Are onboard raid controllers based on Intel ICH10R southbridge still considered software Raid?

Are onboard raid controllers based on Intel ICH10R southbridge still considered software Raid?

So do you still need specific software/drivers (intel matrix?) installed to manage the raid controller, setup the array. If the raid chipset is on-board the motherboard and it uses the CPU, and say I am using a Core 2 Quad Q9550, would a hardware based card still out perform the motherboard chipset? This is for a home workstation and I could spend $300 on a areca ARC-1210 PCI-Express x8 SATA II but I want to be able to justify the money for the raid card.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 268

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Guest [Entry]

"Yes, it's software RAID. To get hardware RAID you need a RAID card, and the cheaper ones aren't even hardware RAID. A good hardware RAID card will almost always outperform a software solution, but with your CPU you shouldn't notice the difference.

You're better off using the Windows RAID tools for Dynamic Disks. The only advantage to using the onboard RAID (which is still software RAID) is that you can RAID a boot volume, but there are a ton of drawbacks."