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Is there any PCI card I could buy to configure a RAID system that stores the same thing on two drives? I've already installed XP on one hard drive and the other is unformatted. I can't reinstall XP. My motherboard only supports ATA100 RAID. What would be a good card for halfway cheap?

Promise makes very good controller cards. i personally plan on getting one of their controllers and hooking up a third hitachi in a RAID array

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.a ... 410&DEPA=0

The ones I saw didn't support SATA, but maybe it's just me.

EDIT: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 101&depa=0
Will that be good enough?

PROMISE PCI to SATA Controller Card, Model "SATA150 TX2plus" -OEM

Model# Sata150 TX2plus
Item # N82E16816102014

Specifications:
Ports: 2x Serial ATA/150, 1x Ultra ATA/133
OS Support: Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP; RedHat 7.3/8.0; SuSE 7.3/8.0
Feature: 32-bit 33/66MHz PCI bus; PCI 2.3 compliant; Data Transfer Rate:Up to 266MB/sec (66 MHz PCI); Up to 133MB/sec (33 MHz PCI); 48-bit LBA Support Recognizes drive capacities exceeding 137GB each

There is a whole line that supports SATA, this one is the base model and will work fine if you are only looking to connect 2 drives.
Remember that because it is a PCI card, it is limited to a 133mb/sec limit. even so, you should see very good rates. I was reading an article where a guy was getting aprox 90 mb/sec with two HDD and right around 127 with three HDD, which is right at the max, 4 HDD actually produced a drop

This is for 2 SATA 80Gb HDD's. And was that card one that is like $40+? I don't want to spend that much.

Well, thats about thew cheapest you will find. Your other option is to use the onboard SATA, which can be better or just as good.

onboard doesn't support SATA RAID

The mode your looking for is RAID 1, or mirroring.
I know all Intel ICH5R southbridges do SATA RAID, and all S-ATA RAID cards should as it is a very basic RAID mode to do, i would be very surprised if one doesnt.

The good thing about RAID cards, especially the well known ones is that they have their own CPU, so that CPU cycles arent used, saying that most onboard RAID solutions are so good and effecient these days that the performance idifference is negligable.

A10, what board are you using? That will help me help you.
As to what RAID type you want. RAID 0 is for performance, RAID 1 is for mirroring. You need two HDD at least for a RAID configuration. I use two HDD in an 0 array, and use another HDD for backing it up. I personally see no benefit to running in RAID 1, I'd actually instead run a single HDD in IDE mode.

Here is a link to the motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 248&depa=0

It only has ATA133 RAID.

I want to use two SATA 80Gb WD's to save the same data.

The ICH6 does not have RAID.

The ICH6R has the RAID technology built in.

The ICH6RW has RAID and Wireless built in.

The GA-8I915P Duo-A mobo only has the ICH6.

The GA-8I915P Duo Pro-A mobo is exactly the same but with the ICH6R southbridge (So you should get this mobo if you haven't purchased the other one yet.)

i have a pci sata card with promise raid. i'll sell it for like $20 if you're interested. it will do raid 1 or 0 i believe. works great but i don't need it anymore because i got a new mobo with built in SATA and raid controllers.

Justin, I've already purchased the motherboard.

Eric, is that $20 shipped? I'll take it then, as long as it has RAID 1 (That's the same thing on both hard drives right?)

yes, RAID 1 is mirrored, or redundant, where the data is written to both HDD.

Raid 1 works great for backing up info inside the computer but definetly has its limitations.

1. viruses will be on both drives
2. windows crashes will be on both drives
3. when one drive starts to fail and begins to write bad data it will eventually corrupt both drives.
4. PSU spike killing both drives

There are others but I cant think of any in this morning hour.

Highpoint and Promise are both very nice raid card makers. Pick a version that fits your needs and then some for expansion. If you need 2 drives now get the 4 drive version.

JT