Mac Pro RAID card?

[videoed]

can someone explain to me the ins and outs of the RAID card for the Mac Pro?

is the card absolutely necessary to run any sort of internal RAID in a MP?

thanks

 

[Wild-Bill]

No, you can run internal software RAID just fine on a Mac Pro.
If you were wanting a more mission-critical option like hardware-RAID, you would need a RAID card.

I wouldn't touch the Mac Pro RAID card with a 10-foot pole though. Plenty of better options than Apple's POS card. Check the Mac Pro forums for RAID card recommendations if you are set on wanting to have hardware-level RAID.

 

[videoed]

thanks for the response. can you tell me more about the differences between a hardware raid and a software raid?

thanks

 

[Mord]

hardware raid contains all the hardware required to present your system with a single drive like any other, software raid is all performed in software, essentially draining cpu and memory to achieve redundancy and/or higher throughput, if the RAID is important to you and you can spare the performance hit in other metrics it can be worth it.

RAID cards are essentially like a small embedded system with their own cpu and ram, hence why they are so expensive.