Faster Explorations Using UDMA66 RAID Card.

[Daniel Martinez <DanM@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,
Some of you wanted to know how to perform faster Explorations.
If you don't want to upgrade your motherboard to a Ultra 160/m
SCSI capable mobo or can't afford to buy those $350 Quantum Atlas
V 18.3 GB ULTRA 160 SCSI3 7200 RPM HDD's, you can still get
faster scan's.

I read a review at:
http://www.ocmax.com/Reviews/FT66/promise_fast_trak66_page1.htm
which benchmarks the Promise FastTrak66 Ultra ATA/66 RAID Card.
The Promise is a PCI card which allows you to use RAID
configurations.  Several of these configs. are up to 50% faster
than normal UDMA66 and SCSI drives.  From what I understand after
reading the review, the RAID 0 config. will not only combine 2
UDMA66 IDE drives, but also double throughput.

With a FastTrak66 and 2 $200 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 30 GB drives,
you would have a total space of 60 GB's and better performance.
This is the URL for the FastTrak66:
http://www.promise.com/Products/ideraid/ft66page.htm

This is the URL for the new DiamondMax Plus drives from Maxtor:
http://www.maxtor.com/diamondmaxplus/40p.html

If you decide to implement this setup, I suggest you wait until
the end of next month.  The new IBM 75 GB UDMA66 HDD's will be
coming out and will force the price of all present HDD's down.

I recently purchased a Promise Ultra66 PCI UDMA66 IDE card and a
30 GB Maxtor HDD.  I'll let you know how it installs.  I am not
expecting any problems.  Most of my time was spent backing up all
my data using my tape backup and reading the PartitionMagic v5.0
manual.  I intend to transfer the partitions from my old WD to my
new Maxtor using PM.

Daniel Martinez.