As you can see by the SiSoft drive benchmark, the system is very
fast. The benchmark doesn't really tell the full story however. When you first
setup a RAID system, you have to format and re-install Windows. Normally this is
a 30 minute procedure. Loading Windows 98 onto the hard drive and installing
from there, I was able to get Windows fully installed and running in just 15
minutes! I've never seen Windows installed so fast before.
Loading programs and Quake 3 levels takes less time as well.
This faster loading of programs and games was very addicting. Loading up the
Quake 3 maps faster gives you the advantage of getting all the good weapons
before anyone does. :)
Aside from a few installation and setup problems, I have had no
performance related problems with the Iwill SIDE-RAID66. My only gripe was I
wished Iwill would have told me the unit doesn't correctly report drives that
are bigger than 34 Gigs. It would have saved me a ton of time.
Overall, this is a very good unit and well worth looking into if
you want better hard drive performance. With a street price of about $100 it's
quite a good value. Keep in mind you will need to add another hard drive to use
it. Also keep it mind that it's only as fast and as big as your slowest and
smallest drive. If you mix and match say a 7,200 RPM drive and a 5,400 RPM, the
system will run at 5,400. Likewise if you mix a 20 Gig hard drive and a 30 Gig
hard drive, your final drive size in a RAID 0 setup is 40 Gigs, not 50.
The Goods
The Bads
Rating: 8.5/10
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