SIL 3114 & nVRAID controllers and hard drive support

[Wellcomef3-a]

Hi people, does the SIL 3114 RAID controller on the DFI Expert support SATA II hdds at SATA I read/write speeds or not at all?

And the nVRAID controller, this does support SATA I drives as well as the SATA II standard, yes? Forgive me for asking and sounding so noobish but please confirm that this is known as being backward compatible.

If I were to use the hard drives as suggested above then at least I would have to set the jumpers correctly or is there something more complicated that needs doing such as changing the firmware, etc?

 

[K404]

Hey! IIRC the Hitachi S-ATAII disks need some software magic performed (Mav can help ya there- he used em for a while) but all others either use a jumper or adjust automatically.

S-ATAII controllers support S-ATAI HDDs absolutely fine, S-ATAII is really just a higher ceiling. Iv had no troubles mixing and matching HDDs and controllers.

 

[Wellcomef3-a]

Hey K404, I'm glad you mentioned that because the Hitachi SATA II hdds are on my shopping list. So the software you mentioned will be on their web-site most probably? Hmmm, I wonder just what differences there are between hdds that adjust automatically and the Hitachis? Ah, maybe it's a one-size-fits-all type scenario where they can be used with both SATA I and SATA II controllers. A shrewd move on behalf of Hitachi - saving money from the ground up on design and the production line. They're very good drives I believe - beating most if not all of the opposition in most tests.

So what about this SIL 3114 controller? It supports hdds up to 1.5GB/s I know, but will it work with SATA II hdds at the SATA I standard of 1.5GB/s?

I want to avoid buying older technology, that's why it's important I know just what's what with these RAID controllers.

Anyway you will understand the reason for all these questions when I start a new thread following on from this one providing the info I get is correct.

More later.....

 

[K404]

So what about this SIL 3114 controller? It supports hdds up to 1.5GB/s I know, but will it work with SATA II hdds at the SATA I standard of 1.5GB/s?

Yup, S-ATA II disks will work fine on the controller. Dont worry about it One thing to note though- I dont know if you can create an array that spans between controllers. Most people have trouble filling the nV S-ATA ports, let alone the secondary controller

Err...if your post comes up as edited, that was my fault- I hit edit instead of quote, soprry! I didnt change anything though

 

[Wellcomef3-a]

K404, do you know this through experience or from reading or hearing about it? If it is true then this is good news , I can now buy the Hitachi SATA II hard drives that I will need. It makes sense nowadays to buy larger capacity hard drives than one actually needs because of the cost per GB, don't you think? That's what I do anyways, the option is there to use them for a different purpose later on.

Yes you are correct in thinking that a RAID array cannot be created by spanning across different controllers, however this is not my intention. You'll see what I mean soon enough.....

Nothing wrong with my previous post, it doesn't show as being edited. No worries mate!

 

[K404]

Experience. I bought S-ATAII HDDs as soon as I could afford them on the DFI NF4 board, and have also plugged S-ATAII HDDs into a few mates older computers to transfer files. (NForce 2 springs to mind!)

 

[Wellcomef3-a]

Experience. I bought S-ATAII HDDs as soon as I could afford them on the DFI NF4 board, and have also plugged S-ATAII HDDs into a few mates older computers to transfer files. (NForce 2 springs to mind!)

Excellent, that's great to know K404! That does surprise me - using SATA II hdds on an NForce II board! LOL! It just goes to show ya what's possible, innit!

 

[maverik-sg1]

I had SATA2 on nforce 2 board - the controller (if i recall) was Sil based chipset - worked a treat untilI upgraded (the XP2500 and board are still here).

Hitachi drives require the SATA2 operation to be activated using the software (DOS based floppy if I recall) which will either be supplied with the disks (retail box) or downloaded from thier site (OEM drives) - it's a pain but well worth as these are nice (read as reliable and fast) drives.

 

[Wellcomef3-a]

Hey mav, which nForce II board was that? I had the ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe which had the SIL 3112A RAID controller (and 2 SATA ports) and the nForce II DFI Lanparty had the SIL 3114 controller (with 4 SATA ports) and which was noticeably slower than the SIL 3112A.

What do you mean by "worked a treat until you upgraded"? :?

I downloaded the software and guides for the SATA II activation last night, all that remains is deciding how many to buy, storage capacity and where to buy from!

Well this thread has thrown up some pleasant surprises!

 

[haileris]

Personally, I found the Sil controllers very questionable in quality, my disks always appeared to "magically" fall out of the raid such that it was always resynching (to be fair, I didnt use the Sil raid but Windows native raid - just using the Sil for SATA ports - I wasnt that concerned about performance, just that it could serve files to my HTPC, and I kind of like the portability of Windows raid. Didnt just happen on one computer, but maybe I was just unlucky. In the end I bought an Abit ABN9 pro, 9 SATA ports, enough to be going on with

Maybe its a question for another thread but there are some SATA disks tagged as "Raid edition" - western digitals for example. They have a higher MTBF rating, so if you can afford it (they are a little pricier) might be an idea to go with them.

Cheers

Drew

 

[Wellcomef3-a]

Personally, I found the Sil controllers very questionable in quality, my disks always appeared to "magically" fall out of the raid such that it was always resynching (to be fair, I didnt use the Sil raid but Windows native raid - just using the Sil for SATA ports - I wasnt that concerned about performance, just that it could serve files to my HTPC, and I kind of like the portability of Windows raid. Didnt just happen on one computer, but maybe I was just unlucky. In the end I bought an Abit ABN9 pro, 9 SATA ports, enough to be going on with

Maybe its a question for another thread but there are some SATA disks tagged as "Raid edition" - western digitals for example. They have a higher MTBF rating, so if you can afford it (they are a little pricier) might be an idea to go with them.

Cheers

Drew

Please could you tell me or provide a link to a site where I can read about Windows native RAID. Is this software-based?

I have already bought the drives for my array, but thanks all the same for the advice about the RAID-Edition hard drives. I haven't compared prices yet but the drives you refer to have 'RE' in their model name.

I too have had my RAID-1 array rebuild itself from time to time. All it takes is a loose power/data cable for it to happen.

Anyways, more to come very soon! The reason for the spate of threads I have recently posted will enlighten you all!

 

[haileris]

Hi

Windows 2003 has a native raid mode built in - see

http://www.netadmintools.com/art439.html

Windows XP doesn't have that - good old M$ crippling systems - but it can be hacked in - see

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/19/using_windowsxp_to_make_raid_5_happen/

There's a pretty good comparison of hardware versus software raid systems here -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/conf/ctrlSoftware-c.html

As you can see there are pros and cons, I tend to prefer s/w raid but I am defintely not looking for performance when I choose this.

The other thing to consider is whether RAID itself is a good choice. If you are looking for resilience, any form of RAID will give you certain (obvious) features but it isn't a 100% rock solid solution. It doesn't withstand fires for example or theft. If a file is corrupted it is corrupted - the raid mirrors that corruption. As you prob know already 2 disks fail and its toast, so if one fails do you keep it going and risk it or power down until you get a new disk?

Lately instead of using RAID for my media files I've paired one internal drive with a USB attached drive and run a time lagged sync job using Robocopy and run a scheduled task chkdsk. When I go on holiday I stick the USB drives in the loft. I suppose they will still burn down in there but if some idiot breaks in I doubt they will do a full treasure hunt! The time lag has its own issues of course but I only sync one way so if I delete something I can recover it from the USB drive, likewise if chkdsk does find somehting I can hopefully get the file back from the other drive. Of course this is like mirroring and so is more costly.

Hope that wasn't too boring!

Cheers

Drew

Cheers

Drew

 

[Wellcomef3-a]

Hey Drew, that was an interesting & informative reply mate.

Rule the 1st one out - that's for the Windows 2003 Server edition; the 2nd one looked quite easy to set up and different but I am not looking to build a RAID-5 array - I'm going for an ultimate performance RAID-0 array using 4 hdds. More on this subject later.

I'll certainly read up on the differences and pros/cons of different RAID arrays in the link you provided but I am quite familiar with the most popular types that SOHO users utilize.

I was quite impressed with your solution to the RAID-1 mirroring array where everything is mirrored - virii and spyware and all - but I rarely find any such nasties on my RAID-1 array because my system drive is not a part of it. And as for any disaster such as the system drive failing I've always got an up to date Ghost image file that I can load onto a new hard drive and be back up and running within half an hour at the most and which beats a clean install hands down provided the image file is clean.

Lots of solutions about Drew, you just got to choose which works best for you and your particular system.