller under $200?
That's a difficult one to answer, because it depends how intense your general CPU usage is. A raid card will have it's own dedicated processor and memory, so it'll take pretty much all the load off your CPU, but how much benefit that is to you depends on whether you actually need to free up the load - which only you can really answer. Also, it's up to you how much of a boost you think the 200 bucks is worth.
One alternative would be a dedicated Raid array. You can build one quite cheaply (especially if you utilise your current drives and have any old components lying around), it'll take 100% of the process out of your machine and it'll completely isolate your back-ups from a general system failure - which, trust me on this, can happen. I just had all the HDDs in a raid array fried by a faulty PSU, and will now be building myself a dedicated Raid array as a result of that experience. If you have need of as much storage as you have, then it's probably worth doing properly.
no point of having raid 1 since its basic mirror for your kind of usage. In simple raid 0 you gain most performance. (Raid 10 is simply 1+0, nothing special)
it adds redundancy to the raid. He is using it for storage amongst the other things. if it was just raid 0 if a drive fails in the array he loses all his data. if you have the drives available I would use 1+0
Get an LSI raid card since you have the dough. I use a 9211-8i as an HBA (so not using the raid features) but the raid should be top notch. They can be found for probably $120 or so on ebay or whatever. There are often rebadged LSI cards from the likes of Dell, HP, etc that can be found second hand also. These are pretty schmick cards, so you'll have to get a special cable that breaks out the SAS connectors on the card to SATA ports, but those are not too pricey. The one thing I'd note is that the ROM takes a few seconds to load when you boot.
Thanks all for your replies. I am open to all ideas (even those that are unrelated to RAID) so im just going to throw out there what exactly im looking for...
I have access for up to 6 3Tb hard drives. I want to have them setup in a way to give excellent performance as well as having backup without need for offsite backup. All i can think is to put them in RAID and from my research RAID1+0 seems to be the way to go. This will NOT be for server or enterprise or anything like that. I will just be using it in my personal rig. I use it for gaming, video editing, and music/picture/video storage.
Am i correct to just go with RAID or is there another way? Thanks again!