Basic IDE - disk per channel performance

[shadoi]

Kenneth Burgener wrote:
> Blake Barnett wrote:
>> In my experience (albeit focused purely on server hardware) there are so
>> many downsides to doing IDE RAID that it doesn't even make sense to use
>> it.  I suppose if you're trying to find the absolute cheapest solution
>> then it's viable, but then you'd be forced to ask yourself; "How much do
>> I value this data?" and "Why not just use software RAID and/or
>> rsync-type backups?".
> 
> 
> What are these "many downsides" to IDE RAID that you refer to? (other
> than it doesn't compare performance wise to hardware RAID)  For a cheap
> home file server, it seams to make sense...
> 

I've had reliability issues with all of the cards I've tried, poor 
drivers (this was a while ago though), and the rarity of battery-backed 
IDE cards (PATA not SATA).  What's the point of a RAID that can be 
corrupted by a single power outage?

Unless you have a need for more than four PATA IDE drives in a RAID set, 
  and if performance is not a primary concern anyway, I'd always just 
use software RAID.

-Blake