Member Avatar for fire_munki

Want to try raid on my system, got two 80Gb 7200rpm drives waiting.
The aim is to stripe Vista across them mainly to see how it works. My mb doesn't have RAID built in so will need a card, I've got a PCIe free and a bunch of PCI, question is which one do I use?

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For ’s goal of striping Vista across two 80GB 7200RPM drives, the practical choice is less about “PCI vs PCIe” labels and more about what the controller actually does and how it integrates with Windows. As observed, the physical slot is only one factor — the important points are whether the card is a true hardware RAID (onboard RAID engine and cache), whether the card’s BIOS/ROM presents the array as a bootable device, and whether the vendor supplies reliable Windows drivers and firmware updates.

A few concise, practical notes that aren’t in the thread so far:

  • RAID 0 is performance-only and offers no redundancy — losing one disk loses all data. Back up any important files before experimenting.
  • “Hardware RAID” cards offload work from the CPU and usually present arrays as standard disks that the OS can boot from. Many low-cost controllers are driver-assisted (host/fake RAID) and require vendor drivers during OS install and can complicate migrations and reinstalls.
  • If the plan is to boot Vista from the stripe, confirm the controller’s boot ROM and that the vendor supplies Vista-era drivers (keep them on removable media for the installer). For a low-risk test, consider striping a data volume instead of the OS or image the current system first.

Performance expectations and configuration tips:

  • RAID 0 improves large sequential transfers most; desktop boot and small random IO may show smaller gains. Pick a stripe size appropriate for the workload (desktop/file copies often do fine at 64K–128K) and ensure partitions are aligned to the stripe unit. Benchmark before-and-after with a reputable tool and watch CPU usage to see whether the controller is offloading work.

Finally, prioritize clear vendor documentation and boot-driver support over brand or bus type alone. For an OS-on-array experiment, that compatibility and an up-to-date driver/firmware path are the deciding factors.

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Member Avatar for jbennet

Which PCIe - 1x or 16x?

Member Avatar for fire_munki

PCIe 1x

Member Avatar for jbennet

yeah good thats what nearly all RAID cards are I was just checking

My server has a pci-express x1 card but my desktop has a PCI one

I dont think the speed difference will matter much. SATA 2 theoretically would use the extra bandwidth of PCI Express but in reality, SATA never operates anywhere near the theoretical max of 3gb/s

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