Recommendations for SATA RAID cards?

It doesn't need to be fancy, it just needs to work! *grin* Other than that, the cheaper the better. I don't need SATA II either ... but I'd take it if it didn't jack the prices up.


History, if you are interested ...

Ironically (if you've seen the other harddrive post), I was considering this upgrade for my husband anyway, since I know that he keeps his data on a secondary drive. Naturally, the computer knew that I was thinking about this, so decided to die BEFORE I had the option to get a mirror raid setup. *sigh*

Since I might have to replace the drive anyway, now is as good a time as any to try to setup the Mirror to go with it.

Unfortunately, the mobo doesn't have native RAID capabilities. (altho it does have 2 onboard SATA in addition to primary & secondary IDE channels)

Since the OS will be on its own hdd, I don't REALLY need a hardware raid setup, I suppose ... but SW RAID makes me nervous.

The setup that I'm hoping to have will be the OS on a solitary drive, with a mirror (RAID 1 array) between 2 SATA drives for the data.

I found some on newegg for less that $15 ... brands are SYBA, Rosewill, Koutech ... with Sabrent showing up for under $20. Any differences? Brands to choose, brands to avoid?

THANKS!

 

Mirroring a HD can be a good thing but remember that whatever the first HD gets, it will contaminate the second HD with it also.

The only way to run 'safe' with a Raid set up is to have 3 HDDs. One HD with o/s, progs, etc ie boot drive and use the other 2 HDDs in a raid set up with data only. Hope I have explained that clearly.

Good Luck

EDIT: Just noticed from your post that you were going to set this up this way...

 

*grin*

Yeah ... I know all the differences in the RAID levels & such. I'm more worried about physical disk failure in this case than virus/corruption -- so I just need the RAID 1, not a 5 or any other variations. I'm keeping the OS separate, cause that can easily be re-installed. It also helps to keep corruption safe from the data somewhat.

So yeah ... has anyone heard of any of those brands of RAID cards? Any recommendations for a SATA RAID card? (While you're at it, any recommendations for an IDE RAID card for MY system, so that I don't have to setup a software RAID for mine as well? *grin*)