Promise has got competition... and not a small one...

[Stan]

Adaptec (http://www.targetpages.com/adaptec/gotraid/udmaraid.html?src=udma38&sess=GR398e90b415fc8) or Promise (http://www.techsurf.com/2000/June/default.htm) ??? that is the question !

Stan

[Nick66]

Wow...that's a surprise, i would definitly go w/Adaptec if i didnt already have a mod'ed Fasttrak.

[Stan]

Yeah, nice RAID5 controller for IDE drives...
It costs 260.00 UK pounds. That's approx 400$... expensive !

Stan

[Axel]

Found the Adaptec AAA-UDMA for $357 and the Promise Supertrak66 $325

So you get the card - You need a minimum of 3 hard drives to make raid5 work - not 3 partitions {I don't think} - 3 hard drives.

So - factor in , say, 3 6GB ATA66 drives - thats about $330 - so you are looking at about $700 for LOTS of additional access speed and no more back-up tapes.... Toss in an additional $15 for a power supply cord splitter - then you have tax - another $65 - so - for about $800 in change, there ya go.

One more thing - it's a REAL good idea to go ahead and buy a 4th drive so that when one does fail, you have an exact replacement. That way you avoid the need to reconfigure for a different drive size should you need to replace one.

This doesn't consider a want or need for hot swap drive bays. If you don't have a need to remove and lock up your drives, all the hot swap bays are for the home users is additional flash..... - If I could get paid a salary as high as what it would cost to buy the hot-swap bays v. removing 2 to 6 case screws, I'd be retired by now.....

Add in hot swap drive bays - you'll probably be looking at $1150 total plus shipping for a PC RAID5 solution. I.E. - about the price of what a moderate "shelf" generic PC costs to build. As the VAST majority of people don't concern themselves with back-ups, the driving factor has to be access speed and the ability to address a very large logical drive with several smaller physical hard drives. How many average users are willing to double the price of their PC's for relatively inexpensive superior drive access speeds? Sounds like a difficult marketing challenge.....

That price is down from "package" raid5 deals that were priced at about $2200.00 from just a few weeks ago. Keeping pace with PC prices.

[Stan]

This card is definitely for me...
I already have four IBM 22Gxp (7200rpm. 2Mb) hooked on a FastTrak RAID controller in RAID0.
Imagine these 4 HD on a RAID5 controller with 64MB cache ???

Can't wait...

Stan

[KillerBug]

Not for the PC user, for the big servers that need the reliability.