Now that we have a better understanding of RAID, let's choose the right equipment and get started. First off you will need a good motherboard with integrated RAID or a RAID interface card. The most popular method of getting RAID to a desktop PC is picking up a good motherboard with integrated RAID. For today's tests we will be using the EVGA 680i SLI motherboard. The EVGA 680i SLI has 4 Serial ATA ports at 3Gb/s that can run in RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, or RAID 5. This is probably not the "best" motherboard out there for running RAID, but this will help give us a better understanding of what to expect from the average onboard RAID controller.

     Next you will need to obtain at least 2 hard drives for RAID 0 or RAID 1 and at least 4 drives for RAID 0+1 or RAID 5. RAID 5 can be ran on some controllers with less hard drives, but it isn't recommended. We choose to go with 4 Serial ATA hard drives from Seagate (PN: ST3250620AS). The drives we obtained are the Barracuda 7200.10 with 3.0Gb/s SATA interface.

Hard Drive Key Features and Benefits

• SATA 3Gb/s interface
• Perpendicular recording technology for maximum drive capacity and reliability
• 16-MB cache buffer
• Ultra-fast performance
• Superb reliability
• Whisper-quiet operation
• Enhanced G-Force Protection against handling damage
• 78 MB/s maximum sustained data transfer rate
• Clean Sweep calibration and Directed Offline scan diagnostics
• RoHS (restriction of hazardous substances) compliant
• 5-year warranty

Applications

• Gaming PCs
• Workstations
• High-end PCs
• Desktop RAID
• Mainstream PCs
• xATA servers
• USB/FireWire/eSATA external storage

Our Seagate hard drives are the OEM version shipped directly from Seagate.

     The outside case of these hard drives are typical in what you would see in any standard 3.5" hard drive.

Here we have a bottom view of the Seagate drive.

Here we see the SATA and power interface located at the rear of the hard drive.

Here we have all 4 hard drives spread out and ready for testing.