In this review we could clearly see that a RAID0 system definitely improves disk performance. The question is: should I stick with an on-board RAID solution that comes “for free” with my motherboard or should buy an add-on RAID card like HighPoint RocketRAID 2302?

RocketRAID 2302 will certainly bring a higher transfer rate for your disk system: during our tests it increased the average transfer rate between 9% and 19% compared to our on-board RAID solution, based on Intel ICH9R.

While for high-end users this performance increase can easily justify buying a USD 120 card, average users will probably be fine using the on-board RAID solution – unless you think the extra features provided by RocketRAID 2302 are worth the price.

Among these features usually not provided by on-board RAID solutions are OCE and ORLM, which allow you to add more drives to your array and change your array level, respectively, without data loss (i.e., without needing to reformat the array) and with the computer running, with data being transferred, and hot swap and hot spare, which allow you to replace drives with the computer turned on (you need to turn off the drives through the RAID controller control panel first) and to have a spare drive that will be automatically used if any drive on your array fails, respectively.