Suggestions for Hardware RAID card

[N3rot0xin]

So after losing 200gb of data (some of which was moderately important), I've decided that my long term storage will be hardware-controlled raid as I am tied of losing data for stupid reasons. My setup will be small, within my main tower. Just a two-port card with a couple of 2tb HDD.  Looking around on newegg, theres a lot of cards for under $30. For my application, I think that's reasonable. But I don't know what to look for in raid cards. Any suggestions on the card? I will be doing RAID1 as that's the only raid I really have room for atm, as i'll already have 3 hard drives (Unless reading off the raid is fast enough for loading games, in which case i'll have just the 2). Also any suggestions on budget friendly yet raid friendly drives?

 

 

Edit:

Also I was thinking if it would be beneficial to get Hybrid drives? I may step down capacity because I don't see myself using 2TB anytime soon and im kind of on a budget, but want a lot of bang for the buck.

[Jarsky]

If it's just for a basic RAID 1 with 2 drives, you could just connect them to your motherboard and use Software RAID in Windows itself?

Then if you have a problem with the card, you aren't reliant on finding one with a similar chipset again if it dies.

[N3rot0xin]

Yeah but then if windows fails/motherboard fails, then im back to square 1. Software/bios IS the reason why I've lost data in the first place, so i'm not in a hurry to replicate that. Unless my understanding is wrong in that if I lose windows, I lost the table that defines the raid. And if the case turns out to be that if I lose windows for whatever reason, I can still recover the raid on another computer with minimal data loss.

[Jarsky]

The tables arent stored in the OS, they're mirrored on the disks themselves. If you have an OS failure, you just import the array into a different Windows computer. Done it a few times - the latest one was an 8 disk Software RAID5 from Windows 2K8R2 (AMD CPU) to Windows 2K12R2 (Dual Xeon).

 

The reason I dont use hardware raid using Motherboard, is the chips can differ.

e.g I had a raid that was on a board using a Sil3112 chip, and the only Silicon Image cards I could find had Sil3114 chips.

Same thing can happen with RAID cards so its best to find a card with a common chip.

[N3rot0xin]

The tables arent stored in the OS, they're mirrored on the disks themselves. If you have an OS failure, you just import the array into a different Windows computer. Done it a few times - the latest one was an 8 disk Software RAID5 from Windows 2K8R2 (AMD CPU) to Windows 2K12R2 (Dual Xeon).

 

The reason I dont use hardware raid using Motherboard, is the chips can differ.

e.g I had a raid that was on a board using a Sil3112 chip, and the only Silicon Image cards I could find had Sil3114 chips.

Same thing can happen with RAID cards so its best to find a card with a common chip.

 

Ah, I did not know that. I thought that software raid was lost if the software was lost so too was whatever raid you may have had. But that makes sense now. In that case, any recommendations for the drives?

[Jarsky]

I use WD Red's in mine for the active balancing, tler and they're generally quiet. 

[Captain_WD]

So after losing 200gb of data (some of which was moderately important), I've decided that my long term storage will be hardware-controlled raid as I am tied of losing data for stupid reasons. My setup will be small, within my main tower. Just a two-port card with a couple of 2tb HDD.  Looking around on newegg, theres a lot of cards for under $30. For my application, I think that's reasonable. But I don't know what to look for in raid cards. Any suggestions on the card? I will be doing RAID1 as that's the only raid I really have room for atm, as i'll already have 3 hard drives (Unless reading off the raid is fast enough for loading games, in which case i'll have just the 2). Also any suggestions on budget friendly yet raid friendly drives?

 

 

Edit:

Also I was thinking if it would be beneficial to get Hybrid drives? I may step down capacity because I don't see myself using 2TB anytime soon and im kind of on a budget, but want a lot of bang for the buck.

 

 

Hey N3rot0xin,

 

I would also suggest going for simple software RAID1 if you are doing it on a smaller scale. Also your motherboard should support RAID1 and should be more than enough for your needs. NAS/RAID class drives are recommended for such tasks (as @Jarsky pointed out WD Red drives are great for that).

Also I would strongly suggest that you do backups on external drives that are not attached to your system. RAID is not a backup, it only provides redundancy, but it does not ensure security against user mistakes or power failure. 

 

Captain_WD.