Installation
For the sake of this review I will be trialing RAID 0. I don’t have the Drives (you need at least 4) for 0+1, and Spanning is fairly boring (combining a few disks to make a bigger one). What RAID level you choose depends on what you're going to be using the Array for. Gamers and performance freaks will probably choose the Performance of RAID 0, while users who deal with important data will probably prefer the safety of RAID 1. I wanted to try both before I decided which I'd use. And so onto installation. This will setup a new array. The steps will be different if you are not booting from the RAID Controller.
Step 1: Install the Card into your machine.
Fairly simple, take off the case, install the card into a spare PCI Slot. The RocketRAID 404 is a 32bit/33Mhz PCI Card, so no worries there. Connect up all your drives and you're ready to go. There are pins on the controller which you can attach LEDs to to give HDD activity indication, hook those up if you want to.
Step 2: Check if it initialises.
Once your computer has POSTed it should bring up the RocketRAID Diagnostic Screen. Basically it just shows what drives are installed on the controller. If this screen comes up, the Controller is physically fine. If it doesn't, check that it’s in the slot properly. Failing that, try another slot.
Step 3: Create an Array.
You access the Highpoint BIOS by pushing Ctrl-H. The BIOS is fairly self explanatory, you can create an array, delete an array and add/remove disks from the spare pool. We want to Create an Array. From here you need to follow the menu options:
Select Array Type
Raid 0 - This will remove all data from both disks in the array. Make sure you have empty disks or the data backed up somewhere.
Raid 1 - You have two options, Create Only creates an empty array, i.e. empties both disks. If you select duplicate it will copy all the data from the 1st disk in the array onto the 2nd, so you lose no data.
Raid 0+1 - This will delete all data from all the drives in the array
JBOD - This will delete all data from all the drives in the array
Set an Array Name
You only need this to distinguish between Arrays. I'm not sure what the limits are on naming them, I called mine Wasabi2k and had no problems.
Select Disks
This is where you select which disks to add to the array. If you are creating a RAID 1 Array using the duplication method make sure you select the disk with the data you want to save as Disk 1, as data from Disk 1 is copied to Disk 2. The BIOS will warn you when it finds a valid partition on a disk you want to empty.
Cluster Size
From a friend's advice I picked 16k, which is meant to be the best for normal operation/gaming. If you're using your array for video editing a larger cluster size may be appropriate.
Create Array
Crunch Time. If you're creating a new empty array this step will be fairly speedy (a minute or two at the most). If you're creating a RAID 1 array and duplicating the first drive then this operation can take some time, depending on the size of the disks.
Step 4: Decide where to boot from.
The RocketRAID 404 lets you boot from a RAID Array, which is a very useful feature. It means you don't have to have a separate drive as your boot drive. For the sake of this guide we will boot from the RAID Array. The first thing you need to do is set your BIOS Boot Sequence. The RocketRAID 404 counts as a SCSI device in the boot sequence, so set your Boot Sequence to A:, SCSI, CDROM, or whatever you want to use. Power up and go into the Highpoint BIOS again by pushing Ctrl-H, then select the 'Select a Boot Disk' option in the menu. Select one of the disks in the array you want to boot from. Now we're ready for the next step...
Step 5: Installing an OS.
So now we've got a shiny new RAID array, we need something on it right? Well, first step is installing your OS. I installed Win2k and XP to test. The RocketRAID 404 Boot from the Win2k/XP CD-ROM and when it prompts you, push F6 because we DO want to load a third part RAID or SCSI controller. Don't worry if setup continues for a while without acknowledging that you pushed F6. Sit back and relax while Windows setup continues. After a while a message will come up saying that Windows couldn't find any supported RAID or SCSI Controllers would you like to install a third party driver. Push S and it should ask for the driver disk if it isn't already in the drive, then it should bring up a Menu, where I suggest you pick the appropriate driver for your OS. Once it is loaded setup will continue as normal, and you can partition your array as if it were one drive. There's something really cool about Windows detecting a 114,343Mb Partition. Setup should finish and you're away. If you are installing a Win9x OS you will need to boot from a floppy and partition and format the array before running setup. I fear to think how long it would to take format a 120GB Partition.
Well now that we're setup and running we can get onto benchmarking. And my results were surprising to say the least. The system is an Asus A7V, Athlon 1Ghz and 256MB of RAM running WindowsXP. The drives are Seagate Barracuda IVs 60GB. Really quiet, really nice drives.
Benchmarks
Okay, so now we've setup the controller and the drives, let's see it in action. We will the most common benchmarks necessary in determining the drives efficiency and perfomrance in RAID.
Sisoft Sandra 2002
File System Benchmark
Well. Not quite the improvement I was looking for. in fact, there is very little difference
HDTach 2.61
Random Access Time
(milliseconds lower is better)
Read Burst Speed
(mb/sec higher is better)
Not much of an improvement there either
What's going on? the RAID 0 setup is only slightly faster than a single drive. Then it hit me. I was using Barracuda IVs. A quick visit to some forums confirmed my suspicions. A lot of people have had problems using Barracuda IVs in RAID. Slow performance seems to be the norm. Seagate however have acknowledged the problem, and offered to replace my drives with RAID compatible ones. I just have to send my drives off to a courier company and Seagate will get them changed with a RAID compatible version which apparently fixes all performance issues. I will be sending off my drives next week and I will be updating my review when I get the new drives. But this is a review of the controller, not the drives.
Conclusions
I have had no problems with the Controller. I had no trouble with setting up my array or Installing Windows XP onto the array. One small gripe is that it takes a while to scan all 4 IDE channels at boot-up, about 10 seconds or so. There's only one thing that confuses me. The controller is a 32Bit/33Mhz Card, with 4 ATA-133 Ports on it. The Bandwidth between the drives may be fairly substantial, but the 32Bit/33Mhz slot is going to be a bottleneck. This may be less of a problem with a single Array, but running 8 drives might not yield fantastic performance. I apologise for not being able to test my theory, but I don't have a spare $2000 to spend on Hard Drives to prove a theory. This limitation is true of all 32bit/33Mhz cards and not just the RocketRAID 404. By making the card 32bit/33Mhz Highpoint have made it more accessible to the general market, where few average computer users have the luxury of 64bit/66Mhz PCI Slots. The RocketRAID 404 is a great consumer level card for the price. It is a high quality, cost-effective solution for your mass storage needs. It's got a few extra features (hot spare, hot swap) that you don't get on your average controller, and 4 Channels are always handy. Definitely recommended.
The Good
4 Channels
Hot Spare and Hot Swap
ATA-133
Cables Included
Fairly Good Manual
Good Driver Disk
Easy Setup
The Bad
32bit/33Mhz PCI Slot could be a bottleneck?
Ramil's Note:
We have received emails from people giving their view regarding Jeff's review. As always we appreciate your opinions on our reviews. Most of the emails have asked him for recommending the RocketRAID 404 when it gave such abysmal scores. He has made it clear in this review that these low scores are due to his Drives and not the controller itself. Even the manufacturer acknowledged the problem. He recommended it based on his experiences with it. We acknowledge that a lot of people feel he shouldn't recommend it without better speed scores. It is a high quality piece of kit for its price and I stand by Jeff's recommendation.
Jeff have also been told by a few people that he should have chosen a larger block size. He has also been informed that VIA platforms give a 20% lower score in RAID-0 Setup. We don't know if that is true. When his drives get replaced he will be running a much more thorough suite of benchmarks, with various block sizes and both VIA and Intel platforms.
This was Jeff's first experience with IDE-RAID and it showed how easy the controller can be setted up. That is one of his basis for giving it his approval. The scores wasn't lower than the single drive anyway and people have different use for it. Not just for performance but for backup, etc.
We thank everyone who has contacted him for their views, we do appreciate feedback. If you want to have your say please feel free to email Jeff.