The question

techcuriosity · January 11, 2018

Hi, quick question here, which of these raid configurations require special raid controller, which of them just don't require it, and which of them can work on both ways, connected via raid controller to mobo or connected directly to mobo without raid controller.., but if some raids can do both, what are recommendations? it's worth to buy that raid controller? or just don't waste money and it will achieve same results without it ?

BluJay614 · January 11, 2018

8 minutes ago, techcuriosity said:

Hi, quick question here, which of these raid configurations require special raid controller, which of them just don't require it, and which of them can work on both ways, connected via raid controller to mobo or connected directly to mobo without raid controller.., but if some raids can do both, what are recommendations? it's worth to buy that raid controller? or just don't waste money and it will achieve same results without it ?

Raid 5 and 6 aren't typically supported by default, and thusly would more then likely need a Raid controller. Otherwise, pretty much all modern motherboards these days have a built in(or on board) Raid controller that supports 0, 1, and usually 10 as well.

Unfortunately, as I have a lack of experience with this hardware, I couldn't give you any recommendations.

Oshino Shinobu · January 11, 2018

That depends on the motherboard. Some motherboard RAID controllers will support all of those, some won't support any. All can be done through software, though not for boot drives in most cases.

The most common to be supported by a motherboard's RAID controller will be RAID 0 (which technically isn't RAID), RAID 1 and RAID 10.

RAID 5 is less commonly supported by motherboard RAID controllers, but some still do. RAID 6 is going to be the least common out of those for a motherboard RAID controller. I believe I've seen some with it, but it's definitely uncommon.

None of them will exclusively require a dedicated RAID card and all of them require a RAID controller of some sort (either dedicated or built into the motherboard) if you're not using software RAID.

As for recommendations, that would really depend on the OS, your usage, RAID type you plan on using, budget etc. Can't really recommend anything without knowing more. In general, I would only recommend RAID where it is necessary and where there is already a good backup system in place. For consumer builds, I'd basically never recommend RAID, there's often not enough benefits to justify the inconveniences and costs.