SAS/SATA LSI Hardware PCI-e RAID under $50, say what? Yes its true and I will show you how. Recently I was shopping for some Raid controllers for our Dell PowerEdge 2950′s at work which typically use a Dell PERC 5/i or you can outfit them with something better but I was looking for the OEM solution. I was hunting on eBay when I started to notice most of these cards where under $50, in fact I purchased 3 of them for $35 each. If you don’t know already a Dell PERC 5/i is nothing more than a re-branded LSI MegaRAID SAS 8480e utilizing an Intel IOP333 Processor. Intel makes some of the best and fastest RAID controller processors so any card with an Intel Processor is likely a good bet. I found this great article which details the Dell PERC 5/i, Dell PERC 6/i and goes into detail about reflashing the PERC 5/i with the MegaRAID 8480e firmware, there’s also a host of benchmarks including comparison to an onbaord Intel ICH9R. http://www.overclock.net/t/359025/perc-5-i-raid-card-tips-and-benchmarks So whats the catch?
WD VelociRaptor vs. WD 2TB Black vs. WD 1TB Black vs. 2x WD 1TB Black Raid 0
I currently own the following drives so I decided I would put a few arguments to rest and lay down some facts with proof. 1x WesternDigital VelociRaptor 300GB 1x WesternDigital Black Edition 2 TeraByte 2x WesternDigital Black Edition 1 TeraByte Test Box Processor: AMD Phenom II 965 BE Motherboard: MSI 870A-G54 Memory: Adata DDR3 Raid Controller: Onboard AMD SB850 Taking a random guess I could tell you before any testing that the WD Black Raid 0 configuration will be fastest Burst and Sustained speed unless the controller is holding the drives back. I was amazed at the jump in speed when I first got my hands on a WD 1 TB Black Edition drive, I was expecting another huge jump in performance when I upgraded my 1 TB drive to a 2 TB WD Black drive but without spoiling the results I will say it wasn’t much faster. I have concluded my testing and now present the data to you the reader to make your final call on which drives you will choose. I was
ATI Radeon 4350 vs. NVidia 210
It’s the battle of the wimpy kids on DavidOrlo.com. Actually I already had an ATI 4350 laying around and I bought an Nvidia 210 to use in my Office PC because the board I had planned to use was built on an Nvidia chipset and I don’t care to mix Nvidia and ATI. In the end I didn’t end up keeping the board and went back to the ATI card so now I have a useless 210 card kicking around, well I did get to pit them up against each other which is something I’m sure you wont find anywhere else since they are low budget, nobody cares, video cards. So first I started out with the ATI Radeon 4350 card from ASUS using the latest ATI Catalyst drivers and built in Overclocking functions. I maxed out the core rather quickly while the memory kept giving more and more. I was surprised at how high I could take the memory settings before getting any artifacts or experiencing any major heat issues. (Numbers to be updated)
Chicago Electric Dual MIG 151 97503
I have finally had time to play with my new toy and get an idea of how it works for the money. I have a few sites bookmarked which relate to upgrading the little Dual Mig though some basic “hacks”. http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=33848 If you are searching this welder I am sure you have already seen the article linked and articles like it. I have read a few posts and review on the welder from the standpoint of professionals. I have even seen a few people bitch about the power of the welder or other details of the unit. I have read a few posts that go something like “If you buy this welder you get what you pay for” and things like “A true welder would never be caught dead with one of these machines” and so on. What I have to say to these people is your right, you do get what you pay for and I hope you would never be caught dead with one of these and your right when you say this
