Can anyone point me to a good source to explain what RAID is? And what advantages does onboard RAID controllers have over the expansion cards? Also, what is a typical RAID configuration for a game PC vs Standard workstation?
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/raid-1.html Integrated RAID means that you have an extra available PCI slot for something else. Also, depending on who the motherboard company is, the RAID controller can act as an extra set of hard drive controllers---which is what I use them for anyway. A typical RAID configuration on a gaming PC or workstation is typically no RAID at all. The RAID that comes on most motherboards that you'd be intrested in aren't true hardware RAID. I've played with RAID 0 once, and to be honest, it really wasn't worth it (then again, I was using some sorry IBM 60GXP Dethstars ). That configuration, as you've hopefully read in that RAID guide in Ars technica, doesn't have any net if one hard drive fails---which happened to me. It's not fun, but luckily, it wasn't my main box. That's just my opinion here, so take that with a grain of salt. The integrated controllers on most motherboards (meaning most non-server motherboards) don't hold a candle to true hardware RAID controllers, but they are cheaper to implement. Of course, you get what you pay for, so don't expect any blazing performance out of them---at least that you'll notice.
