2 raid controllers

[qbker]

Currently my heart is pretty much set on the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce 4) motherboard, details could be found here:

http://uk.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A8N-SLI Deluxe&langs=11

My question is, since the on-board nForce4 already supports

A. raid setups
B. SATA2 (300MB/s)
C. NCQ

Why did they put another raid controller there to complicate matters? As far as I'm aware, the only main differeces between the Silicon Image 3114R RAID controller and the nForce4 raid controller (NVRAID) are:

A. 3114R does not support NCQ but the NVRAID does
B. 3114R does not support JBOD but the NVRAID does
C. 3114R does not support span cross raid between SATA and PATA but the NVRAID does

The only thing that the 3114R has which the NVRAID hasn't is RAID5 support. Otherwise it is inferior to the NVRAID in all other areas.

So my two main question are:

1. Could the RAID5 be the ONLY reason they put the 3114R controller on the board?

2. How do I pick which controller to use for my SATA RAID0? I'll definately want to pick the NVRAID controller for its NCQ support.

Hope these questions are not too difficult (or stupid) to answer, thanks for reading!

 

[tweebel]

They added another controller to allow users to attach more drives.
In the mainboard guide you will be able to find which connector goes to the controller you prefer. I think there'll be 6 sata connectors, one group of 4 and one group of 2. The 2 are on the Nvidia.
Remember NCQ is of no use if the drives don't support it.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by tweebel on 01/06/05 02:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

I think there are 8, 4 via nVidia, and 4 more just to make the board look more impressive to people who buy features they'll never use simply for bragging rights.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[qbker]

i see! it's a shame that the 3114R is not SATA2 as well...

 

[endyen]

Dont like the SI raid. Dont get it. Get the non-deluxe version, looks like that's about the only difference <A HREF="http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli/overview.htm" target="_new">http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli/overview.htm</A>. unless you count the lack of a second gigabit lan.