ICH-9 RAID-5 array - is it "portable"?

[idata]

I have an ASUS board with Intel P35 chipset (Asus P5K64WS).

I want to create a medium sized RAID-5 with 4 1.5 TB hard drives.

Since the ICH9 does not support online capacity expansion or multiple LUN per drive I'm also condering a HW raid card like the 3-Ware 9690.

But I've heard that motherboard raid isn't compatible with real raid cards like a 9690 for example.

If I build my array now with the low cost option of using the chipset on the board I already have, will I be able to plug the drives in to a real raid card later when I outgrow the capacity, or if I just get a newer motherboard when this one eventually fails?

I'm happy with the ICH-9 RAID, it's not super fast but it doesn't need to be. It does need to be "portable" though.

Can someone from Intel tell me what the real deal is with this?

[idata]

You can't move ICHXX to a 3-Ware card but you might be able to move to a HW Intel RAID card which would be interesting to find out.

Capacity expansion is supported on ICH10DO and is said to work with ICH10R.You can move the RAID to a newer ICHXX without any problems and should be able to move it on to the new P55 chips.

[idata]

@PeterUK -

Thanks for that. That's reassuring.

Only because I try not to believe everything I hear in forums, can you or someone post a link to where this is documented? By that I mean being able to move an array from ICH9 to ICH10 and the part about capacity expansion.

Thanks, I'd very much appreciate it, it would save me $400 for the RAID card if indeed this is documented (guaranteed by Intel etc).

[idata]

Email Intel if you can't believe me.

Moving RAID volumes to another system

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022435.htm http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022435.htm

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/the-raid-migration-adventure-uk,review-2347-7.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/the-raid-migration-adventure-uk,review-2347-7.html

Capacity expansion supported by ICH10DO

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022304.htm http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022304.htm

[idata]

Hi Peter. Thanks for the links, I appreciate them. I had googled before I posted the first time but didn't find any authoritative links. Your help has been much appreciated. It's not that I can't believe you. I generally operate under "trust but verify" mode. Been burned before with forum advice (not here). So yeah, the links are very much appreciated. Hope you understand.

[idata]

BTW, I was told by a 3Ware rep today that that a RAID created on ICH can not be migrated to the new 9690 card specifically, the one I'm interested in.

[idata]

FWIW I went with an Areca 1220 card. Reasonable cost, supports 8 drives, native Linux support, and built in httpd for super easy administration. Currently there's only 6TB on it but there's plenty moore room. It's been running 24x7 for over a year now, no issues. I run the Amahi server stack on it which was nice to find since it's free open source and is arguably more powerful them MS Home Server which I wouldn't use if it was free. Amahi installed from a web page with one click after a plain vanilla Fedora install and after that all I had to do was set up shares - again from a web browser and way easier than in Windows. The Windows machines all see the shares fine. The drive cages I used are these hot-swap bays with built in fans http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121913 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121913. Noisy but reliable. Used an Asus P5BV-M and a 1.8 ghz core-2 duo to power the beast. It does a great job managing a 100GB photo collection, as well as online collaboration tasks and remote virtual desktops (EyeOS), *and* storing a few hundered of my favorite DVDs plus 300GB of lossless and ogg music (for internet streaming when I work remotely or lossless when at home/office).