LSI MegaRAID and Seagate Savvio Review

Author: Mark Taliaferro

 

The one thing all computer enthusiasts like is a rig that runs fast. We've found that often the hard drive is one of the bottlenecks in modern systems. A lot of enthusiasts have turned to onboard software RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) to provide more speed. Software RAID does provide some relief to the hard drive bottleneck but it comes at the cost of using more CPU cycles and a larger percentage of your CPU's capabilities are used to drive the software RAID. It also uses onboard SATA ports which aren't always accessible if you're using dual slot video cards.

We're now seeing boards with as many as four full PCI-E 16x slots and three PCI-E 8x, boards like the Asus P6T7. Once again, expansion ports are on the list of things that enthusiasts are looking for so manufacturers are building boards with more ports available. Chances are you have at least one PCI-E slot open capable of handling a Hardware RAID card.

Hardware RAID cards come in a variety of types and capabilities. The one we're going to look at today, in conjunction with a bevy of Seagate Savvio 15K (ST973451SS) drives, is the LSI MegaRaid (SAS 8708EM2), capable of connecting eight drives directly to the RAID controller. The advantage of hardware RAID is that you can get RAID cards that have onboard processors and memory that almost totally take the load off the CPU and handle input/output by themselves, and they run faster than any onboard RAID we've ever seen.

Are you ready for some seriously insane RAID action? We know that you are. We have RAID in every flavor that our LSI RAID controller will handle with the drives we have available (10 Seagate Savvio 15K SAS drives). As a point of interest, the LSI MegaRaid controller will also handle SATA drives. We're going past SATA and right to SAS with its lightning fast access times and spindle speeds up to 15K RPM. RAID, RAID, and more RAID. RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, and RAID6 are on the menu today, so set back and enjoy this feast of RAID.