
But NVMe SSDs can be used only with specific RAID controller models, those that come with M.2 slots on the card.Īside from that, you have PCIe raid controllers that support different PCIe speeds. You don’t have to worry in case you have lots of SATA SSDs, they work with any modern RAID controller since support depends on the type of port used. Every RAID controller has the upper limit of storage devices you can hook up to it so make sure to know how much storage you need before going out and buying a RAID controller card. This is important and you should calculate whether you’ll need more storage devices in the future and how many you’ll need. How Many Disks You Have In Your RAID Array And Do You Plan To Add More Later It can be really useful in complex setups with lots of hard drives.

It’s there to enable higher write speeds and it can also be used to increase read speeds. There’s also the onboard cache present on higher-end cards. In the case of RAID 50 and 60 setups with lots of disks, a powerful RAID controller card with a multicore processor is recommended.
#The raid 1 software
Even if you’re running a basic RAID 5 or 6 configurations you can go with an onboard RAID and some software in case you have a powerful CPU.īut if you’re using lots of disks in RAID 5 or 6 or RAID 50 or 60 you will need a RAID card. If you have RAID 0 or 1 with just two disks you probably won’t get any benefit from a physical raid controller card. What’s Your RAID Setupįirst of all, getting the right RAID controller depends on your RAID configuration. If you don’t have a complex RAID setup onboard RAID along with a software RAID controller might be just what you need. And the best controller for the write-heavy RAID setup doesn’t have to be the best one for a setup used for a media server, where the data is just read from the disks.įinally, the best RAID card for you could be a virtual one. The best raid controller for home server may not be the best for SSD disks because home servers usually store their data on inexpensive hard drives with eventually one smaller SSD used as cache memory or for fast access to frequently used data.

But you should remember that the best raid controller card is one that’s perfect for your specific needs. Choosing the best RAID controller for your needs doesn’t have to be as complex as it seems after reading a bit about RAID controller cards.
