Increasing SATA Throughput: how can I do this?
 

Hey

I'm researching some SATA stuff for a client. The system wll have 6 300/400Gb SATA150 drives (probably two attached to the motherboard, and the other 4 drives on 2 64bit PCI cards).

I have two questions:

1. How can I really maximise the throughout on the sata drives? I realise that I can normally expect between 60 and 80mb/s on the drives, but can I increase this to 100mb/s?

2. This system will be used to store/host a lot of HDTV stuff (very large video files). Is there a reason to use hardware raid instead of software? I mean, would it decrease the strain on the PCI bus and, thus, increase the throughput?

Thank you in advance for all experiences and websites regarding optimising SATA access!

Hamish

Sorry I can not answer your question with more technical answers but... I have used both software RAID and hardware raid and the hardware raid out preformed every time. Also I recommend if you are going to be completing hardware raid that you get you raid the drives that are offboard. I have an early edition of onboard sata and for raid, buying a raid card worked much better for me.

Hope you find what you are looking for.

Cool. Thanks for that help. I think that 4 of the drives will be on offboard cards, and two will be onboard.

thank you

Hamish