Promise keeps it's promises and delivers a solid SATA PCI RAID controller
Written: Jun 11 '04 (Updated Jun 12 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: SATA & ATA133, Multiple OS support. Excellent BIOS. Included CD, diskette, SATA data/power cables. Fast.
Cons: NONE, controller took everything in stride, co-existed with populated on-board ATA controllers.
The Bottom Line: Definite buy. Versatile. Good IDE RAID solution with SATA and ATA133 support that will integrate transparently into a complex, already installed OS. Extremely fast given it's price range.
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| s_firestone's Full Review: Promise FastTrak S150 TX2plus RAID Controller Card... |
I found the Promise Fasttrack S150 TX2 Plus to be an excellent PCI Raid Controller.
I have an ASUS P4S533-MX board with a P4 Northwood 1.8GHz processor overclocked to 2.4GHz running Win2K Pro, ATI All In Wonder 9600Pro, and a Creative Audigy 2 ZS. I have 3 existing HDD's, 2 - 20GB(Maxtor, WD), 1 - 40GB (Maxtor) and a Plextor CD-RW. The ASUS board has no SATA. All drives were filled to capacity.
It was time to upgrade and I have been looking at WinXP and RAID. I researched all available options in my limited budget and considered replacing the Mainboard (which I only bought 6 months earlier) but wanted more bang for my buck.
I obsessively researched PCI RAID controllers inside and out, wading through the endless sales hype and inconsistent hardware review sites and narrowed my choices to the Promise S150 "Fasttrack" TX2 Plus, and the Promise S150 TX4. I settled for the Fasttrack S150 TX2 Plus because of the additional ATA133 port. My plans being to run 2 - 80GB drives in RAID0 for speed, and 2 of my existing ATA100 drives in RAID1 for fault tolerance. I wanted something that would be as versatile as every other component in my ever-changing, but always stable system.
I Purchased an 80GB SATA Seagate 7200RPM 8MB drive and a copy of Windows XP Pro off Ebay. Then I began the search for the RAID controller and an additional 80GB SATA Seagate 8MB drive. I chose Newegg because even with both items shipping was free and they have never let me down.
The OEM version of the Promise Fasttrack S150 TX2 Plus without the pretty box was $10 cheaper but contained all the contents of the retail package (PCI Card, 2 - SATA data & Power cables, Manual, Installation CD and even drivers on Floppy).
I installed the card with no problems, following instructions for Win2K, I booted up without the drives attached first to install the Promise driver into Win2K. I then attached the drives and entered the Promise BIOS, which lets you initialize and configure the RAID arrays before the system boots the OS. Array setup and initialization was easy and trouble free. I inserted my WinXP CD and hit "S" to add additional drivers and inserted the included diskette. I assigned partitions and WinXP installed with no errors except for one minor problem.
Upon reboot, all seemed fine with WinXP and Win2K both able to boot independently. But the WinXP install setup the SATA volumes as H:(40GB, WinXP) I:(80GB archives) J:(20GB data) L:(System) DOH!
My Existing drives were visible and still at their existing drive letters (C: D: E: F: and G: CD-RW) Neither WinXP would allow me to rename the drives. WinXP modified the boot code of the C: drive. I tried setting the drives in the BIOS to from "auto" to "none" but the system would not boot. I had to reload XP. But even with the drives set to "none" in the BIOS, XP still saw them. DOH!
But, I wanted to be able to install XP, and access my old data and was determined to do so.
I finally solved it by going back into the ASUS BIOS and setting the boot order for the HDD to "none" and setting the drives back to "Auto" detect. Then XP had no more complaints. All 6 drives came up and XP is solid. I spent the better part of a day reconfiguring and moving data from my old drives, deleting partitions, renaming volumes, etc. BUT the system is stable as a rock and boots into WinXP Pro in a flat 10 seconds.
I am impressed. The card had no incompatibilities, no I/O, IRQ conflicts. And it worked flawlessly despite WinXP and Win2K's attempts to thwart a trouble free migration. And it's faster than ever. What more can you ask for in a RAID controller?
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
s_firestone
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Reviews written: 4
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