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I've just bought a new SAS/SATA controller (Highpoint RocketRAID RR2720SGL) and it looks like it is hardware raid, but I've no idea how to tell if it is true hardware raid or yet another fakeraid controller.

(I don't care as I'm using softraid at the moment, but when I rebuild it would be good to use true hardware raid if it is available.)

What I can't tell is what I need to look for in the specification to know which it is, since I've never seen a controller admit to being fakeraid.

Is there a key word I should be looking for, or do you just have to suck it and see?

Screwtape
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    'Fake RAID' controllers have no cache RAM, using the machine's main RAM as a cache. – Siva Jun 08 '18 at 11:47

1 Answers1

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In this case, looking at the summary page for the series gives a hint: the description of the 4500 series explicitly mentions “hardware RAID”, but the descriptions of the other series (2700 included) don’t.

There are a variety of RAID controllers, from pure software RAID with firmware help (“fake RAID”), to full hardware RAID with caching, with checksum offloading etc. in between. Full hardware RAID with caching involves memory, which is usually apparent on the expansion card (especially if the memory is expandable), and should involve battery backup too (at least as an option).

Stephen Kitt
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