Hardware RAID Card Question

[ShadowWolf810]

So being a total noob when it comes to Raid hardware, I'm looking at these two. 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115114

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAAEE50N4890

 

I know the expensive one has support for 8 drives compared to 4 for the cheap one. Is that the main difference? And my main question is do these cards have separate controllers for each drive? Is it one SATA III 6 Gb/s controller split between the 4 or 8 drives, or could all drives expect to get full SATA III transfer speeds at the same time in RAID 0? If these wouldn't provide full speed, any suggestions for ones that do? 

[Cracklingice]

The second one adds support for more than just raid 0 and raid 1.  It also includes a cache buffer.

[ShadowWolf810]

Just now, Cracklingice said:

The second one adds support for more than just raid 0 and raid 1.  It also includes a cache buffer.

Ok.... Do either of these (or do they make any) with separate controllers on the card for each drive so that they aren't all sharing one 6 Gb/s bus? Or is that not how it works? 

[Cracklingice]

There may be, but each controller would probably be it's own array defeating the purpose unless you wanted two separate arrays.

[ShadowWolf810]

Just now, Cracklingice said:

There may be, but each controller would be it's own array defeating the purpose unless you wanted two separate arrays.

The use case for this RAID card would be 3 or 4 SSDs in Raid 0, in an external PCIe extension box with a Thunderbolt 2 connection to the PC. So I'm looking for something that would give all the drives their max performance. Transfer speed is the goal. 

[Cracklingice]

I'm not sure if that will work or not.  I think the external GPU enclosure needed special drivers that may or may not be compatible with a raid card and it likely won't be a bootable device if it is recognized.  Have you looked into NAS boxes or external raid boxes that have their own controller?

[ShadowWolf810]

1 minute ago, Cracklingice said:

I'm not sure if that will work or not.  I think the external GPU enclosure needed special drivers that may or may not be compatible with a raid card and it likely won't be a bootable device if it is recognized.  Have you looked into NAS boxes or external raid boxes that have their own controller?

So its not specifically a GPU enclosure, but there could be driver issues. https://www.akitio.com/expansion/thunder2-pcie-box Am trying to help a friend out who already has that PCIe box because buying a Thunderbolt raid box is out of the budget. Were hoping to find a single slot raid card then cram a bunch of SSDs into it. 

[Cracklingice]

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115178&cm_re=thunderbolt_raid-_-16-115-178-_-Product
I can see why you guys are wanting to try going that route.  External hardware thunderbolt raid isn't cheap.

[ShadowWolf810]

1 minute ago, Cracklingice said:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115178&cm_re=thunderbolt_raid-_-16-115-178-_-Product
I can see why you guys are wanting to try going that route.  External hardware thunderbolt raid isn't cheap.

Yeah exactly, and its not exactly portable either.

[Cracklingice]

Two boxes is more portable?  So he's trying to plug the array into multiple devices?

[ShadowWolf810]

Just now, Cracklingice said:

Two boxes is more portable?  So he's trying to plug the array into multiple devices?

Naa the idea is that it would be one box. Put all the SSDs into PCIe box, and I'm pretty sure he put a power supply in there so it could be used with a GPU, so I think he can power them. Not trying to plug into multiple devices. Just trying to have a super fast portable Raid for editing on 

[Cracklingice]

Oh ok I see.  I take it he's a laptop user?

[ShadowWolf810]

2 minutes ago, Cracklingice said:

Oh ok I see.  I take it he's a laptop user?

Sort of, hes got his badass WIndows rig at home, and a 2012 Macbook. But hes making a documentary in Guatemala and flies back and forth a few times a year, so hes trying to get as much editing power out of the Macbook as he can, while being able to carry it with him easily. 

[Cracklingice]

OK, alternate suggestion.  Why not put an NVME add in card in the dock?  It would be simpler than a raid and probably faster.  Would also be less prone to data corruption. 

[ShadowWolf810]

4 minutes ago, Cracklingice said:

OK, alternate suggestion.  Why not put an NVME add in card in the dock?  It would be simpler than a raid and probably faster.

Well we had thought of that but its mostly a price to storage issue. A 1 TB NVMe SSD like a 960 Pro is 700 dollars and not really enough storage to be able to work with all the footage hes accumulated at the same time. I think there's solutions that would work with enough money but because hes got the SSDs laying around already we're trying to make that work as cheaply as possible

[Cracklingice]

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249087  +  https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815256024

or

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249083

[Cracklingice]

Nevermind.

1. NVMe drives are not supported on macOS (learn more about NVMe and AHCI)

[Cracklingice]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/152476372269

Some of the earlier X4 PCIE M.2 drives used AHCI and may be compatible with the enclosure given a card like the one I linked earlier was used.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if they came in sizes larger than 512GB.

 

Otherwise, here's the list of compatible devices from the manufacturer.
https://www.akitio.com/information-center/pcie-card-compatibility-chart

[ShadowWolf810]

54 minutes ago, Cracklingice said:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/152476372269

Some of the earlier X4 PCIE M.2 drives used AHCI and may be compatible with the enclosure given a card like the one I linked earlier was used.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if they came in sizes larger than 512GB.

 

Otherwise, here's the list of compatible devices from the manufacturer.
https://www.akitio.com/information-center/pcie-card-compatibility-chart

Yeah thanks for your help, looks like hes gonna either have to buy a new M.2 drive, or buy a thunderbolt expansion box. 

 

I looked at that list of compatible devices you showed and did happen to see this RAID card listed there, but its almost as expensive as the 960 Pro 1 TB! 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIABZ04RM8293&cm_re=HighPoint_RocketRAID_4522-_-16-115-125-_-Product

And I'm still not sure that all the drives would function as fast as they could. 

 

He's been running tests on his SSDs now, and hes gotten them up to sustained 780 MB/s transfers on synthetic tests in Raid 0. I'm assuming that hes doing these tests on his desktop rig and plugging in the drives to his motherboard Sata ports and doing software RAID that way, but I don't know for sure. If that's the case isn't it one controller for all the drives as it is?  

[Cracklingice]

It could be a software raid, but most motherboards support hardware intel rapid storage technology raids.  Though these raids are not as good as a card with a cache.

It's also possible that the list is very outdated and Apple does support NVME devices now.  The case is a thunderbolt 2 case so it's a bit old - it's likely that list is too.